[2k3] Touhou Fantasy

Dual Spark has been in this game since forever ago. It still needs tweaked though, since I'm thinking of making it AoE (which would mean it would do far less damage than it does right now but oh well).

I put that as a quote for a reason ... I didn't call it that.

For those interested in what's going on, I haven't touched anything really with this game minus fixing up some things here and there. I'll be working on beta5 more once I get more videos in backstock.


As of right now, I am doing a LP of TF myself, and am up to 40 parts. I honestly didn't think that there'd be THIS many parts, and this is only 1/4 through beta3 at that...at this rate, I'll be hitting the same amount of videos as one of my Final Fantasy walkthroughs (FFI has 56 videos and is the smallest out of the videos I've done aside from MQ, while most others are around 70-150, for those that want a comparison). I wonder if I didn't overshoot the story for this somehow...hmmm...

I like long games, so it's fine

Well, it'd be even finer if I COULD get more help on this too. It's gonna take another 2 1/2 years just to finish the darn thing x_x

In other news, no work will be done other than fixing up things that I may have missed or whatnot (this includes text that gets cut-off or portraits that don't change which I've seen but forgot WHERE those happened...). Also, the crafting system I've noticed is COMPLETELY useless right now...which  makes me kinda sad since I spent so much time working on that alone...I'll find a way to make it useful somehow early on! I swear on it!

Mr. jjwebb, have you spoke to him about the sprites, if he's done any sprites for me at all yet?

actually, we haven't seen him in quiet awhile ... we think he has problems with his computer ...  He's had problems before, though ...

And the final update patch for beta4...I hope anyways...

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=7YVPW1X9


And to add to this, since I'm probably going to take a big break from TF for a while since I've been working non-stop to fix bugs and do this LP for the past month - 1 1/2 months, have music! Note, YOU WILL need this since it does include updated music for the current beta, but it doesn't hurt to get it anyways since it contains music that I MAY use later on anyways (all are in the Music Room if you want to spoil yourselves on what is where).

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=AW8SRHNJ


And as of this post, the LP for TF is fully done at that (for the most part).

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ICWZM7KL



Fixes one tiny bug...that being that Reimu is somehow level 30 at the start of the game. Not what I wanted to happen yo!

No offence... It didn't seem much to me when you decided to fix all bugs and come up with the new item crafting system like what you'd expect from Fallout or Final Fantasy VIII... But since the main story at Makai seemed to put it's put to a halt until further notice and I have made about 586 maps while you have 448... I'm not bragging on I have more maps than you...

All I'm saying is that the maps haven't been made for the main Makai locations and I'm usually into the main storyline. Somehow I 'm just getting the feeling that you're intending to change roles from Marisa into a solo story for Byakuren...

[Off-Topic]
It's makes you wonder for a bit... How many maps can RPGmaker2k3 hold anyway?

Hopefully there's no limit on the maps for 2k3...if there is, I'm going to be extremely angry...


Do keep in mind too...I really, really hate mapping (still wish I had a mapper...), and not to mention that aside from storyline and mapping, I'm also trying to come up with more puzzles and what have you with the dungeons too. But I'm ALSO putting it on hold so that I can have more videos to upload on Youtube for other games so that I don't have to worry about videos while working on this game.

Hopefully there's no limit on the maps for 2k3...if there is, I'm going to be extremely angry...

Hmmmm... I checked the "help" regarding for limits of maps but it said as long as you have enough space on your hard drive for it... So I practically think it's limitless as long as you have enough space on your hard drive...

Mapping can be a pain I have to admit... But I don't give up on it since I'm creating the game all by myself,
Doing the Mapping, the System, Making Unique attacks and items, Of course I'm using resources I didn't make
by myself... I'm using pictures from scratch... But as long as I have the correct tilesets, charsets, battle
animations etc... But I made a quick teleporter item where you use X & Y to make a cursor select a desired
location such as the Scarlet Devil Mansion etc, of course it took me quite a while...

So as long as you can experiment you make the game improve greatly... Just like what you're doing with the Crafting System or the Characters special moves like Aya's Intel or Marisa's Steal ability...

