Title & Progress Report

Yes, I'm still working on the Final Fantasy fan project and it has a name; Final Fantasy Exodus. I've done some charset and chipset editing and got a crystal charset and a modified world chipset with a snow tile, flipped bridges and mountains leaking lava. I finished that stuff days ago, then started slacking just a bit before jumping back in. I did some mapping, finished a small village and started on the first dungeon; all the while worrying that I would only be able to replace the default skiff with a Chocobo sprite and have slower than average Chocobos. I resigned myself to this for a few days feeling down that the Chocobo theme would wasted on slow Chocobos and since it was still one of the default vehicles, I'd be limited to having only one that I would have to use switches to teleport to every location they're available in. It would have been impossible to make a default vehicle run in a random pattern like a giant rideable bird that wasn't a statue. This led to the idea of a Chocobo ranch were you rent them, hence the vehicle teleport switches that would be implemented through eventing.

Yeah, there was no way in hell that Exodus' Chocobos would be reduced to that. So, with a battle cry of "To ze Internets!" I searched... that was pretty darned easy. I found something about setting up an event involving sprite changes, encounter rate changes and movement speed changes. Throw in a memorize music, play bgm and teleport to the world map and it'd be pretty eas-huh? Common Events?! I've tried using those in other Makers and never could get them to work for me! Dammit, my vision of Chocobos that move like Chocobos was murdered! I gave up and again, resigned myself to having a sub-par Chocobo system.

Then I un-gave up and did it and now Exodus has a fully functioning Chocobo system and I am happy. I could attempt to add black Chocobos, but there's no way to change a character's passibility so they only go over a certain tile while also implementing it as a Chocobo that runs. I could probably make it so that black Chocobos run the average Chocobo speed and fly twice as fast, but without being able to set it so they can only fly over water and not everything; it would redundant. They will be in the game, though; just not as a transport.


Okay, enough about Chocobs, I've done other non-maker work for the game, too. I've gotten a basic plot typed up, a list of features and some info pertaining to a series of related sidequests worked out. However, I'm still working out most of it, but I'll go ahead and post the current list of features I'm planning for the game:

- Expansive story spanning two worlds: If everything goes the way I want it, this will be a good sized game.

- Summon Magic: I'm still working on this. I've found battle animations that I was able to implement but the graphical style is a mix of RTP and misc. other stuff. I'm still debating whether or not I want to roll with this. I've worked out a backstory for the summoned creatures due to not being able to find many pre-made animation sets. If I made my own using FF style graphics, I'd be compelled to change the backstory when I have more sets ready and I like what I've come up with.

-Sidequests: You betcha'.

-Bounties that reward gil and items(available upon reaching a monster hunting guild; more as the story progresses[monsters in guild missions give slightly less experience than normal and have less chance of dropping items] some become unavailable after certain points in the story): This would be that series of sidequests I mentioned.

-Rare monsters that give lots of experience/gil or drop valuable items: No way this is being left out. I'll be sure to throw in some real nasty ones for that extra bit of challenge and frustration.



-Bonus dungeons with super bosses and/or powerful equipment: Naturally.

-Trade/Crafting System; some enemies drop drop materials that can be traded to a crafter to make items and equipment. Example: Adamantoise shells+iron ore=shell shield/shell helm/shell mail. Crafted equipment has added effects or slighltly better stats than currently available shop equipment but requires more effort to obtain because the materials are hard to come by/have low drop rates/require multiple materials: I'm definitely not leaving this out. Those rare monsters mentioned above? Yeah... a decent amount of 'em will drop some needed crafting materials for armors, weapons and accessories that are the absolute best in the game. The stuff you want when going after the most powerful of super bosses that would stomp the entire party flat. Anything to take down that psychotic shadow being that throws uber powerful spells out nearly every turn, right?

-Chocobo Transport: Shut up, I like Chocobos.