Hello everyone, I am Jyro. I would like to show people a game that I have been making for quite some time now. Of coarse, it is a Fire Emblem based game, and it is not like ones you have seen before. I have about 6 years of programming experience with a application called Game Maker. I know the language inside and out and have been undergoing the programming of a very in-depth Fire Emblem engine. As a show-and-tell I have uploaded the game and would like to know what everyone thinks.


Version 0.1:

File Size: 5.28 MB
GM Version: GM6
Vista Compatible: No
Changes Screen Resolution: no
Screenshots: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

Download (.zip)
Download (.rar)

Version 0.2:

File Size: 2.35 MB
GM Version: GM7
Vista Compatible: Yes
Changes Screen Resolution: no
Screenshots: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Download (.zip)
Download (.rar)

When opened, press F1 to read the game info.

What you see here is all by me, the programming that is. All sprites and music goes to Intelligent Systems at Nintendo. However, in the near future I will have some aspects of the game done by the help of a little team going on for the game. I have the basic battle scenes done, and the map screen with all the movement. It will stop after the map characters reach their destination and you will have to go back. The map and battle room are not connected yet, this is just to show you what I have so far. As well, the map tileset is all 8-Bit and simple. The main room you see at the start is what it will soon look like.

The battle scenes have a change to them that will potentially make this games battle system more sweeter then the GBA games. When you equip a different weapon (ex. between iron sword and silver sword) the weapon they will be holding will always look different. Each weapon has its own battle sprite and it is draw separately into the animation. With the GBA battle sprites you might think would be hard, what with all the motion blurs of the weapons. Well, I have that covered. I have an effect that blurs the weapon when it needs to in the animation.


Cavalier sprite properties
Weapon sprite properties

The music in Version 0.1 are chiptunes and are played with Shaltif's Xtreeme Music and Sound DLL. The problem is, the chiptunes might slow down the FPS on a slower computer. It bothers me allot when is doesn't play at 60 FPS on the map. Luckily the battle scenes are set at 30 FPS, so there shouldn't be a performance drop there. There is a problem with the chiptunes however. It will all of a sudden stop the tune at a certain point while you are playing. I have to look at the scripts allot further to make it loop properly, but for now just enjoy the real music from Fire Emblem 5. For Version 0.2 I took out the chiptunes and the music entirely just for now, it made the file size smaller and it will run better.

So all in all, tell me what you think. Any advise? Critisism?
And if you are interested, you may help out as much as you would like. I have a general story line that I would be following, but sprites and characters are open for requests. As well as weapons, you may draw any weapon you like, and it takes me 2 minutes tops to throw it into the game.

Thanks for your time everyone, I look forward to you comments.

Updates:
I am planning on getting the map system more completed soon. I am starting with adding the menus and character actions after they move. Here are a couple of screen-shots do far for Version 0.3

I'm just wondering, not to detract from the project or anything: is all this is a battle simulator/customized experience, or is there an actual level behind the battles, or better yet, a map editor? I skimmed the reading and clicked maybe half the screen shots and saw only that :/

Thanks for asking.
To get this clear, this is just Version 0.2. Notice the zero in there? That would mean that its just to show you guys what is done so far. Once I get to Version 1.0, the game will come together with a complete engine, and the battles with be full in a story line sequence. What you see here is just to show you the battle system and the map system and the potential this game has to be a real, and completely Fire Emblem fan game.

So to answer your question, I would love to have a map editor, and a quick battle part to the game, like a multilayer. And also with an in-depth story mode. Theres also potential for online play down the road. With Game Maker, online play is actually quite easy.

Ah! A Fire Emblem game that actually looks good! I knew Jyro had something good up his sleeve.

If you keep going, you might have something really good. My only issues with this are the maps. They look... bad. I suppose it's because you put standard GBA mugs on top of maps that looked like they were from the 8-bit era. They don't fit together. If you can, I suggest using some chipsets with more colors that match the colors of the mugs.

Otherwise, it looks like you know what you're doing. And you're committed to finishing, if you have a finish in sight. The battle scenes look polished (I like how you changed some elements around).

What you need now is some sort of... profile for characters. If we start seeing character profiles-- levels, statistics, descriptions-- then you're really going places. And Makarov might decide to shut you down if you start making it online XP.

