Christmas release?

[Chrono'99]

{164} - Skyway leading to Kajar

(I wasn't aware Enhasa was throwing a
costume ball today...){full break}
Wha? Oh, uh, nothing...
Going to Kajar, I presume?{null}

Is this line still going to be in, or has it been replaced by the "Another lovely day, isn't it?" line?

Whoa, I missed this line. I'm definitely adding it.

Good news for the artwork!

[Chrono'99]

Just noting that the hack will probably not be finished by tomorrow... It might be on December 26. Well, I guess if push comes to shove we can release it on December 31.

[FaustWolf]

A complete hack is better than a rushed one, that's for sure. A New Year's gift to the community, perhaps.

[Chrono'99]

Just a post to note that I completed the Cerulean Lake map (I couldn't help experimenting with it myself...). I used this address from the offset guide to replace the bushes with clouds in the Denadoro tilesets:

361C00   361DFF   DATA   N   "Location Tilesets, 8 bytes each, determines which ""packets"" of graphics are used for each location"   2003.11.13

The clouds appear red like the bushes were but I'm going to palette-hack it.

[Chrono'99]

I'm now coding the ending sequence. Here are the scenes that I plan to show (with no text, a yellow color overlay, and credits each time the screen changes):

-Crono's party enters the Throneroom
-The Mystical Knights flee a group of soldiers in a forest
-Alfador meows at the Prophet in the hallway
-Magus attacks Lavos in the Pocket Dimension
-Melchior and Janus are sucked into portals in Algetty
-Zeal is destroyed
-Magus meets Crono's party at North Cape

[ZeaLitY]

Should we add one totally new scene? Something mysterious like Magus's entering a portal...

[Chrono'99]

Yeah, sounds good. Also I think I'll add these somewhere in the sequence:

-The soldiers who run after the Mystical Knights notice a statue of Magus and stops to look at it
-Dalton stares at the sky on the Blackbird wing
-Magus wakes up near Marle and Lucca (both unconscious) after the OP disaster; he picks up Marle's pendant for a few seconds then leaves it back to her and walks away

Perhaps also a shot of Lucca's house at night, with a silhouette of Magus standing in a shadowy corner? or is it too direct?

[ZeaLitY]

It sounds like a decent tie in. We should just be prepared to explain what we mean by it if asked.

[Vehek]

-Magus wakes up near Marle and Lucca (both unconscious) after the OP disaster; he picks up Marle's pendant for a few seconds then leaves it back to her and walks away

Will this contradict the Japanese version? The people in the Japanese version say that the stranger (Magus) washed ashore after the party did.

[Chrono'99]

Good catch. I wanted to show that Magus began to "trust" the party (he could have gone with the pendant instead), but if it contradicts CT, I'm cutting this scene then.

Also, we can't add a scene showing Magus in Lucca's house if we replace the 1000 AD house tilesets with the font for Serge's diary. We could replace a different tileset instead, but maybe having both stuff gives too much presence to Radical Dreamers canon? Which stuff should we keep: the two excerpts from Serge's diary, the Magus-in-Lucca's-house scene, both of them, none?

[ZeaLitY]

We can just use ASCII text for the Magus thing, right? But I thought 1000 A.D. was being replaced with the ending art for some reason.

Canonically, I sort of made it fit with Crimson Echoes by having Alphard touch the Flame and get vaporized (actually scooped up by Lavos as a reserve envoy and because he's the most genetically advanced magic user at that time). Magus can still be in Lucca's house at any time in the future (after Crimson Echoes, after Chrono Cross even), and writing Serge, Radical Dreamers implies that we're just taking something from RD out of context here and using it for our own point.

[Chrono'99]

Oh yeah, I mixed up the two replacements. The ending art is supposed to replace the 1000 A.D. tileset, and the diary lines are supposed to replace the Millenial Fair tileset. I guess we can have the ending art replace the Millenial Fair tileset instead, and the diary lines be made with ASCII.

I'll have the ending sequence coded by tomorrow (well, tomorrow GMT+1), then we can start inserting the graphic hacks and beta-test the game a bit.

[FaustWolf]

I'm not going to do any in-game tests for the ending art 'till tomorrow evening at earliest (still finalizing palettes -- getting better), so no work lost on my part if you decide to use the Milennial Fair tileset instead for the ending art, Chrono'99. Vehek told me earlier where the fair tilesets are, so I'll be good to go either way. I'll be sure to stay away from the telepod tileset due to its shared palette with the Zeal Palace room. I just need to do a quick decompress and make sure we've got enough tiles to work with in the fair tilesets.

[Chrono'99]

Phew. Took longer than expected, but here it is: the almost-final version of the game! Coding the ending went relatively fast, but tweaking the monster stats to achieve a good balance was difficult. I ended up removing all the shops, money, and tech points. See for yourself how it goes, I'm too lazy to explain lol. I guess the main "gimmick" of my tweaks is that 1/ you must exploit each enemy's elemental (or physical) weakness, and 2/ you must use your Tonics and Ethers wisely because you can't buy them.

Note that I moved a few NPCs around to either avoid some visual bugs or better guide the players.

Anyway, anyone knows what's the address for the ASCII text graphics? We need to replace some unusued characters with a comma and some numbers (3, 5, 7, 9).

EDIT: Oh and I wrote the Special Thanks section of the credits like that but it can be changed or expanded. I'm not really used to writing them (this got to be the first completed fanproject I ever participated in).

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Vehek]

At the beginning, it goes to the "Magus unlocks Magic Wall" instead of going to the gate cave and Crono, Marle, Frog remain in the party.
The Cerulean Lake looks really nice!

Is this line still going to be in, or has it been replaced by the "Another lovely day, isn't it?" line?
Edit-I just realized that I thought this line was supposed to be in the land bridge for so long!

After posting that, I realized that the line was supposed to be in a Skyway, not the Land Bridge. Oh well, there's probably little reason for anyone to hang out in a skyway instead of the Zeal islands.