SRPG Studio Game Improvement Survey

Community
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Hey again, everyone. So Mangs recently said on Discord that he was unwilling to Let’s Play SRPG Studio games other than Vestaria Saga simply because they were SRPG Studio games. Sometime earlier, Ghast said that he would eventually start doing Let’s Plays again, but would probably place SRPG Studio games in low priority outside of MAFC simply due to all the other hacks he wants to play first.

I do not agree with these decisions, but I ultimately respect them. I’m not the one to tell them how they should be making content for their channels. That said, this is very bad for people like me who are making Fire Emblem fangames/clones with the software and hoping for them to gain some respect and recognition from the fan project community at large, as we have now been largely denied two of the most effective sources of project exposure. I have heard various reasons for this lack of acceptance such as perceived graphical inferiority to GBAFE hacks and framerate issues. This survey is intended to gauge precisely the scale of the problem and how it can be addressed.

The survey

While I’m still here, I want to stress a few things:

  • This is not about converting people who are already using FEBuilder or buildfiles or whatnot for making hacks to SRPG Studio. I simply feel that a well-made Fire Emblem clone/fangame made with SRPG Studio should be just as deserving of attention as a well-made GBAFE hack.
  • I acknowledge that I have a personal stake in this as somebody making a Fire Emblem clone with SRPG Studio himself. But I do this in hopes that it will benefit the rest of the SRPG Studio community and help us determine an appropriate course of action.
  • DO NOT ATTACK ANYBODY ON THE BASIS OF THEIR DECISION. You probably won’t change their mind and it’s just a crass thing to do.

With that, thank you, and good evening.

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As someone who uses SRPG to make his current project, I’m disappointed to see that SRPG has gained less respect than FE8 hacking. Not surprised that much, though, considering how common FE8 hacking is. I believe the negative reception of SRPG is due to negative word being spread among the community, as well as a little bit of FE8 bias. I remember certain members speaking negatively and false information was spread about the engine.

It’s more a problem with how FE8 hacking is treated overall over other options. Other engines such as SRPG Studio, Lex Talionis, FEXP/FEXNA, even, say, Sim RPG Maker, are looked down upon or seen as inferior to FE8 hacking by the community. While I do see where they are coming from, often times I have felt as if a lot of members are trying to say FE8 is the only option to make hacks with, and everything that can be done in the other engines is possible in FE8. I’ve often seen claims like this made with little evidence, all to shut down people who don’t hack these people’s preferred engine. Not going to name anyone, just going to speak from a bit of experience here.

I personally don’t mind SRPG too much. The only downsides to me are the graphics, but even I would say that they’re about on the same level as GBAFE’s. To me, the real advantages come from scripting and eventing, which I find to be much easier to work with than FE8’s events. Overall I see less limitations compared to FE8, which has limits that have to be worked around. I believe many advanced hackers who are used to ASM, eventing, and working with FE8’s engine overall are more inclined to believe that SRPG and other tools are for people who aren’t experienced, since it’s much more intuitive and easier to work with. Of course, not all are like that, but I do get that general impression from the higher-ups who are used to higher-level hacking.

To me, use whatever engine you like. Don’t try to force your preferred method of fangame making onto others. If you’re one of the FE8 assembly buildfile guys who’s had years of experience, good for you. If you prefer to use SRPG Studio, nothing wrong with that.

Finally, when it comes to playing others’ fangames, I prefer not to play hacks/projects made by others, though that has little to do with FE8/SRPG bias. It’s just a more general distaste I have, nothing more to it. When it comes to playing fangames, I’d say to look at the game itself rather than the engine it is made in. I’ve seen both poorly made SRPG Studio games and FE8 hacks, neither really seems indicative of quality any more than the other to me. It’s just that most people in the FE community are used to FE8 hacks, I feel, making them more apprehensive about approaching another engine. The FE8 bias kinda makes SRPG projects seem less important/less fun to play by people who aren’t used to it.

For solutions, I’m honestly not sure. It’s an issue deeply rooted into the community. I would say to judge projects based on their worth rather than the engine that they’re made in, that’s a big first step. How to actually get people to believe that, though, is more of a hurdle.

I’m glad you brought this to the forefront of the community, I feel it is quite an issue that’s been stuck around for a while. Hopefully the discussion surrounding this is productive and doesn’t end up in anyone attacking anyone else for their opinion. That does absolutely nothing and is a waste of time for everyone involved.

