I’ve had a lot of time to brainstorm and less time to sit down and execute than I’d like, but hoping to get the next draft done and do some testing. Artwork’s proceeding a little slower than planned, may wind up using my roughs as placeholders, though frankly I kind of like how the roughs look better after seeing how the “sepia’d†line art sticks out too much against my backdrops. I’ll probably scale the size of the overhaul version’s cast back a little until I’ve tested things a bit, then I’ll go ahead and update the other classes.
Anyone have a chance to download and play yet? I’d love to hear from anyone who’s gotten to play the first edition before “committing†fully to the redesign. I did sort of ‘mock’ test it with the existing cards and it wasn’t too awful even *without* adjusting the cards to the format.
I played a while with a friend last week and it went over well enough that he decided to explore the dungeon a while longer even after collecting the ‘win the game’ item rather than booking it to the exit. Setup was quick, rules soaked in easy, and it was pretty easy to pick the cards back up afterward. The only real drawback I can think of is the dungeon can expand a fair amount and the need for counters. So far I’ve managed to keep things dice-less but I have to wonder after a certain number of accessories are already there, maybe including them to randomize battle a little couldn’t hurt. There’s kind of an annoying tendency for ‘brick walls’ to come up occasionally where the party is unable to damage or be damaged by enemies or opponents, and though the items are meant to be a ‘kicker’ to push you over that threshold, the current item set seems to lead to a lot of getting stuck with gear you can’t use. I think I may wind up trying to come up with less weapon types or something like abstracting swords axes and spears into just ‘blades’ or something.
I’ve been kicking around a shift to a lighter sort of tone since it’s meant to be a fun, pick-up-and-play-sort of thing and honestly the ‘lore’ is more something for me to keep in mind while fleshing out the item lists and such.
I’m still a little divided on whether to name characters or leave them to their classes, which sort of sprung from the notion of having color variants with slight differences to them. I called it “Card Tendency,†and rather than like a hard and fast rule it was meant to be a way for a player to tell at a glance what way their abilities skewed (Blues would be the all-round/average types, Reds would be more offense focused, Green more defensive, and yellow would be “tricky†characters with a gimmick like dealing more damage when wounded or other abstract benefits.)
Posts authored by 3/2
Checking In
I am deeply ashamed to admit I’ve been a bit more active on my Tumblr blog(s) and forgetting to mirror all of my doodles on my main page. Mostly it’s been due to being kind of worn down from my current workload, though admittedly I’ve been a little down in the dumps too and the delays it’s put in my projects put it in kind of a vicious cycle. Been testing and revising Project Irrgarten a bit at a time, running all sorts of “what if” cases through my head to try and pre-emptively address them in the rule booklet. Also took a quick look around at tips for looking at publishers for board/card games, but I don’t think I’m *quite* ready to start wrapping my mind around that yet.
In more fun news, sort of, I’ve been enjoying my time with Fire Emblem Fates, and I’d probably be enjoying it even more if I could stop finding out about new gratuitous name changes and altered content. It’s still fine, as a game, but I’ve grown up with so many oddly/’safely’ localized games over the years that I thought that the industry was getting over the need to do it. I do understand that (for the most part) Nintendo is *the* family company and would probably try to tread lightly in our weirdly/selectively puritanical U-S-of-A, but what gets me are the unnecessary and seemingly random changes of characters’ names, which makes googling for information or pictures of characters really annoying. Was changing “Harold” to “Arthur” necessary? Was it really worth making two characters’ names anagrams of Awakening characters to really drive home how similar they look? Was the Treehouse team paid by the edit or something?
I can understand some names seeing alteration in the localization process- it’s not unusual for names to involve sticking to a theme, or some sort of pun or other wordplay that doesn’t translate exactly gracefully into English. At times, if a game is targeted at younger audiences, like LBX for a recent example, they might just change names into a Western approximation so they’re easier to read or pronounce. I also totally get when something needs changing because the original name carries worse connotations in the expected area (LBX’s penultimate boss was originally called Lucifer, but was changed to Nemesis.) No, it’s the gratuitous stuff. Material changed for change’s sake or because someone on the inside wanted to show off how clever and creative they could be with someone else’s material.
But as I said before, I can’t be too upset with the end result. It’s More Fire Emblem, the online My Castle features are pretty fun to screw around with, and I probably will eventually cave and get most of the DLC maps and junk just to squeeze more play out of it. (The decision to divvy up the game into *three* parts and then put out what is effectively a season pass on a portable RPG is aggravating in itself, but I’m trying to do the “close on a high note” thing here…) If anyone wants to hit up my castles, by the way:
Ft. Eishi(Nohr Version)- 17208-54903-00989-08719
Ft. Eishi(Hoshido Version)- 17208-54903-00989-08713
While I’m at it, my Nintendo ID is ThreeTwo and friend code 2766-8411-9034.
3/2 Day LIVE Drawin’ Thing
Head on over to my Picarto to hang out and chat while I try to get myself back on track with the Irrgarten stuff after letting myself get derailed a bit. I’ll have my mic going, so be sure to turn your sound on!
Ruvinagald VICE
Belated Secret Santa for imsopopfly on tumblr. Got picked to cover a pinch hit for the contest, which looks to be running into March again this year. The prompt was for Wizer Freon to get a spin-off where he solves minor crimes with cameos by other characters, and since he’s such a goofball I gave it an 80’s cop show vibe.
New Battle System Overview
So, I’m thinking of redoing the battle system with the marching order mechanic I was kicking around, which will also let me give weapon types more distinct properties because I just dig the idea of there being fringe benefits to them beyond an attack boost. This’ll also mean changing monster encounters a bit to accommodate a party with multiple chances to hit per turn, but I was going to be re-doing most of them next update anyway, so it’s probably not a huge amount of extra work. So anyway, let’s have a look at the old combat system against the new…
Original rules have the party designate a leader through whom all ‘direct’ actions are considered to be running through, and three Support characters who supply passive boosts to the current leader’s Attack and Defense ratings while also offering other benefits via Support Skills, like follow up attacks or healing. This was intended to keep play fast and streamlined, and ideally work like a risk/reward mechanic- when in the exploration phase of the game keeping your thief at the front can save you triggering a trapped room, but leave you at a disadvantage if you walk into a fight. In practice, though, it’s pretty restrictive feeling since space limitations on the card basically lead to a current party only being able to do one thing, and the constant buffs on the leader offset the weaknesses of some of the less beefy characters so much the ‘feel’ was kind of lost. So, here’s the alternative I’ve cooked up-
Keeping the four-person parties (because JRPG homage lawl), formations are now based around a “marching order” where characters receive defensive bonuses and skills may behave differently depending on their location in the party line. Basically, the lead character acts with their normal stats and the further back you go, the other members receive a -1 Attack and +1 Defense, unless they happen to be a class optimized to fight at a distance like a caster or archer. Each character will have their own action per turn, and all characters are valid targets for attack, but naturally the farther-back characters will be more difficult to touch.
Where the fun part comes in is how this affects attacks and other effects. Attacks will now have a Range value for how ‘deep’ they can hit into an enemy formation in addition to weapon cards being formally ‘split’ into their Power (potency) and Effect, which can get more abstract. For instance, an Armor Splitter Axe might have a Range of 1, Power of 3 and Effect that ignores equipped armor bonuses. Other possibilities include splash damage, knockback, and other effects to make fights more exciting. This could also allow for some more nuanced traps and encounters.
Hopefully soon I can toss together a testable edition with the new battle system for you guys to try out. Stay tuned!