[2k3] Touhou Fantasy

It's mostly music. I'm still trying to figure out what songs to cut out from each for the vanilla version (well, I know WHAT I'll cut out, mostly the boss themes, but I don't know which songs I want to use for the regular bosses...). I might go with G Free ~ Final Dream since it's the most common one for normal bosses, then Chaos for the guardians, and something for the fragments. And of course, some bosses will have their own themes (Tenshi will still have Wonderful Heaven for instance). Every other song will still stick around I think.

Once I get that settled, then I'll have the expanded pack (which is what you see right now). I think what I'll have to do is at the start of the game, give an option of whether or not the player has the vanilla or expanded, and have a variable dedicated to whatever answer, and make sure before each boss fight that the variable corresponds to the song for each. Then, at specific places (maybe by save points?) have something that switches the variable depending on if the player wants to listen to vanilla music or expanded??

So, I've finally gotten around to dealing with the music, as mentioned below. The game right now will run about 500 MB instead of 1 GB, with 1 rar for the main game, and 3 rars for the vanilla music. There will still be the extended pack (which right now is only 1 rar for beta1-5 music) and will be extra packs for beta5+ music. Do let me know if this works better for you guys or not.


On Music:

The normal battles I try to keep unique in that every playable character has their own battle theme. That's definitely something I don't want to change.

As for bosses, in the vanilla version the only boss themes there are: G Free ~ Final Dream (for regular bosses), Chaos (for the guardians of Pandora), Gensoumaroku's OUT!!! (for the fragments of Pandora), and the FFMQ Battle remix (for special fights such as Kisume, which are mini-bosses I suppose). Some bosses get to keep their unique boss themes, being: Eirin, Kanako, Tenshi, Saigyou Yuyuko, Mima, Elis, Rikako, Kana, Marisa, Alice , Suika, and PC-98 Yuuka. The reason for them keeping their theme is they're more plot-important, so why not?


As it stands right now, there are ~128 songs now for the vanilla version (beta1-5, or what there is for beta5). Which runs to about 500 MB for music now. Better than 1 GB. I have also put in options for switching between music at save points and at the Human Village, for those that get the extended pack, and bosses have been tuned to go with this as well.

Wow, you sure put alot of work into this! Really amazed about everything you have done with this project, really remarkable! I will make sure to try this out sometimes, when I can get off working on my own project hehe 
I have heard alot of awesome stuff about this game, so looking forward to see what It's like!

Update Patch 1.099: http://www.mediafire.com/?vxhy1mdur666nqf


*Added in new enemies and updated some old sprites, that being Iron Giant, the elemental fairies, and the Fairy Maid enemies.
*In addition, the entire game has been reuploaded (the game is separate from the music files, and the music files is now separated into vanilla and extended, with Beta5-8 music separate as well). If you already have all of the music files, you just need to find a flute at any save point or the Human Village and change to Expanded/Expansion to keep playing with the original game music.

Nearly done with this dungeon, that I am. This is going to be the biggest dungeon in the game thus far it seems (it currently has 31 maps. Keep in mind that Cave to Makai had 38 maps roughly). This is fine, since I wanted the dungeons to be slightly longer than previously, and Cave to Makai was the basis for this. Granted, not ALL dungeons are going to have that many maps (Hollowed Caverns does because it's a maze), so don't have to worry about super huge dungeons. And no, this doesn't take an hour to go through (unless you go through the wrong ways constantly), because despite the sizes of the maps (most maps are 60x60), they don't take that long to go through (and there's no random encounters in this part of the dungeon).

Though I still wonder...how 2 of these maps would even remotely equal one large dungeon...I don't even see how 2 maps can even make a SINGLE dungeon myself, but that's me! In other news, SDM got heavily updated. Voile is more mazey, the basement is more of an actual basement and dungeon, and the overall look of the SDM is more sleek compared to before. Eientei is next to be fixed up (somehow...), so at least beta1 dungeons are getting fixed up massively (even though those 2 are the only dungeons that really need it). Once DemonicHobo is done with both SDM and Eientei, I'll be having him helping on beta5 dungeons. My other mapper will more than likely be setting up caves on the overworld for me.

So that's how it is~ No screenshots this time because I say so!

It'll still be a while yet to finish this game. Been 5 years and the game's still only 50% done, if that says anything. Though I will say some dungeons need revamped a bit. Though in all honesty, I need your guys' opinions. For those of you that have played the game some, do you think the maps are too big at all? Because I honestly don't think that they're THAT big myself (random encounters are set to 70-80 (supposedly 70-80 steps will be a random encounter)). Keep in mind, the player sees in a 20x15 grid (IIRC), and a lot of my maps I tend to keep around 50x50/60x60 (some are around 100xX or so, but that's because they're generally bigger anyways, such as Forest of Magic or Winter Forest and some such).

Let's take a look at some changes here and there.




Left is old, right is new. I decided to go back and fix up some maps at least...though that's gonna be a chore. This is the entrance of Blazing Fires of Hell.







