The Fire Emblem Fangame Directory [Please add your own hacks!]

At a glance, their project page looks like it has custom events, custom conversations, and a custom plot. That sounds like a fangame to me, even if they are using vanilla maps.

The directory makes no real judgments about the quality of hacks. It’s just a list of them sorted by completion & reskin vs not reskin.

Personally I feel that we should try to organize fangames to feature some that the community prefers, but I understand that many people don’t really want it to be a popularity contest. But I would argue that currently the directory strongly favours the hacks that were completed a while back and added there first. Oh well.

Originally it was ordered by chapter count(that until it stopped being ordered that way), though honestly chapter count is not really a good indicator of a hack’s quality, otherwise kaitou would be the best hack ever(not that it isn’t).

I feel like trying to find a universal way to organize hacks(other than custom/reskin and in progress/completed/cancelled) will create conflicts more than anything. Though I am open to suggestions.

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Maybe something like:

  • Custom (unique story, maps, and technical changes) - Ex.The Last Promise
  • Reskins (custom story and/or gameplay changes over vanilla maps) Ex. stuff like PMEs
  • Reversals (Reverse recruitment, weapon reversal, class swaps, etc. in otherwise vanilla settings) Ex. FE6 reverse recruitment, FE7 Boss Swap, etc.
  • Rebalances (Vanilla games w/ changed numbers, units, or features) Ex: Project Ember

I feel like most hacks fall into these categories and maybe it’ll more accurately reflect what’s there? It’s up to creators to categorize their work and for players to be discerning about what they download and play.

I think alphabetizing within each category makes the most sense. No strong preference to how they’re organized within the engine category.

I don’t have any real issues with how things are categorized presently.

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How about we order them alphabetically in tiers by chapter count? We’d still keep the custom / reskin categorization.

Eg.

40+ chapters

Kaitou
Vision Quest
etc.

30-39 chapters

Code of the Black Knights
Justice & Pride
VBA

20-29 chapters

The Burdened Crown
The Four Kings
Resonance

15-19 Chapters

Journeys
SOTF

10-14 chapters

The Fall of Thabes
RDOP

5-9 chapters

Last Heavenly Throne
Scourge of Proxima

1-4 Chapters

Divine Keys
Skliros Saga

Then the section on reskins, etc.

Chapter count doesn’t really tell me anything meaningful about the experience other than roughly how long it will take to complete.

Folks will also need to move their project around as it progresses, assuming they update here with their releases - seems like more work altogether.

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People don’t want battle animations sorted by quality.
They don’t want portraits sorted by quality.
They don’t even want romhacks sorted by quality.

I used to think this was a bad thing. Isn’t it good if we have some quality barometers to entice new people into playing the better hacks in the fandom? But lately, I’ve kind of stopped thinking that way. Bad projects help emphasize the good ones. When you play a really bad project, you understand the value and appreciate the work that goes into the good ones a lot more.

Furthermore, it’s also kind of nice that basically anyone can rise to ‘fame’ in the FE hacking scene, so long as they work hard. Propping up specific high-value projects could make others seem ‘less important’ and lower morale among creators.

I don’t think a rework of the directory is necessary. Also, sorting by alphabetical listing would just change the current flow of views to hacks starting with A and B, rather than the other simultaneously arbitrary system we have now.

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The beauty of a thing is subjective, and there are a lot of points that make a hack a pleasant experience to play.
For some people it’s the graphics, for others it’s the story and for others it’s the balance.
A hack just because it’s done, working hard, doesn’t mean it’s cool. If you have clear ideas and know how to work you can do a splendid hack, with less effort.
When I go to the directory and look for a hack to play, I read the description, download it and then play it, if I like it I keep playing it and if I don’t like it I delete it and move on to the next one.
Don’t worry about these things, if people like a hack, it will become famous even without having publicity, also from what I noticed, the popularity of a hack depends on the comments and interest of the people who comment under the post of the hack. They give their impressions, help fix bugs, give a little review of their gaming experience with that hack and support the creators during their updates.
The community allows you to have access to a lot of wonderful hacks, sooner or later you will find the right one.
It is not the number of downloads that makes a hack wonderful but it is the appreciation that people have and the gaming experience that the hack itself offers for the players.
I think everything should remain as it is and the choice should go only to the players.

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The point is that this directory has a significant influence on what the public plays, yet we choose to ignore it. As it is, it has biases, so I thought maybe we could find a way to improve the experience for new users. My first rom hack that I played was a ragefest entry. I did not join this community for many years after that because I thought that was representative of the community. Sure, that was narrow minded of me, but I am certain that there are others who’ve had similar experiences to that. :disappointed_relieved:

I personally believe that featuring a few “must plays” encourages community growth, but I understand that it isn’t desirable to turn it into a popularity contest, so I will stop berating that point.

However, currently hacks that are [Complete] are significantly favoured over incomplete ones. Clearly if we want to give all hacks a fair chance, we’d have to combine those categories, right?

Ok, it doesn’t really matter. But another way we could do it is to randomize the order of the list. Idk, just a thought. Thanks for the feedback.