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I think there’s just a stigma against SRPG Studio games because with default assets they just look like hentai games, or sort of bland and generic. So presentation is often lacking.

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The only SRPG Studio game I’ve played so far was a single chapter game made by MarkyJoe and my biggest turnoff was indeed the default assets, it was fun though!

Adding on to Zmr’s thoughts:

The default assets just scream “replace me”. To me it feels like a graphical overhaul (to some degree) may be integral for any SRPG studio project (I’ve seen some f2u map assets from the SRPG Studio community and damn, do they ever look nice).

Not that it’s the case for SRPG studio projects specifically, but most FE fan games (no matter the system) typically don’t get finished. People around here won’t get hyped for a project until it shows some degree of promise regardless of the system.

I’m not really sure what your goal is, are you trying to get FETubers to play SRPG Studio games (given that they’re the focus of your opener) or are you trying to get the community to give more respect to SRPG Studio projects?

I wouldn’t worry about that, we’ve got people who are here to take care of such attacks, feel free to keep sharing your opinion.

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I’m not really sure what your goal is, are you trying to get FETubers to play SRPG Studio games (given that they’re the focus of your opener) or are you trying to get the community to give more respect to SRPG Studio projects?

My apologies. The latter is more important, while the former is what got me thinking about it.
At any rate, early results of the survey have largely expressed similar sentiments to here, i.e. the default assets are too ugly for a lot of people compared to those of GBAFE. Despite this, the majority of users (about 65-70%) have expressed willingness to play full-length, completed Fire Emblem fangames/clones made with SRPG Studio.

Therefore, I’ve concluded the SRPG Studio community has two goals. The first is to figure out some way of procuring better-looking assets for use with the software, and the second is to get more full-length finished games out there. MarkyJoe is one of our greatest allies, and so he is planning at the conclusion of another project of his for his artists to start working on a set of enhanced assets (mainly class graphics) for use with the software. I for my part am getting very close to done with my MAFC project after fixing some bugs with the Weapon Ranks plugins, so I should be able to resume work on Sanctaea Chronicles soon. The current version has 21 of 28 planned chapters finished, so hopefully getting the remaining chapters done won’t take too long. Unfortunately not many others among us have full-length projects nearly as close to completion.

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Just wanted to quick chime in. I filled out the survey, and agree with what Chair and Zaim said about the default assets being off-putting.

However, what I’d consider the bigger turnoff for me would be the default UI and controls for SRPG. Now, UI can fall under graphics, but I thinks it’s worth mentioning it separately. I find the default SRPG menus a bit hard to navigate, and the default font tough to read and unappealing. This may partially be due to familiarity with GBA, but I do have a harder time dealing with SRPG menus than I do with, say, 3DS or DSFE.

The controls themselves I find to be a bit clunky at times. Whether using the keyboard or a mouse, I find that there can be a bit of “jerkiness” to moving the cursor and selecting things. This is hard to describe, and may be a matter of preference, but it’s a bit off-putting to me. It doesn’t help that, as I stated above, I often find the menus/text hard to read.

I’m fairly certain the UI and text would be able to be changed, as I think I’ve seen one or two projects do it; however, I have no clue whether the controls issues I mentioned would be able to be addressed. However, perhaps it’s worth exploring (or maybe not, I could be the only one who feels this way).

I do feel the engine has potential for some cool gameplay, and I don’t think anyone disputes that. I’m eager to see what the SRPG community has to offer in the future.

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Whether using the keyboard or a mouse, I find that there can be a bit of “jerkiness” to moving the cursor and selecting things. This is hard to describe, and may be a matter of preference, but it’s a bit off-putting to me.

Interesting. Personally I find playing with the mouse more preferable to playing with a keyboard or gamepad. It feels more natural and fluid to be able to simply point and click at the desired unit, though I annoyingly still have to use the left and right arrow keys to toggle between pages of the Unit Menu.

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I went into this in the survey but wanted to quickly add my voice to @WarPath that the biggest issues are the UI being hard on the eyes and spotty controls in terms of responsiveness. The engine itself feels really low-effort tbh. I’m not expecting a master-class tool here, but for a paid product it feels awfully lazy.

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I can’t speak for the technical properties of SRPG Studio because my experience with it is very limited, but:

Reason I wouldn’t use SRPG Studio myself:

  • Reverse engineering is fun yo
  • I can write FE8 hacks in C, whereas iirc SRPG Studio is JavaScript. JavaScript is some kind of malign entity that was sent by Those Who Slither in the Dark to destroy humanity.
  • Event Assembler suits me well, I can do whatever I want with it in whatever way I want, I don’t want to be forced into some engine’s GUI.