First version (original) is 80x80, second (my update) is 56x60, and third is same size but done by another mapper. My update took around 15-20 minutes to do. Trujin's version took 1 to 1 1/2 hours to do. This is the 5th screen in Blazing Fires of Hell, after the screen with Kisume.


   Old map
   New map.


Old map is 75x30. New map is 62x30. Took 1 1/2 hours for me to do this map. I had to do this one though so that this map would make sense with the map that Trujin did for me. ;___; This is the screen right before Parsee's bridge.

Now here's the question for you guys. Would you rather have the maps like up above (note the bigger ones take about 1-2 hours to do) or would you rather have these maps (which from what Trujin told me, takes about 15 minutes to do)?




Do let me know!

The new ones look absolutely amazing! So I'd say go for it

[I wonder if there are SMT References in the game?]

I decided to look at my LP for my run of my end beta4 dungeon (I don't recall what all I did in that dungeon and whatnot, so it may be shorter than what I did, or longer), but...here are the times:


20:00 for Fate
8:00 for Rikako
8:20 for Sara
2:06 for Meira
6:55 for Elis
4:57 for Shingyoku
3:50 for Alice

54:08 total spent on bosses roughly.

1:53:27 spent on dungeon alone.

Total time: 2:47:35


So um...a good portion of that is spent fighting the bosses, and as I said in RPGMaker.net, I DID say I'm going to cut down on the size of a lot of these dungeons anyways, but um...I didn't realize it was that long. It certainly didn't FEEL that long to me (and bosses are give or take too, since some can take longer, and there's quite a few cutscenes in there too. So the dungeon is split up between the bosses, several cutscenes (there's about 10 cutscenes in there or something), and the dungeon itself).

So yeah...

Hello~!! I'm back~!  Sorry for disapearing again >~<''  Lots of issues over here, no job, no money, can't do college, still stuck on Linux, etc.

Anyways, I'm wanting to help you again.  More specifically, I would prefer doing something related to the code of the game (as I have before) or maybe mapping things for you.  This time I don't really want to disapear, so lets get to work!

What do you think, Xenomic? Sound good to you?

Edit: I prefer the 15 minute-to-do one.  Makes it look cleaner.

Well, if you can map, that'd be great. I'm still in the middle of remapping dungeons and all that. THough whether or not they'll take 15 minutes at all is another thing entirely, especially given how the dungeons are (that, and for Forests, I don't have the proper tiles/tilesets to deal with black tiles/multiple trees so that's another issue...). The following is what needs to still be done (possibly):


Hakurei Shrine
*Outside
*Shrine Inners
*Storehouse

Hakurei Shrine Ruins

Kourindou
*Outside
*Inside

Human Village
*North outside
*North inside
*South outside
*School
*South inside

Forest of Magic

Youkai Mountain
*Pathways
*Tengu Village
*Moriya Shrine
*Kappa Caves

Bamboo Forest

Eientei

Hakugyokurou
*Inner
*Yojana Gardens

Winter Forest

Higan
*Road of Reconsideration
*Higan
*Court of Hell

Mayohiga

Blazing Fires of Hell
*2nd Half
*Ancient City
*Palace of Earth Spirits

Poltergeist Mansion

Myouren Temple

Dream Land
*Bloody Lake
*Mugenkan

Insect Forest

Eastern Forest

Cave to Makai

Cave to Pandaemonium

Pandaemonium

Dark City

Hollowed Caverns


There are a few things in the coding that also needs done, which are as follows:

Invert (Swaps HP/MP of target). Found at common event 1411.
Exclusion (Party member is removed for the remainder of battle, but will return after battle). Found at Common Event 1437
Reverse (Reverses all positive/negative status effects with one another on the entire party). Found at Common Event 1434
Several weapon abilities need fine-tuned (Ultimatus, Valiant Heart, Disaster in Bloom, etc.). These are found at Common Events 1380-1384.
Limits (Specific to Hope. Will have to check Battle Events for the other coding for her).
Potential upgrades to character abilities (i.e. Marisa's Steal upgraded to Mug, passive ability for Master Thief (doubles Steal rates), etc. None are implemented yet, but I plan on having character-specific weapons upgrade each character's special commands in some fashion. Meiling already has hers set up at Chakra, Common Event 1361).


Things that may not be done because they cannot be done are:

Bubble (Doubles Max HP temporarily)
Disease (Character cannot restore HP past maximum value. When damaged, new Max HP becomes current Max HP).
Hakutaku (Dummied out command for Keine, which would switch her with EX Keine for the remainder of the battle, who is AI Controlled)

I can't help but notice the SDM wasn't on the list to map.  Was that revamped while I was gone to match what you want it to be? Also, I'm assuming the current Touhou Fantasy.rar file is fully up-to-date with the exception of the latest patch, can you confirm this for me?


edit: Hahaha ... I failed at extracting Touhou Faces 8 from the FaceSet folder because "File name is too long" .....