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I think this page can be in the order of registration.
If you want to do other rankings, I think you can do it on another website.

But you did join…

Honestly, I never payed attention to this thread. The games that I check out are ones that I see traction on the message boards. It would be a great place to have an organized list of ROM hacks. This currently tells me nothing. I think there are a lot of great hacks that are buried in the list.

This is how I would break it up. It is a spin on what @Pandan suggested actually.

Completed “Fully Custom” Hacks
Honestly, for all fully custom hacks that are completed, I would love to know a couple of strengths the hack has going for it. Good story/writing? Fun characters? Cool map objectives? Good map design? Custom music? Skills or No Skills? Cool classes? Branching paths? Anything else unique? These hacks should have a lot more attention imo. They are finished and custom, so should be front and center. It doesn’t need to be a popularity contest here.

Up and coming “Fully Custom” Hacks
Hacks that don’t have a completed story, but have made enough progress. Story and game seems about halfway completed. It would also be nice to have a couple bullets why to keep an eye on these.

Completed Re-skins
Hacks that reuse components like characters or maps, but have custom elements like story, characters, and/or gameplay.

Completed Rebalanced and Randomizer Hacks
I think rebalances, reverse recruitment, or randomizers should have their own section. I know what I am getting into when I try those more or less. It would be nice to know a couple bullets though.

Up and coming Re-skins, Rebalanced, or Randomized Hacks
Group re-skins with rebalanced, or randomized hacks as I would have a similar feeling to trying a half done one of these projects. This could be split into two sections if needed.

Early Stage Projects
Simple. Projects that are in the early stages. If it isn’t at a “halfway” complete stage, I don’t need to know much information. I would play these to check something out but not invest much time.

Canceled or On Hold Projects
Projects that are known to be canceled or are not complete and have not had any update in like 2-years should go here.

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I think the directory could actually benefit from a “focus” tag in the projects, representing the main aspect that the hack is centered about.

For example, X hack is story-focused, so in that tag we write “Story”. Y hack is focused on new gameplay mechanics, so it’s focus tag would be “Gameplay mechanics”. Z hack is focused on memes. So on and so forth

This would make people more likely to find the kind of hack they’re looking for, for example, if you want to play a hack with emphasis on unit balance, and you see a hack that is tagged as “balance-focused”, then you have found what you want.

The disadvantage is that hack developers would have to go back to the directory and write the focus manually.

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I actually like your idea. How about this for an idea…

  1. No more sorting games by the game/engine they were made in. Instead, we sort them by type, like on your list.
  2. Every game gets five things they must list: Project Title, Engine Used, Creator, Chapter Length/Completion Status (This can be a few words long, just something to denote what level of completion/length a player should expect) and finally, Project Type.
  3. Finally, every game gets a 1-2 line description about their content. Many authors for these projects are no longer in the community. As such, we just use our best judgment for what their content is like while ALSO making sure not to insert personal biases, likes, and dislikes. This description is purely a statement of facts.
  4. We may consider making a google sheet for this community effort. So far, I think the community has done amazingly at not horrifically defacing the wiki post, so I think people can be trusted not to deface the document and ruin it. If not, well, we can always return to the wiki post.

Let me give three examples of this in action. I will use projects I know as the example.

Creator / Project Name Engine Status
Klokinator - Fire Emblem 7 Chaos Mode FE7 Complete
Randomized enemies, weapons, and players. Pseudo-inflation/reskin hack. Minor text edits. Full game of FE7 HHM complete to the end.
Klokinator - Fire Emblem Tower Defense FE8 Complete
Infinite replayability, high difficulty and challenge. Custom UI, waves of enemies with random items. One-chapter gimmick.
Klokinator - Min-Max Emblem FE8 10 Chaps
Classes have extremely overpowered skills, players and enemies too. Very difficult. Bugged/unfinished after chapter 10ish.

Now, in an ideal world, I would be able to list a short description of my projects below their entry. However, for some reason, doing so breaks the table, so I’m not sure about the feasibility of this effort. The only way I can do this now is by limiting the entry to the Project Name slot. If anyone can come up with a way to fit the description on the whole graph, that would be ideal.

Otherwise, a public google sheet might be better! The whole nested spoiler thing is kind of aggravating, tbh.

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I’ve updated the graph in my previous post. I think now it would actually make for a very viable style of list!

Note that I removed the Thread link from the graph in the OP. The game title should BE the link. Also, by putting the Creator/Game Title in the same bracket, you keep the credits, but you also afford more room for the description.

I think this would actually be a superior system to what we have now.

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Snow and Fire - Lex Talionis engine

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Oh? the game looks interesting so i’m gonna play it

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Deg-Deg the Ravenous - SRPG Studio

女王の剣 should be moved to “cancelled.” The author posted here. Basically, it’s cancelled, and instead they are working on their own original tactical RPG game which is greatly influenced by Fire Emblem.

Edit: Ah, it is editable. I’ll move it now.

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Could someone update these downloads? I am looking for rare rom hacks. Or could someone share their collection with me?

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So many hacks…

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