VXA Pantomime: FFVI

Want to catch the 8'oclock Showing?
Downloads for the full performance can be found in the links at the bottom!
The full performance takes approx. 30 mins.

What the hell is VXA Pantomime?
VXAPT is the VXA Pantomime Theatre, where all your favourite VXA generated characters, scripts and mechanics are put to as little use as possible while they have some fun acting out a Pantomime of Final Fantasy VI with their not-quite-accurate costumes and cardboard set pieces!

How long does this performance last?
The "Scenes 1+2" Demo takes under five minutes, while the full theatre performance will clock closer to half an hour.

Do I get to play or do I just have to sit and watch?
Yes!
You get to sit and watch.  There is an interactive element involved, but it's only a very small portion of the performance.  It is there to allow you to get more involved, but it's still pretty limited as it remains within a thematic setting.  You'll understand when you get to it.
However, the section is within the longest scene in the performance, so at the end of the day, the interactive section actually takes about a quarter~third of the whole performance.  How's that suit ya, eh?

So we just sit and watch a visual novel remake of FFVI?
Not at all!  The characters are on stage the whole time and are acting the story out in a Pantomime fashion, so the tone is very different from FFVI itself.  The story is also very heavily "nutshelled" to fit into so few scenes and with such compact dialogue, so it's quite a different experience.

So it basically has nothing to do with FFVI?
Apart from the story?  There are plenty of direct references for FFVI fans, and all the cardboard set pieces are based directly on the game's graphics.  Also, the music is 100% ripped MIDIs from the SNES, so you get to listen along to some rad tracks, too!

So who is this for, exactly?
FFVI fans mostly.  The story is, I believe, summarised enough that fresh eyes could understand the basic plotline of FFVI and follow the Panto without needing to reference anything else.
However, there are also numerous references to the game that only fans will catch onto, and basically everything side-questy/character related has been forgone in favour of directly following the key plotline.

What characters is the Panto based around, then?
Terra, Kefka, Sabin, Edgar, Locke and Celes to varying degrees.  Most of the other characters aren't mentioned, but it doesn't feel sparse without them; the size of the stage and the timeframe on each scene will only allow so much to happen.

Screenies:
(Note: the set piece artwork has been redrawn since these screenies were taken!)

Spoiler for:

Relevant Links: contains blogs, more info, a Scenes 1+2 Demo, the full performance and a copy of the full project that contains all relevant RTP files, for anyone who doesn't have VXA RTP installed already

Spoiler for:

Screenies, Info, Demo, Full downloads including RTP packaged: http://rpgmaker.net/games/4937/
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Blog:
http://pixelbrady.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/norra-book-norra-movie-norra-game/http://pixelbrady.wordpress.com/
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Full performance Mediafire Mirror:
http://www.mediafire.com/?lijbqdf8whf8y63

This sounds pretty interesting. Looking forward to the demo.

Consider me interested

I often want to play games when I come back from work, but I´m almost always to "exhausted" to actually play.
A visual novel type of project would be really cool for these times (even if it´s "only" half an hour).

Links to the full performance are now up, including a link containing all relevant RTP files for anyone without VXA RTP installed.  I only really made that file because the original project is so small anyways (<3MB).

The whole show will take around 30 mins from start to finish

This was really really cool!
It was funny and nice to hear the story again.
Also nice effects, especially when the esper is called.

Something I didn´t really get was in which way I was involved in the boss battle.
I pressed the arrow keys for a while and it worked, but after some time the attack was always Ramuh for about 5 or 6 turns regardless of which arrow key I hit.
I stopped pressing them and the attacks changed back to normal.
I don´t know if this was intentional, maybe I just didn´t get it.

Thanks for the performance

Each arrow key has five different random possibilities for an attack, and each include one or two attacks directed at you, and including two espers among them.  I guess you figured you're not really meant to have that much control over it, but it's meant to be pretty apparent that each arrow does different things.

Although you didn't see this because the same thing kept happening from each direction...I've no idea at all what caused that, tbh; i've not seen that myself and no one else has mentioned it.

Is it possible you rattled the same key a few times and it triggered a queue of sorts for the same event sequence?  Seems kinda odd, but it's all I can really think of for what happened.

Hopefully it was just some weird one-off bug; the idea is that he has enough health so that you pretty much have enough time to see most/all of the possible attacks, while also getting a good way into Dancing Mad before it's over.  Hopefully seeing the same attack five times didn't ruin it for you; it really was designed with the intention of seeing a different attack each turn

Yes, I figured I wasn´t supposed to have that much control, but it was still fun.
I think I didn´t describe what happened very good, at first I could trigger different attacks, but after maybe 5 attacks I got the Ramuh streak. Then I stopped pressing and it seemed to work normal again.

Maybe it was just bad luck with random?

Is it possible you rattled the same key a few times and it triggered a queue of sorts for the same event sequence?

Yes, this is possible, I think I pressed the buttons more than once.

But this was really no big thing, it didn´t ruin it at all!

Yeah, I found that myself during testing that checking each direction could be a bitch because the variables don't play fair and had a tendency to just repeat the same ones over and over; s'why I liked the idea of having multiple directions with different stuff on each one, just so that you could force different results.
I do realise that it still can happen a touch more than is ideal, but the only real workarounds would be to either remove more control, or to add even more possibilities, and with twenty already (and the likelihood of seeing no more than a dozen on average), adding in more just seemed like a lot of pointless content that'd go to waste.

Saying that though, I'm glad it didn't ruin it for you.  I realise that most folk will only watch it once then never again, so the first run is the full impression; I had to go through that final scene bloody loads of times, so I can say that a fair number of runs do produce a nice mixture, but sometimes it just shits out and gives you the same four results over and over.