fangame Verdant Tales: Symphonic Horizon

[Dylanrockin]

Well, I finally decided on what I'm going to do for the future of my game. I am going to continue my work, but, it will be much slower than usual, do to me lacking any kind of inspiration at the moment, but I will try as hard as I can to get something out, in time. When that will be, might be around the beginning of Summer (last time I said that it's still wasn't out). And I've been giving some thought to an "Episodic" release for my game, even though I hate using that term, as well as even thinking of my game like that, since its narrative isn't geared towards being episodic. Instead of me calling it "Episode (#)" I am going to go by Tales Tradition, at least with the ones on the PS1 and Gamecube, by using the term "Disk 1, Disk 2, etc." So, as it stands, I am considering doing that way, but at the same time not; so, I'm 50/50 on it at the moment.

Along with that, I've gained some assistance from a friend of mine to help with some miscellaneous things in regards to my game. And, new sprites for the characters, and new character animations will be made to accommodate the supposed "Disk 1."

Edited February 24, 2016 by Dylanrockin

[Masquerain]

I hope by new sprites, you mean sprites of costumes and/or sprites for chars that were missing sprites, because the existing sprites you had were already perfectly fine. Anyways, call it what you will, the name is irrelevant, the important thing is for you to lessen the load on yourself by focusing on the immediate events of your game that will follow your Disk 1

[Dylanrockin]

I hope by new sprites, you mean sprites of costumes and/or sprites for chars that were missing sprites, because the existing sprites you had were already perfectly fine. Anyways, call it what you will, the name is irrelevant, the important thing is for you to lessen the load on yourself by focusing on the immediate events of your game that will follow your Disk 1

Yes, that is what I meant by new sprites. I am planning on making some additions to the characters sprites, to allow for animations, rather than just doing a move route, and making them turn left or right or whatever. And again, I just don't like the use of the word "episodic" because it is very misleading to what my game actually is. And if I'm going to be honest, I'd rather be authentic about my game, rather than using some terminology which, for all intents and purposes, is incorrect towards what the game actually is thematically. But it is indeed irrelevant.

That said, I'm nearly done with what is to be expected in the upcoming beta, so, buckle your pants, because you're going to be in for a lot more than before!

Edited February 24, 2016 by Dylanrockin

[Dylanrockin]

So, I've made some adjustments to the Battle System, and I managed to create my own, unique field effect. First off is the new changes to the battle system, and I am going to coin this system in particular as: The Multi-Variable Trainer Battle System, which is a heavily modified version of the V15.1 Essentials Battle System, as well as a modified version of EBS. That said, it works pretty much as you would expect from EBS and V15.1, aside from the new mechanics that this system introduces.

Unlike the Variable Trainer System that I also created, which allows for the use of multiple characters, as you already know; as well as giving Overworld functions to those specific characters. The Multi-Variable Trainer Battle System or "MVTBS" for short allows for character specific in-battle abilities based on specific parameters and certain character's abilities. For instance:

If you play as Vivian, and you enter a battle, all of her Pokemon will gain a 30% increase to their speed, out of the gate... errr.. ball in this case. Also, including other aspects of her character abilities will be able to synergize with that 30% increase. Another example will be Krista Harper's unique ability which allows for her Pokemon to never be able to have Status Effects inflicted upon her Pokemon. Couple with that a character ability that she unlocks later on, which allows for in-battle regeneration with her Pokemon, allows for some unique combinations to be created.

That said, I created a field effect that basically imparts the "Doom" effect that you would see in traditional JRPG's. Basically, at the start of the fight, only you, the player, are effected by it. What it essentially does is give you a 5 turn countdown before your current Pokemon faints, and whenever you knock out the opponent, or the opponent knocks out you, the timer resets. If the time hits 0, then it resets back to 5, and it goes back from there. Also, the use of Reviving items is not allowed. And this is only used during one specific super boss fight.

With the new battle system, there will be some balancing that is currently in the works. I will show off some footage of the new Battle System and it's effects in about a week or so, once I'm finished programming all the character abilities.

Once Krista gains access to her dormant powers, every turn, your Pokemon will recover 1/16th of their health.

If Misty Terrain is active on the battlefield Krista's powers will resonate in response, and you will gain 1/8th of your HP back.