Reasons I don’t play SRPG Studio things:

  • Because everything I’ve seen in the engine looks visually unappealing, whereas I love how GBAFE looks. This might seem shallow but there’s a lot of hacks and fangames out there and I don’t have time to play even half of them.
  • With a GBA ROM, I can do things like throw it on my modded PS3 or even play it on a phone or something. GBA emulators are pretty ubiquitous. Someone please correct me if you can easily get SRPG studio games running on things that aren’t a PC.
  • I don’t think it supports my controller (an xbox one controller)? Have had problems with controller support on FEXNA too. Again, someone please correct me if I’m speaking out of my ass and it actually works, I could be misremembering.
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I agree with WarPath on this one. I think part of what makes GBAFE special is that the UI is exceptional. This applies to both input and output. Input is very quick, responsive, and clearly thought out, and menus are very easy to navigate. This isn’t just an SRPG thing, but just about every other engine I’ve played/seen has much clunkier input… which is understandable. I’d imagine making an engine from scratch is hard, but that doesn’t fix the issue. The GBA also has really appealing graphics imo. This may just be me, but I always thought the GBA provided the most visual appeal of any option.

I also agree with Zeta’s points moving to a development perspective. Working with FE8 is… a unique kind of fun. The research aspect seems pretty unique, and making it not crash is just part of the fun! Right? Right…? Right…? No seriously working with FE8 is a really enjoyable, interesting challenge once you’ve got everything down, especially with recent technological advancements. Buildfiles let me do almost anything I want for a build scheme, and stuff like CHAX makes cool, advanced stuff easier than ever before. Plus when you analyze vanilla routines, you get to laugh at weird shit IS pulls. With GBA, I feel like I’m a part of the technological advancements, which is super exciting, but with a different engine, I would think at least part of that would be lost. I know a lot about FE8, but by no means am I an expert on the intricacies of other engines. This is just my 2 cents. :man_shrugging:

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Reminder to everyone that I’m not trying to convince people to abandon hacking for SRPG Studio. This is strictly about games.

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When it comes to games, I see a lot of free to use assets out there for developers that are somewhat easy to find, if not tedious sometimes, if they take the time to look. If somebody wants their SRPG Studio project to be noticed and hopefully played, it’s helpful for them to look to these sources to give the players something new to take in. These, and other small graphical/sound changes go a long way. I like SRPG Studio, but even I agree that games using 100% default assets do get tiresome to look at. Though I don’t understand the UI being clunky. Sure, I find it to be choppy with the way the cursor jumps between positions, but the actual way it controls isn’t much worse than most FE games. There’s also the option to use a mouse if it’s really thought to be bad.

If the problem is the games using too many of the default assets, maybe a repository for SRPG stuff would be helpful? An easy way to access free to use motions, music, tilesets, etc. would go a long way in making each project feel like its own thing. I do feel that the notion that SRPG’s assets are unappealing is a matter of taste, since I personally dislike vanilla FE8’s assets and find hacks that primarily use them to get stale. I see the same issue in both FE8’s vanilla graphics and SRPG’s. The only perceived difference I see in the community is the general assumption that FE8’s graphics are good, so it’s acceptable for hacks to reuse them. However, for GBAFE, we have the Emblem Anims site that allows users to access whatever graphics they want to spice up their hacks, and the FEU site where they can quickly search for whatever they need. Having something like that to make SRPG projects stand out would be really nice.

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We have found several free tilesets, but they often lack the necessary variety in environments and terrain.

Because we have a dearth of talented artists in the English community, we frequently have to scour Japanese websites for more options, and those still largely adhere to the RTP look. SapphireSoft is apparently making a website called SRPG World for people to put assets on, but their translation of the software and its instructions is horrible (they use Google Translate!) and I see no reason to expect SRPG World to improve upon this.

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There’s also the fact that it’s easier for GBA hacks to achieve stylistic consistency as everything from the UI, maps, anims, map sprites and portraits tends to have a strong art direction and cohesive identity. Since everything is usually an edit of existing assets or heavily inspired by existing assets.

With SRPG Studio there can be plenty of useful assets to have but they’ll definitely need some kind of editing to achieve that stylistic consistency and clear art direction that gives it an identity. Since various assets will be made in a much greater degree of a variety of styles.