I want to contribute. How may I?>

EDIT: NEVERMIND. I downloaded version 0.2, played it, and that map looks great! I really LOVE how you did the cursor!

Thanks you my friend. If you read the description, you would know that the 8-bit map is just a placeholder. You know when you booted up the game, and that random map you saw at the start. Well I wanted the maps too look like that, The GBA maps are a little boring in color, and the SNES maps isn't too bad mixed with the GBA mugs.

I never saw anything in the Forum rules about advertising stuff. And I hope this doesn't count. But if you wan't to help I have a forum of my own that my team uses to discuss this game:
<link removed>
New members to the crew are always welcome.

Excellent.

I'm joining.

No more GBA hacks for me.

Another thing: what do you think of the overworld sprites for the units? Are you planning on using the SNES ones, or the GBA ones? I think the GBA ones look better.

And I'm really excited to see what kind of story you have planned out.

Well, I'm thinking of taking the GBA ones, and just adding more shading to them, instead of them just having 3 shades of one color, maybe adding a few extra shades. The GBA ones are better, and I plan on using them.

This is looking very good so far. I'm liking how unique weapons are handled (and properly).

Unless you've already done it (I'm kind of in a hurry so I can't try version 0.2 yet) or have another idea, the dialogue font could do with some changing.

The font? Well, it took a long time in the first place to get the font in there, and make width values for every letter and digit. Adding new font in would not really be necessary. However, the dialog box and all that in the system will change, that part is not completely done yet.

Now this looks neat....I can't wait to see where this goes.

I think the font looks fine.

The screenshots don't do this thing justice. The fight scene is so much fun to fool around with. If only we could optionally do criticals.

Criticals, I still have to add in. But it will not take long to program that not that everything else is done.
And all the battle calculations are exact. They are taken straight from the game, and are perfectly accurate.

Ooh. I just started playing around with game maker

The only problems I have with the game are things you'll almost definitely polish near the end. Can't wait to see it finished

I'll try this later, for sure. It looks a lot better then the attempts I've seen in the past. Good luck I hope you don't run into any problems. I'd be willing to help, unfortunately I have no programming or gamemaker experience.

Wow... This looks really nice so far. Just a thought but making soilders playable like in fe10 would be Awesome. I have a feeling i will like this game a lot. Btw good luck on making an inventory system. I,ve been using gm for two years and still cant make one.

Thanks alot.
And about the inventory system; about two years ago, in the making of a Final Fantasy fan game, I created a very functional inventory system. I was not nearly as experienced, but i still pulled it off! I guess making a system for this game will be more in depth, but it will not be impossible. In fact, I can picture in my head what to do to make such a thing.

For those of you that are don't want to download, and think this is fake or anything like that for whatever reason I have uploaded a video of the game to youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zD3KfWtQ06A

It seems to be moving a little faster than when I played the demo. I also noticed that the sprites are dodging occasionally. Also, you changed the sprite positions. Is this something I missed in the demo? Or something new?

Also, not to get on your case, but have you added more classes yet?

I must also apologize for my lack of participation. Story-wise, I thought I had a good idea, but then decided otherwise.

I must say, your story idea was amazing, like the very idealistic outline that is it was really good.
Press space in the demo to change their left and right position, it is perfectly symmetrical.
And that is the speed they should be going at, The only way it would be going slower is if you computer doesn't play that game very fast, or plays you tube faster than normal :S

Also I have added a new class, I will show you that with another video that I will upload very soon.

Here is a video of the recently added class.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn-0ABrh5Xg&feature=user

Whenever I press download it takes me to a blank screen. Am I doing something wrong?

Also do you know if you could make an FE game with the lite version

With the lite version?
I would say it would be impossible.

As for the blank screen, the bandwidth must be used up. Ill upload it to this site or another host soon.

What's the lite version?

lite version is just Game Maker for people who don't pay for it.
With the lite version, there are just allot less functions and things you can do with the programming, its quite limited. With registered, there is almost no limitations.
I have registered version.

Wow, looks nice. I like it so far, hope you finish up soon.

I have really touched up on the map engine recently. In the past few days I perfected the view and cursor movement, and now I'm making the whole system for commands on the map. It's all falling together very nicely, I would have never known that there is so many ways to approach how I am to make this work.