Just to let everyone know, no this isn't dead. Just...taking my sweet, sweet time working on this, plus I was busy doing playthrough/walkthrough videos for my YT channel. I HAVE been *slightly* working on this again...mainly being the opening scene for the next dungeon that I haven't started mapping yet because...well...you all know why. The scene went by much faster than usual due to me actually HAVING a text document with the dialogue in it already. Wish I would've thought of that long ago...

Anywho, maybe you can expect some more progress in the next few days? Depends on how I feel and if I want to do the mapping for said dungeon...it'll be the first out of around 18 that I have to do so...yeah...

Yesh, I let things slide for a long time don't I? Anyways, I have a new mapper now, so the maps should be coming along a lot nicer and faster than if I did them (I sure know my maps aren't that spectacular, but hey...SOMEONE had to do them before no?). I might start picking up here soon, after I finish some Final Fantasy XII for the first time ever (and maybe finish recording FFTA...maybe...).

Yesh, I let things slide for a long time don't I? Anyways, I have a new mapper now, so the maps should be coming along a lot nicer and faster than if I did them (I sure know my maps aren't that spectacular, but hey...SOMEONE had to do them before no?). I might start picking up here soon, after I finish some Final Fantasy XII for the first time ever (and maybe finish recording FFTA...maybe...).

Pretty much but that just makes up time to finish something else and in the process you found the right person to give you what you want... Then again there were some good maps and some crappy maps... I'll put my favorite top three maps...

1.The Scarlet Devil Mansion building (exterior)
2. Youkai Mountain (A brilliant piece of work I might add...)
3. Mayohiga

This game is good and I hope you can keep up the good work...

Just to show this isn't dead:  http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ILUHQU8N

Minor fix patch. Fixes include:

*Sakuya speed bug for Blazing Fires fixed.

*Doll from Bamboo Forest is now added correctly when gotten (not if you have already gotten it though)

*Forest direction in Eientei fixed.

Update! Fixes a couple more little bugs, so that should be it for the time being.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=PGU521IM

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Y922TC39

Update patch! Fixes skill tree problems mainly.

Also, if anyone finds anything TOO hard or something, or wants to suggest anything, feel free to. Might help with the production of this game. In other news, I'm still trying to figure out whether or not it's possible to do field abilities based on who's in the party or who's currently on-screen (spritewise). For instance, I would like to have it so that if Marisa is the one in the lead (or is in the party), then the player has the ability to unlock locked chests and such. If anyone has any idea on how to do this, feel free to let me know!

There's a conditional branch option for checking if a particular hero is in the party. It's on page two. You can use that before allowing a chest to be opened, for example.

Hmmm....I'm assuming it's impossible to do it via sprite on-field for player party right? And I also doubt it's possible to make it so you can switch the on-field sprite with a button without using Order?

The only way I can think of for changing the active hero is to change the sprite associated with the hero when a particular key is pressed.

It provides a few hurdles, though.

First, to give a cycling effect - as if moving through the party list - you'd likely need to keep a variable count on which party member is being displayed. You'd then also need to know the order of the party members, which means you'd need to remove the option to change the Order manually. That way, when you add in a party member you can increase a count on the current number of party members, and set a variable for which slot a given hero is in. Then it would be a matter of matching numbers between the counter for the sprite you want to show with the hero associated with that particular slot. Definitely a bit of a faff.

The other problem is when you want to do a kind of cutscene, in which you'd have to store the current active sprite, revert the main hero back to their original graphic, do the scene and then revert that change back to how it was prior to the scene. Again, more faff there.

It's definitely possible, as far as I can figure out, but not simple by any means.

This would also let you check which sprite is active through the use of the active sprite variable that would refer to the hero's id.

If you really want this kind of thing, I can give it a shot for you. In my head it works, but that's not a guarantee it actually will.

It'd make the game more unique I'd think, though would suck not being able to change the party order outside (for those that like to see certain sprites, but I guess they can deal with it by putting them in the order they want when adding them via PHS). Of course, that leaves the idea of what to do for each field ability...hmmm...that's something I need to think of. The only character that HAS an passive field ability (or one at all) is Sakuya and that's a map speed up bonus (+1 speed on maps)....any ideas on the others?

