Re: Angel of Acheron

by **Sparky** Tue Mar 15, 2011 4:52 pm

The ranger loses a bet that he can snipe an apple off the NPC's head. The Ice Claw has a good place to hide till the heat dies down, and Senkakku has good defense attorneys.

Alternatively, that could be the thing I'd mentioned where there's the big threat of Culex's gang in one direction and the small but still unigonrable threat of the cult in the other direction.

by **Oblivion** Tue Mar 15, 2011 5:10 pm

Sparky wrote:The ranger loses a bet that he can snipe an apple off the NPC's head. The Ice Claw has a good place to hide till the heat dies down, and Senkakku has good defense attorneys.

Sparky wrote:Alternatively, that could be the thing I'd mentioned where there's the big threat of Culex's gang in one direction and the small but still unigonrable threat of the cult in the other direction.

That's what I was thinking as well. I figure the Servitors would be the ones out in Senkakku - their planar reach lets them get places the Cult couldn't, and thus the latter hasn't infiltrated the closed-doors, xenophobic nature of the islands yet. So a group (I'm going to say #1, #2, and maybe Kilroy) heads to Senkakku to deal with the Servitors there and recruit Hishari, while the rest (Iolanthe and #4 - she still doesn't trust him out of her sight maybe? - and Kilroy if he doesn't go with the other group) remain on the mainland and head up to the Ice Claw where the satyr joins.

by **Sparky** Tue Mar 15, 2011 6:12 pm

I was actually thinking you break it up this way, assuming most people play things like I do and favor a party and leave the rest to rot and never level.

Favored party: Actual threat, take a less dangerous form of transportation -- much fewer encounters, higher level enemies

Meh party: Cult, more risky form of transportation -- many more encounters, lower level enemies

So the Meh Team will get a decent chunk of XP with lower risk of total party wipeout and a chance to catch up.

by **Oblivion** Tue Mar 15, 2011 6:13 pm

Main problem I have with that is that if you let the player choose the party when it splits, dialogue becomes impossible to write :P Since you don't know who you'll have and who you won't. Hence, I avoid it like the plague - if the party divides, it divides into set groups.

by **Sparky** Tue Mar 15, 2011 6:15 pm

Fair enough.

by **Oblivion** Tue Mar 15, 2011 9:25 pm

Spoiler:

by **Oblivion** Tue Mar 15, 2011 10:06 pm

More pictures.

Char #1?

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Possible idea - animal companion for Char #1 (needs name)

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Char #2

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Iolanthe's fox familiar (needs name)

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by **Oblivion** Wed Mar 16, 2011 12:34 pm

Moar music

The Abominable (Wolf-And-Raven's Theme): Theme/Battle

The Necromancer's Cloak (Theme of the Burning Cult)

Veran's Theme

Cazok (Sort of an insanity theme, maybe associated with the Dark Plea's spawn, or perhaps Zoltan the Warlock)

RAGNAROK (some late-game scene of awesomeness. I just like the song :) )

Timid Girl (Possible PC theme - the moogle or the naga, I was thinking. Iolanthe is many things but timid is not one of them. ;) )

Blood Red Hurricane (Possible PC theme. Otherwise an area theme.)

Escape the Castle! (Fleeing/Escape/Chase Theme)

Capitol (BGM for the city of Olympia, and by extension theme of the kingdom.)

Evil Victorious (a late-game area theme on Vanda or Acheron, likely)

Valas Castle (World BGM for Vanda.)

The Aftershock:
Version 1
Version 2
Version 3
Version 4
The Sequel: The Final/The Speed of Light
(I really like this song, and didn't know about version 2-4 until today. Has a very "Chase the Badguy!" vibe to it, as opposed to "Escape the Castle!" which is more "We're being chased/something's happening, run away!")

Danger in the Town (Another "oh no bad things are happening" tune. Possibly associated with the Servitors, since we already have a theme for the Cult, but not .... "weird" or "alien" enough I think. Need something more like Culex's theme below, IMO.)

The Unforgivable (Late-game event theme?)

Heroic Confrontation (Merody's theme. Plays once - in the massive scene of PC Party vs HORDES OF ZOMBIES, Sentinels [Graine, Dakkon, Zeike, Veran] vs. Even More Undead, and Merody+Veran+Iolanthe vs. Alzir)

Silent Guardian (Possible PC theme.)

Splitting Edge of Emotion (I have no idea what to use it for but I like it.)

Hivemind (An area theme for Acheron.)

Voyage of the Four Friends (Possible PC theme. Otherwise just a good heroic song.)

Heroic (Endgame song. The returning victorious heroes after the Final Battle.)

An Invulnerable Enemy (There is one invincible enemy in the game - Lich Alzir, a sidequest boss at the endgame. The beginning of the battle is him being indestructible and you having to survive until Gilgamesh shows up. Might use this for that battle, until that point at which it changes to Gilgy's theme.)

The Forgotten Plains / The Valley (a couple of soft, quiet area BGM themes)

Distant (A sort of menacing theme. Probably a BGM or event song for Vanda or Acheron.)