Edited February 25, 2016 by Dylanrockin

[Masquerain]

All I can say is that for such effects, you best really balance things out in general, because the entire Krista effect looks OP as hell to me and I'd imagine only having trouble with anything ever in hard or mania modes. I'm sure you're aware of all that already anyway, but yeah, there always needs to be really good balance when making fields

[Dylanrockin]

All I can say is that for such effects, you best really balance things out in general, because the entire Krista effect looks OP as hell to me and I'd imagine only having trouble with anything ever in hard or mania modes. I'm sure you're aware of all that already anyway, but yeah, there always needs to be really good balance when making fields

I think what also needs to be considered is that: Krista doesn't start out that way, she obtains it at a later point, and the increased healing effect is only possible if Misty Terrain is used. Which, in itself is situational, since not many Pokemon use it, and half the time, people normally never use it anyways. Besides, it's effects like that, which makes using different characters that much more engaging. Besides what's 1/16th of your HP anyways But trust me, I've been trying to balance this stuff as much as I can; I mainly start with how broken I can make it, to how balanced I can make it, mainly just to get a feel for how it works.

But, I did change the whole Pokemon cannot get status effects so long as your playing as Krista, to basically where you have a 25% chance at the end of each turn to heal from that status ailment. So, it's basically like a constant, less effective, shed skin that is prevalent only to Krista after she unlocks her potential.

At the moment, here are the character abilities that are programmed in, for the new battle system. This doesn't take into account Overworld abilities:

• Mach Dash - Increases Pokemon Speed by 20% if playing as Vivian.
• Currently think of a name for this one - Increases the Speed of Krista's Pokemon by 20% if partnered with Vivian in a Double Wild Battle.
• Family Bond - Increases Defense for the player's Pokemon by 20%, if Hiro is partnered with Allan in a Double Wild Battle.
• Brave Heart - Multiplies damage by 10% if playing as Vice, after unlocking Verdant Transformation.
• Verdant Wind - Has a 25% to heal any status affliction to the current Pokemon if playing as Krista, after she unlocks her potential.
• Regeneration - Recovers 1/16th of your HP at the end of every turn, if playing as Krista, after potential unlocked. Can be synergized with Misty Terrain to increase the recovery by 1/8th of your HP.

Edited February 25, 2016 by Dylanrockin

[Masquerain]

Well, that's a good approach. Break it before you fix it , hue. Maybe you can name the 2nd thing Serene Gale or someffin

[Phi-Bi]

I like this game. I have been watching you since Pokecommunity. I hope you finish this game as its unique aspect looks really promising. Good you're planning to release Disk 1. It may not suit you well but getting feedback is really motivating. As for the trainer abilities, i love that idea. I hope other character other than the protagonist get that too or even ordinary trainer has different ability for their respective trainer class but that would be so much work but hey it's what makes your game more awesome, I guess. Anyway, good luck with your project! HYPEEE!!

[Dylanrockin]

Well, that's a good approach. Break it before you fix it , hue. Maybe you can name the 2nd thing Serene Gale or someffin

Serene Gale sounds pretty cool, and it makes a lot of sense given the unique aspects of both those characters. I'm wondering if the character abilities should use the Black and White ability appearing message, or not. I'm thinking not, because it would be really annoying for some of the abilities to keep showing up, alongside the normal Pokemon abilities XD And yeah, I try breaking the abilities as much as I can, mainly to get a feel for how they work alongside other things in the game.

I like this game. I have been watching you since Pokecommunity. I hope you finish this game as its unique aspect looks really promising. Good you're planning to release Disk 1. It may not suit you well but getting feedback is really motivating. As for the trainer abilities, i love that idea. I hope other character other than the protagonist get that too or even ordinary trainer has different ability for their respective trainer class but that would be so much work but hey it's what makes your game more awesome, I guess. Anyway, good luck with your project! HYPEEE!!

Pokecommunity, huh? That's a place that I sure am glad that I don't go to anymore XD Well the thing is, is that the main characters have abilities because throughout the story they gain unique powers; or were just innately born with them. So, it wouldn't make much sense for random Trainers to have abilities, tbh; plus programming opposing Trainer abilities is quite hard.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Dylanrockin

[Pandalex12]

Btw, did you remove one of the skit videos from Youtube? I seem to vaguely recall one being there :S

If not then maybe my memories are just bad.

Edit: Thank you for the skit :3

Edited February 26, 2016 by Pandalex12

[Dylanrockin]

Btw, did you remove one of the skit videos from Youtube? I seem to vaguely recall one being there :S

If not then maybe my memories are just bad.