Well, you gave an idea with the locks - a character who has an ability to pick locks can be quite nice for the treasure hunting players. Or perhaps to make getting through an area a little easier when you don't have to always find the keys that open the door to the way out.

Really, it often depends on what you have going on your game. Whilst I did download a recent version, I've yet to actually sit down and play it through. But some ideas from the top of my head that you can always make changes in the game to incorporate (these ideas come from an old test project of mine that involved characters that had unique field abilities):

Climb - Having this character lets you climb up certain things such as cracked walls, vines etc to reach higher ground, or go down to lower ground.

Smash/Break - Strong character can break down weakened walls or wooden barriers.

Geomancy - A magic-type character can use the terrain properties that have different effects. Or perhaps rename this to allow a magic user to use certain magic elements in the field: fire to burn things, water to extinguish fires etc.

Scavenge/Search - Searches the area to find items; may find rare items in certain places. May even be able to extend this to find hidden paths etc.

Dig/Unearth - Similar to scavenge, find items underneath hero. Can only be used in certain areas such as deserts or soily ground. Also, like above, may even be able to extend this to find hidden paths etc.

Smooth Talker - Charismatic character that can often get more info from NPCs. Perhaps even obtain items or secret locations.

Those are a few ideas I could think of at the moment.

Often, these kinds of abilities provide the player with additional items, access to new areas or simply makes things a little easier. Sometimes, though, you want want them to solve certain types of puzzles.

You want to be careful, though, that the need for a certain ability to get through a part of the game is made known or an alternative solution provided (like with the locked door idea - you can use a lockpicking character or find a key somewhere) so that players don't have to backtrack to change their character so that they can progress. It'll likely throw them off the game altogether.

Those ideas are nice. Some of them would work too (plus with how many guest characters there are, would work with them too).

I could see Meiling having Smash/Break (I was thinking of that originally, though never implemented anything for it due to not having it in the game).

The Scavenge I thought of recently for a guest character (who may become optional), though who else could use that is hmmm....maybe Nitori or Reimu....

Dig/Unearth...I wonder if I have someone that would work for too. @_@

Smooth Talker, I can already THINK of a few people that could work for (there's always Remilia if all else fails, since she's always considered the most charismatic character in the series).

Geomancy...that one could actually probably be used by Patchouli since she's an elemental user to begin with o.o

And Climb...I wish I would've thought of something like that before lol...that would've made making maps a bit more rougher for me though I think since I'm horrible at that.


Overall, those are some really nice ideas. The Geomancy one was kinda going to be used actually for a puzzle gimmick in beta5 (through the use of 2 NPCs that you'll be having with you though). I might even patch up older dungeons to fit in with these if I ever get them implemented correctly...@_@

Well I got it to work - the changing the active sprite appearance to go through party members idea.

However, I found another potential issue. The sprite association changes a specific hero. The problem is that, unless you always have the same party leader (in my test I'd always have to have Zack as lead), it's unknown which hero to change the sprite of. This could be solved by storing the ID of the chosen lead hero and changing the sprite appearance based on that ID. It means that the more heroes you have in your game, the more conditional checks you need to do as you need a set for each hero that could be lead.

Mind, you need to do a lot of conditional checks for each hero just to change to the correct sprite. It's a bit of work but it's possible. I'll work in the above problem and solution and upload the test project for you to play with. If you can bothered to implement it, then you can do.

Really appreciate the help Logan. Yeah, that might be a doozy (the lead character tends to change quite often, though that's usually due to switching between different parties, both with the main party and a submain party). If I were to exclude the submain parties (the not-constant playables), then there's roughly 24-26 playable characters in all (the player is forced to have one lead character throughout most of the game until around beta6 after a certain point in it, at which point the game is going to become a bit more of a free roam and let you choose your party freely). So there's that (I don't think I'm going to give the temporary party members any field abilities per say since you usually don't get to use them for very long, nor can you normally keep them in your party).

The other issue I'm thinking of though is if I also (as I originally was thinking of doing) implement party splits (ala Kefka's Tower sort of deal). I HAVE a system that can work for it (I need to fix it up more though. It is in the debug room in the Test Room, but that only works in the SAME room, not from one map to another). Dunno if THAT'LL matter too much or not though (assuming I get THAT particular system working. I may have to try it in the debug room to see if it works.