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Hmm… I’m not sure, in that case. There should be a somewhat easier way to access this stuff, somehow. It’s definitely beyond me at this point. We’ll have to see how SRPG World turns out, but for now, I’m not sure on a solution to make assets more available.

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Looks like garbage, and like 95% of the work has been done for you already in a ROM.
Plus people just know the FE.GBA ecosystem better, breaking out will always be tough.

I’ve been feeling for years now that we should have by this point all come together to make our own engine instead of relying on jacking around in someone else’s box and it saddens me that so far all we’ve really seen is Yeti try to do so. We also saw Midnight Sun go the route of abandoning the ROM hack platform and just the fact that they can now sell the game alone is something I find weird in that it hasn’t really motivated other projects to follow suit.

Half the reason why I drop projects whenever I get into them is because I get frustrated with the four walls I have to sit within when it comes to ROM hacking, being able to break free would be a really warm welcome. sci-fi emblem when

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Lex Talionis also exists.

The bigger problem there is that it would require an entire suite of assets to be created, assuming you already had an engine and a programmer. That’s a lot of logistical hurdles to maintain and potentially a lot of money required. I’d say those are the single biggest reasons why others haven’t jumped on it, simply outside of the hobbyist angle.

Of course, the main “problems” with FEXNA and Lex Talionis then become that you either have to suffer the same problem of a complete asset overhaul and replacement or you can’t commercialize due to having assets belonging to Int Sys in there. (Assuming the license on either engine would even legally let projects be commercialized should they have wholly original assets.)

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Based on what I’m seeing in your opening post, I think you’re approaching it wrong - your goal shouldn’t be to get ‘exposure’ from known FE Youtube personalities. Your goal should be to make a game that you 1) enjoy the process of making and 2) have fun playing yourself.

Everything else is gravy.

You are going to be perpetually disappointed if your goal is to try and seek approval from someone on the internet who plays video games for a living.

Make the game for yourself. If it’s good, people will play it. If you enjoy playing and making it, chances are someone else will too, irrespective of which platform you use.

I have not played any SRPG studio projects, but from what I’ve seen, the UI and default assets do not look particularly appealing. FE GBA is familiar, and also gorgeous. FE GBA is already set up with the mechanics I want to use. For my goals, SRPG studio doesn’t help me get there any faster or with greater ease.

If I was trying to make my own game that was separated from the Fire Emblem brand, with custom assets, music, etc. I would consider SRPG studio because I could theoretically monetize it. But unlike Kamui, I’m not in it for the money. I’m making the hack because I enjoy making it and have fun playing it.

My advice is not to be discouraged and focus on enjoying your hobby. If you make something you’re proud of, chances are someone else will want to play it, regardless of the platform you’re building it on.

Be safe and stay positive. I’m keen to say what you and other SRPG studio makers come up with, since I think the platform has potential to make some neat and unique stuff.

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Googled Lex Talionis, I echo the second comment on the SF thread: “This very, like, super, legit.”

As for the asset problem, that’s what I’m saying. We’ve got so many artists here that would only need contribute a small, small amount of actual work and art to ensure we’d have a completely unique and original set of assets.

The only real problem would be consistency, ensuring that everyone fairly contributes to a set style and we can come to a general consensus on whatever other changes to make.

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And yet this community has existed for, how long now, and that hasn’t really happened. If everyone did one thing then yes, it would be a pretty small undertaking per person, but that’s a lot easier to say than actually do and organize, and from what I’ve seen people can get petty and argumentative pretty quickly. I don’t think anyone is going to agree on what an overarching “style” should be.

On the actual topic of SRPG Studio, I can echo the usual suspects of it looks ugly and plays ugly and is hard to read. As an engine, the base sucks and is missing a lot of typical FE features you would actually expect. Even Kaga couldn’t be arsed to swap out the default assets so that really sets the tone down imo. Could you make something cool, absolutely, but is that worth the effort of basically redoing everything that already is done in gba? There’s only two scenarios where that’s the case. One, you want to sell your game, which generally isn’t the case here, we’re hobbyists mostly. Two, you want to break some gba limitation. There aren’t really too many worth talking about, and I personally don’t think that’s worth the amount of effort involved. I’m also a firm believer in the whole “limitations breed creativity” deal. Now if you want to have, idk, non-pixel art mugs, or MP3 music, or something, all the more power to you, but that doesn’t really improve the gameplay so it doesn’t personally interest me.

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