Wouldn’t FE7 be amazing if you had to play it on a command-line? What’s that? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over how amazingly awful this idea is.
I had already started work on a Fire Emblem engine (I’d like to make my own game some day!), so since I had both means and opportunity, Wasteland was born!
SAQ
Q: So this is based on FE7? Is there a ROM somewhere in there? A: It is based on FE7, but I have reverse-engineered every single piece of code in this darn thing from scratch! It took me over 100 hours to get to Wasteland v2.0.0, and if you’re reading this and we’re past v 2.0, it’s taken some time longer as well!
Q: So what is it written in? A: The engine code is C# and compiles into a .dll. The UI is a Windows Forms application, also written in C#. Friends, take it from me – don’t write games in a Windows Forms application.
Q: So how much of FE7 are you going to remake? A: Well, I started off wanting to do the first two maps, which I’ve got now with v2.0. Then I thought I might do the whole of Lyn’s story. Then I realized I had made a poor choice by limiting the game area to exactly 15x10 and decided I’d stop before the first chapter that is a larger size than that (the 5th map, chapter 4).
The size thing isn’t insurmountable, but it’s a lot of work, and I’m not going to cross that bridge before we come to it.
Happy to report that I’m releasing v3 of Wasteland today!
It is going to look mostly the same to the end user, but the entire innards have been retooled in a way that will make it easier for me to develop things out of this engine in the future. (Both for Wasteland and the projects that come next!). I don’t know how many of ya’ll actually played the previous game, but there’s definitely less crashes than before, in addition to 50% more levels! (For a total of 3! Amazing!)
As before, comments, thoughts, criticisms, and ruminations welcome. I would expect v4 to come out much sooner than the gap between 2 and 3 – the main thing to include will be the last planned map, Band of Mercenaries, which I already have 90% the infrastructure set up for – just gotta implement shops.
This entire project is silly, but something about the idea of using my letters to spell out words Scrabble-style while I kill my enemies for style points is appealing.
That’s the power of LOVE! (Lyn, Oswin, Vaida, Erk!)
The apprentice tactician Murak and the young swordfighter Likot. A strange
pair on an even stranger journey. To prepare for the harsh trek ahead, they
are to make an outpost for the glory of all of Sacat.
There is almost no money left, but with stout labor comes sustenance. Whether
by lance, axe or sword, provide for yourself and Likot. You were expecting a
supply caravan just before the Ending Winter entombs you, but a millenium has
passed since those dark days, so who really cares? More importantly, it will
be another year before the main story begins. Enough time to delve secure
lodgings, ere the bosses get hungry. A new chapter of Elibean history begins
here at this place, Bulgar, "Larddestroyed"*.
Strike the earth!
The Sword of Spirits, a iron short sword.
This is a iron short sword. All craftsmanship is of the highest quality.
It is encircled with bands of sacae horse leather. The sword is glowing.
It’s been a bit of a journey to get here, but I’m finally ready to sign off on this project as “Done”! Featuring the first 4 chapters of LHM in thrilling ASCII, this has been posted to itch.io if you’d like to have a go yourself.
Looking over the amount of time spent between versions 3 and 4… (16 hours recorded), there’s no real reason it needed to take 3 months to get here! But, as they say, life happens! See y’all for the next project!