That is very exciting to hear. I can't wait to try it out.

Maybe I'll get some inspiration for the story.

BTW, for the game, how are we deciding what mugshots go in and who makes them? They'll be based on the characters, yes. But who makes the mugs pertaining to them?

Well, what I was thinking, is when we get to that point, people who are really good at making mugs and characters will want to help. Once I get more done to this engine, I think people will offer their mugs and characters, I think that would be really awesome, for people to see their characters in an actually game. People could just supply a mug, battle sprite, and the characters biogragraphy and all that and I'll throw it in the game, people would love that. It would really increase the amount of support on this production.

I'm loving the progress being made, I'll upload whats new very soon.

That's to bad, I'll have to upgrade tomorrow, right now there doing something with server. Also do you think you could right a tutorial, I'd really like to make my own FE.

Heh, what you've got here is very delicious. I occasionally see people making FE hacks or making small FE games on Game Maker, but nothing of this caliber. I'd love to be one of those suppliers as well, if just for one or two chars. >:3
If this is going in the direction I think it is... I'd pay money for this. I think that might be illegal though.

Oh, and about advertising, you're allowed to have links in your signature.

Wow this looks awesome! Seriously.

Thanks guys.
As for the tutorial, it would be very time consuming to do so. The time I spend on the computer not playing intense games like Crysis (which I just beat today ) and not talking with friends, is time I spend working on programming this game. I'm not to sure I can write a tutorial for you, but I can easily give tips and help you with your learning.

So who're the character going to be for this? Original or FE fame?

All the characters are going to be custom made. It will not be related to other Fire Emblem games. Making a game of its own would be alot of fun.

Consider it a Fire Emblem 12, Generic Hero Man.

Yep, Thats right

Sounds truly awesome, I can't wait!
BTW I can't do any graphics or programming but if you want help developing characters or backstory or religion or anything else fluffy like that I'd be glad to help.

Generic Hero Man, that would be great, help is always welcome. Sui-Kun is the leader for the story, so if you feel like working with him you can go ahead.

Grant us some characters, my boy. You can never have too many ideas for characters. Don't expect all of them to get in, though. These are just ideas. But chances are at least a handful of them might be awesome.

Don't worry about mugs if you can't do 'em. There are plenty of graphics artists on this site who would be thrilled to contribute.

Righto!
Is there a development thread or do I just PM you/suggest them here, what have we got so far story wise?

Ahaha. I saw this and I was like "Oh! Maybe I should join!" And then I realized it was Jyro's game and I had already been a member for quite some time. I should probably get back to editing those battle sprites, eh?

HEY LONE ARCHER
Ahaha, Generic Hero Man, we have a forum actually that we use to post stuff and discuss about the game:
http://z4.invisionfree.com/FE_GM_Procreation

Lone Archer has been helping out since I made this game public, and he has made a large amount of sprite edits. It made things quicker and helped when I added in the knight class. Thanks Lone Archer.

Hey Jyro.

Do you know where I can find the tilesets that you'll be using for this game? I need to know so I can build the story around them. If there are certain chapters in the story that require certain tilesets that you're not using, I need to know so I can make them.

Any tileset in any Fire Emblem game, thats the limit.
Don't worry about basing the story around what we have, just do whatever you want, whatever will be best.

I have just started the switch between the placeholder 8-bit tileset and the nicer looking ones.

I'm still waiting for the server to get upgraded so I can download the pro version, from the looks of things it may not get done until Wednesday. But anyways do you think you can get it so I or anyone could download it as a game maker file. That would actually be as good as a tutorial, like I could look around at the different settings and stuff.

I most definatrely will not, your asking for me to give you my game, all my hard work, just give it to you.
I can help you when you are stuck, but you should really do it on your own, and if your not skilled enough with programming then don't take such a challenge.

Yea, sorry for asking. I've only had game maker for a short while in which I was making a smash bros. So I don't know a lot right now, also I'm not sure of all the capabilities the pro version has. I was able to download some tactical RPG engine a while back but haven't been able to run it with the lite version, but that would probably help get me started so I might come here with questions in the future... a lot.

Of coarse, any questions, any debugging, you can just ask all you want.

Okay registered and posting on the forum now, expect input!

I'm liking your input GHM
Glad to have you join