Shadow of Malevolence (A really nice, dark theme. Running out of things to use battle songs on though, since I have the necessary Battle/Boss/Unusual Battle/Special Boss songs already picked and it's not suitable for FINAL BOSS.)

Boneshackle Basin: Version 1/Version 2 (Another area theme.)

Forces United! (More heroic stuff! Dunno what for.)

The Land of the Forgotten/The Land of Nowhere (More Area music. Wasteland-ish.)

Searching in the Wastelands (See above.)

C'thalas (The name makes it NEED to have something to do with the Dark Plea. Too Lovecraftian to pass up.)

Airship Theme!:
FF5 Style
FF6 Style
FF7 Style
(Reone has a TON of songs. I haven't listened to them all yet, but can probably make use of a lot of them for the more generic stuff - area BGM, etc.)

The Second to Last Boss (NOT what it will be used for. BGM/theme of an Illusionist and the area they trap the party in late in the game.)

And last but not least....

Culex's Theme

Battle versus Culex (No I did not keep the FF4 Boss song they used for him in SMRPG :P)

Possible Final Battle Theme

by **Oblivion** Thu Mar 17, 2011 11:25 pm

More pictures!

Phantasma:

Ifrit

Spoiler:

Shiva

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Ramuh

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Kirin

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Sylph

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Seraph

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Carbuncle

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Phoenix

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Ixilichtra

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Alexander

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Leviathan

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Ragnarok

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Bahamut

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Todash

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Also, a late game image of Wolf-And-Raven:

Spoiler:

by **Oblivion** Wed Mar 30, 2011 12:05 am

So yeah, no I haven't forgotten about this, and I managed to keep most of my free-roaming thoughts on this rather than Forumstuck while at my first day of work. Wonder of wonders eh?

Spoiler:

by **Oblivion** Thu Apr 14, 2011 9:23 pm

I did it again. Managed to spend a day daydreaming about something other than Forumstuck (mostly). Two weeks between huh? :P Would probably help if I had less Homestuck music/fan music on my MP3 player and more FF stuff, but that gets monotonous more quickly. ;)

Spoiler:

by **Oblivion** Thu Apr 21, 2011 11:02 pm

Hey look I drew something that wasn't Forumstuck related. Shock and awe.

Angel of Acheron - Page 2 Iolanthe1

Sketch of Iolanthe.

by **Oblivion** Thu Apr 21, 2011 11:29 pm

And another. The Informant, complete with scary shiny glasses of opaqueness. I could not get her right arm to look right for the life of me.

by **Oblivion** Fri Apr 22, 2011 12:44 am

Decided (for no reason other than because it amuses me) that most controllable characters (all except the first two, The Informant, Wolf, and Culex) will be introduced by a MSPA-style nickname that happens to have the same initials as they do. "Controllable" or "playable character" in this context meaning the same thing it does in MPSA, a person the reader can "give commands" to.

The list thus far is as follows:

Spoiler:

Will of course be expanded if/when new playable characters are added.

by **Sparky** Fri Apr 22, 2011 9:37 am

Character 1: Oliver Prefect/Obvious Protagonist =P

by **Oblivion** Sat Apr 23, 2011 1:51 am

If only because Oliver isn't a very elven name. ;)

by **Oblivion** Sat Apr 23, 2011 10:56 am

I am posting this here more for posterity than anything. Spoilered for the sake of your eyes.

Spoiler:

My idea was to take the pics I took with my camera into GIMP and line-draw over them with a mouse as best I could. I learned a few things from this attempt. One, that you should use the smallest brush possible - I used the second-smallest and this probably would have looked a lot better if I hadn't.

Two, use the highest zoom possible. 200x doesn't cut it. 800 is better.

Three, the bucket is not your friend. Fill color by hand with the pencil/paintbrush.

by **MessiahForHire** Sat Apr 23, 2011 11:25 am

Better yet: work in layers! :D

by **Oblivion** Sat Apr 23, 2011 10:34 pm

It actually was in a layer above the base drawing, hence how the basic outline is the same and there are no notebook lines; I'm still getting the hang of layers beyond that. Suggestions? :)

I'm debating doing more of the Homestuck style, without the lighter/darker outline shades and just use the primary colors for borders, using alternate shades (or black lines) for details only as necessary. (Separating chin from neck, layers/locks of hair, etc.). Will try that next and see if I prefer that look.

by **Oblivion** Wed Jul 20, 2011 8:12 pm

So... as I've been pondering about this project more over the past few days, working out some of the story kinks and trying to direct the idea away from the FF-fangame that it started out as.

One thing I decided was that Witches would be tied to the Fey as the source of their powers and abilities, and in addition to doing magic and some of the other special abilities she has, in place of Summoning Iolanthe would be able to make pacts with certain Fey to work with her by manifesting through her familiar. Mechanically, it produces the same effect; just the source and the method is different. That said, now that I'm not tied to the FF mythos, I can be a bit more original with the creatures she makes pacts with.

So, any suggestions of not-too-overused creatures that could serve as her "summon" replacements? I'd like to stray away from the commonly-used monsters like 90% of your D&D critters, but some suggestions would be helpful. :)

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