I must've deleted it on accident, and didn't realize. Was deleting old stuff. But, it's now uploaded, but beware, it does have spoilers in regards to shipping. So, if you don't care about being spoiled by a characters ship with another, then feel free to watch it

[Masquerain]

See you have all sorts of people lurking around silently and hoping to see your game

[Dylanrockin]

See you have all sorts of people lurking around silently and hoping to see your game

Well, I never said that people didn't care about my game XD

Also to those of you who aren't Masquerain, because I already told her this:

The Difficulty modes have now been beefed up to be more of a challenge in that: If you play on Normal Mode, the amount of EXP you gain is normal, there are no changes there. However, if you play on Hard or Mania, there are some major differences to the amount of EXP gained from defeating a Pokemon.

From my testing of what I've done against 3 level 25 Audino's, one for each difficulty, this is what I got while using a level 88 Pokemon:

100% exp = no change, it's normal EXP gained.

Audino (Lv. 25) 168 exp Normal - 100% no change or 100/100

Audino (Lv. 25) 120 exp Hard - 71% or 71/100

Audino (Lv. 25) 84 exp Mania - 50% or 1/2

As you can see, there is quite the stark contrast in the amount of EXP gained there. Albeit, I was extremely high leveled, so the amount gained is almost nothing anyways. That said, if you want more of a challenge out of the game, then the choice in difficulty will now dictate how much EXP you gain is. So, for Mania Mode you gain half of what you would normally get from a Pokemon, which is... quite a lot of EXP.

[Edea]

Well, I never said that people didn't care about my game XD

Also to those of you who aren't Masquerain, because I already told her this:

The Difficulty modes have now been beefed up to be more of a challenge in that: If you play on Normal Mode, the amount of EXP you gain is normal, there are no changes there. However, if you play on Hard or Mania, there are some major differences to the amount of EXP gained from defeating a Pokemon.

From my testing of what I've done against 3 level 25 Audino's, one for each difficulty, this is what I got while using a level 88 Pokemon:

100% exp = no change, it's normal EXP gained.

Audino (Lv. 25) 168 exp Normal - 100% no change or 100/100

Audino (Lv. 25) 120 exp Hard - 71% or 71/100

Audino (Lv. 25) 84 exp Mania - 50% or 1/2

As you can see, there is quite the stark contrast in the amount of EXP gained there. Albeit, I was extremely high leveled, so the amount gained is almost nothing anyways. That said, if you want more of a challenge out of the game, then the choice in difficulty will now dictate how much EXP you gain is. So, for Mania Mode you gain half of what you would normally get from a Pokemon, which is... quite a lot of EXP.

The only advice I can personally give to you right now is this:

Try not to make this game a grind-fest on Mania/Hard. I read in one of your posts that in those difficulties, the level of enemy's pokemon will go up by quite a bit... with also halfing the exp gained. Isn't it a bit too much?

[Dylanrockin]

The only advice I can personally give to you right now is this:

Try not to make this game a grind-fest on Mania/Hard. I read in one of your posts that in those difficulties, the level of enemy's pokemon will go up by quite a bit... with also halfing the exp gained. Isn't it a bit too much?

Perhaps so, but then again, if you're playing on Mania, then enemies will be harder, higher leveled, and will thus yield more EXP because of it, so it nearly balances out. But, what I can do is make it 75% and have it exclusive to Mania, rather than Hard mode having an EXP decrease. Besides, if you don't want to play on Mania, you can always change the difficulty on a whim, so if you wanna make the game harder for yourself, that's your choice

But, if I were to reward the player with more EXP based on difficulty, then that would be a problem as well, because people will say that Mania is too easy; there's no in-between. It's either less EXP and be more reliant on strategy and skill, or more exp, and make the game an eye-roll. So, for the time being Mania will give you 75% EXP, and Hard mode has no change.

Edited February 26, 2016 by Dylanrockin

[Dylanrockin]

So, I've been working on some... neat little bits of programming, and what I've created, from within the past 3 days, is several new character abilities that tie into the new battle mechanics, alongside the pseud-field effects system. One of these character abilities belongs to Hiro Monochroma, and is her "Time Stop" ability. So far, I've been burning the candle at both ends to change a lot of the aspects of the current Battle System with EBS to get a lot of these things to work right; so, without further ado, here is Time Stop (gif form)

How Time Stop functions is based on one of two things: First off, you must be the first to attack, and when you do attack, there is a 20% chance of triggering Time Stop, which basically makes the opponent not attack next turn. Secondly, you must play as Hiro, obviously.