Too long? What o.O


Yeah, that's the most up-to-date excluding what's in that patch (and obviously what I'm working on right now). SDM was revamped aye, though still wondering if it needs further updates to make it more...SDM like.

Yeah, Linux is weird like that.  Anyways, right now I'm working on outside Kourindou to see if I can make it better.  I'm basing it off of these 2 pics.

Spoiler for:

Kinda hard to do with the limited amount of graphics/colors.

Aye. If you need to use a different tileset, go ahead and snag one for it. Fantasy Maiden Wars from what I've seen is a good reference for most of the areas too.

You wunna hop on skype and monitor what I'm doing so you can give suggestions of what you think or something like that? If you don't want to, that's fine, just thought you might want to see what I'm doing so you can decide if you like it or not, etc.

I'm stuck on Skype now since I can no longer go back to MSN (MSN downloads will only direct you to Skype now). But I got a few things running so doing any video thing would lag me down badly. I'mma just trust in your judgment and all that~ I know Marisa's house needs updated too (it does not feel like Marisa's house at all), and I have yet to do anything for Alice's house too (nothing was damaged there so...).

Well, how about this.  This is what I have so far for Kourindou.

Spoiler for:

What do you think?

Looking good thus far. Looks a lot better than the giant building I had, that's for sure. And I like how you kept the dimensions the same too (thank god for that. It'd be a nightmare to try and rework cutscenes, which is what I'm afraid of most with revamping maps @_@; ). Coming along very nicely, keep at it~

Well, I think I'm going to leave Kourindou like that for now, will work on something else.  I also see that Misty Lake has been revamped to something more annoying but with less mobs.  The second end of the stage needs to be adjusted, since it's possible to end up with, say, 4 bees as your first battle.  Considering they didn't get the experience they would have gotten from the other paths, they are slightly under leveled for that (1 or 2 levels).  Before I would be at least level 7 before entering that area.  At that low of a level, every level does make a difference.  However, that's up to you to decide to change that or not.  If you want the game to be slightly more challenging, then by all means, go with that.  If you decide to leave it, I think you should have Marisa hint that it's going to be dangerous up ahead to try to convince the player to save before continuing.  (would be annoying to have to redo that entire puzzle after trying to fight against a good amount of strong enemies).  Again, that is up to you to decide that.  Just putting my thoughts out there.  Thinking about revamping Human Village (South) next.  Is there any key events in there that I should be aware about?  I'm considering changing the dimensions of the map.  If so, I will take this into consideration when I modify it.

I already reverted Misty Lake back to its original form (since that fit more of the tutorial level than the maze).

The only key events in there is the events that you see directly outside of the Item Shop (southwest), since that event is for a sidequest whenever I get that done. I'm working on Poltergeist Mansion right now (already got Insect Forest done minus one screen) so that's getting close to done at least, and another person will be working on Bamboo Forest (got some bamboo freaking finally...) so that'll be that at least going too.

Oh, good!  Bamboo forest will now no longer look like generic-puzzle/trap-forest and will now look like what it is!  Good to hear.  Alright, I will consider that event when I revamp Human Village (South) and try to place everything where it should be accordingly.

On a side note, not sure if you noticed, but I've been +ing your score, cuz it's awesome that you have stuck with this for so long.  Don't really want anything in return for that.

Yeah, hopefully the bamboo tiles are decent enough for him to use...hopefully. Though it may need even more custom spriting for more bamboo to make it look right...

Getting the Human Village to look like the Human Village (using Fantasy Maiden Wars, both Intermission and battle map, as well as Perfect Memento's article about it) is gonna be rough. Because I at least want to have Akyuu's manor somewhere (was it a mansion? Manor? I don't know) and I'm thinking of having Kosuzu's shop somewhere in the north village (so that there's a place to always buy scrolls and keep it separate from the south). I have no Kosuzu sprite though....


I plan on sticking with this until I finish it. Of course, that's gonna take longer than expected because of the "Great Map Revamping" that's going on. *Sigh* lol

Well, leave the map revamping to your supports.  Just focus on progressing for now; we will catch up.  Anything specific you want to see in the SOUTH part of the human village?  So far I see houses, tutorial introduction area, a shop, and a farm.  Anything you want to specifically keep (obviously the shop) and anything you want to add/remove?

Well, it's supposed to feel like a village so anything that makes it feel more like a village I guess? ^^;; The issue with the Kirisame Item Shop being in the south is that when that area is destroyed and unaccessible, you can't do the sidequest that's there anymore...I just remembered that. Bah!

Well, since I'm the bulk of the project too, I need to do some mapping too (that and I know what I want to do on some of the maps too). Getting through the revamping will make it easier for everyone to help on making later dungeons too (which I DON'T have a 100% idea on how to do yet). I already decided after Poltergeist Mansion is done (and finishing up the one screen I didn't do for Insect Forest) that I'm going to fix up Winter Cave so that it's a proper dungeon and doesn't look dumb so...