That's not the only character ability which I've programmed in the past few days, no, I've made quite a few more, and they're... quite interesting. One of which is Time Control, which has outside of battle properties, and in-battle properties. In battle, it functions similarly to Time Stop, except that at the end of a turn while playing as Hiro, there is a 10% chance for a roulette effect to come into play. I haven't programmed the animation as part of the attack yet, but basically, the clock that you see above will appear in the center of the field, and will land one of 4 numerals on the clock: 12, 3, 6 or 9. Depending on the numeral that it lands on, will determine what kind of effect happens to the opponent. At the moment, I have the ability programmed, but I'm right now working on the animation, so no gif today kids!

[Masquerain]

The animation looks neat for that one

[Dylanrockin]

Now, I've been working my but off for the past 2 weeks doing non-stop programming for my game, and even managed to change a lot of aspects to the battle system; including EBS. This is called the Multi-Variable Trainer Battle System, and is exclusive to my game. It essentially allows for not just the Pokemon to take action in battle, but also the Trainers. Through passive and active abilities, certain effects can happen. Passive abilities are ones like Brave Heart, or ones that give a boost to one of your stats while playing as them. Active Abilities are the ones that are activated by random chance, like Adept, Time Stop, and Verdant Wind.

I am still making changes to these abilities, and am working on making several new alterations to the battle system to make some of the newer abilities more inclusive.

As for field effects, I've created several new field effects that synergize with the Trainers passive and active abilities, as well as strengthening their effects on the Pokemon. I've also added new programming functions to already existing field effects to give them new effects on the tide of battle. There have been some field effects that even negate the characters current abilities, as well.

Edited February 28, 2016 by Dylanrockin

[Pandalex12]

Just a trivial question but...

Are the natures and IVs of the character's partner pokemon (i.e eevee) predetermined or random?

[Dylanrockin]

Just a trivial question but...

Are the natures and IVs of the character's partner pokemon (i.e eevee) predetermined or random?

They're predetermined, just like their gender and everything. All the stats of their Partner Pokemon are set in stone, and cannot be changed.

[Masquerain]

They're comin together nicely ..and indeed, Marissa's adept isn't as op as it seems in theory

[Dylanrockin]

They're comin together nicely ..and indeed, Marissa's adept isn't as op as it seems in theory

Indeed, I told you so

Welp, update for like the first time in a few days. I've been pretty busy at work with my game, as well as managing student loans, because... you know that's fun when you have your loan issuers constantly spamming your phone with calls :L But, yeah, I've been working on a lot of the main story events for the game, and the progress thus far has gone pretty well. Minus being distracted from playing other games in my free time, because... boredom XD

Disk 1 will be going up to an undisclosed area of the game, and that point in the game is approximately... 20 - 30 hoursish in, and will end at the point where you gain access to Verdant Transformation; among other things.

Things that have been changed:

• Opening Scene Revamped.
• Edited dialogue, and old scenes were added or changed to be more in-line with latter parts of the game's dialogue.
• Fixed several plot holes, and unexplained things that were mentioned by characters in several scenes.
• 20 new skits were added.
• Time Stop not only freezes the opponent for the turn that you attacked, but now it also stops them for the following turn afterwards. Percentage of the ability triggering is now 10%
• Time Control now has a dynamic animation that is determined by a random value, for which determines which numeral of the clock the long hand will land on.
• New scenes were added in, to help give more foreshadowing to characters that are to appear later on.

[Masquerain]

Are you sure about that Time stop change? I mean in almost any case, a free 3x hit means 10% of a guaranteed KO

[Dylanrockin]

Are you sure about that Time stop change? I mean in almost any case, a free 3x hit means 10% of a guaranteed KO

Perhaps, but I wanted to make it different, because it feels too much like Flinch, so, I can either stop them for the turn that I attacked, or I can make it so that way next turn they cannot attack.

[Masquerain]

Perhaps, but I wanted to make it different, because it feels too much like Flinch, so, I can either stop them for the turn that I attacked, or I can make it so that way next turn they cannot attack.

if you want it to be different, you can give it a 10% chance to freeze after the timestop.. As in... Hit-> time stop-> free hit but a 10% chance that opponent will freeze before that free hit

tho thats just as op...oh well

Edited March 3, 2016 by Masquerain