Has any one tried making a FFT style game with out modding, I know I have.

[TheSenpaiCode]

Hello everyone,

It's been a while since I last posted. I couldn't remember my password and was getting an error when I tried to reset it so I made this new account for now. My old account was Blitzstorm and in the past I posted that I was looking to hire sprite creators http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?topic=11285.msg215588#msg215588

I thought I would update you all on how the project was going. First I would like to say a little bit about myself and what I was hoping to accomplish with the project and where it stands now.

I'm 30 years old and have been in the video game design and development industry for just over a decade. In my spare time I love learning and experimenting with projects inside different game engines. I'm also a huge Final Fantasy fan and love the series, especially Final Fantasy Tactics.

A couple years ago I had some spare time so I started with an idea to create a project and get it as similar to Final Fantasy Tactics as possible. I wanted to create all the coding my self and create my own system from the ground up with out hacking Final Fantasy tactics.
I'm talking about making everything from scratch, the coding (scripts), the camera movement, the sprites, the maps, the animations, The grid movement, the GUI, the music, I'm talking everything from scratch.

I'm not sure if anyone here has tried to do this before but it's not an easy task.
I did have some money in my pocket to contract people from the forums to help with some sprites, models and music. Some people even volunteered to do music and some concept art for this project, which I'm grateful for.

Before I say where the project currently stands I would like to show you all some clips and pictures from the project.

I started by creating a concept, a back story for the game with different classes. I then penciled many levels and concepts of the world I imagined onto paper. Once I had enough of the concept for the world down I then brought the drawings to a concept artist to tidy them up.





From concept they were modeled either by myself or a 3D modeler I had hired to help with the work load.



I began coding everything together and creating the world in 3D space. Adding the models we created I started getting more of a feel on how to piece everything together.

The project has a grid based movement system similar to FFT which I built from the ground up.



The project also has a similar game flow for the players actions.



I also built a camera to rotate, tilt and zoom. (This is a year old video, the camera has been upgraded).

Followed by the sprites which were created then animated.

To polish the game up I added a GUI. Then to help breath even more life into the game and give more emotion I added music and some sound effects.


I know everything isn't perfect and the game still has a long way to go. Which brings me to where does the project stand now.
Well I actually want to bring this game to life. To do this and avoid copyright issues I'm simply going to switch the 2D sprites over to 3D models.
I know some people may be concerned about the look but if I go for something like the image's down below and then do the same hand painted textures that we've been doing for the level's, it would turn out good and the texture's would blend together nicely.
I would have to change the dialogue face's and a little bit on the GUI. But the game engine with everything is there. All I would need to do is switch things out, which only takes a few seconds to that.





I was also thinking of changing the camera to face square instead of the corners, not sure about this yet.

So what are everyone's opinions and thought's on continuing this project with these changes or on what I've done so far?


Here are a few other images from the project.

[trisdank]

Looks cool as heck. A few questions:

1. Will this be easily moddable (if at all)? It looks like it has a lot of room to build one's own ideas without having to negotiate with the limited space of a PSX rom, or jumping through a bunch of hoops to get everything to work properly.

2. The desert map you've shown is massive. Does this mean we can expect far more soldiers on the map? This is a very exciting thing to imagine.

3. How much of the story have you figured out?

And some feedback:

Your completed map looks very clean. So much so that the thought of seeing more has me pretty giddy. Imagining a significant number of units as I mentioned earlier makes me wonder at how something like a big castle battle would work, or just some sort of frontline clash. The roadside river map concept looks pretty cool also.

The classes are interesting, though in a game with this scale I think a few more wouldn't hurt. Take that with a grain of salt, though; I'm not much good at balancing gameplay myself.

The 3D character model business is certainly a concern, but not really a bad one. In my own opinion, they'd look great as long as you kept with the art style you've created thus far (though 3D sprites might fit better than models). A more modern take on FFT portraits would fit fantastically, I think. A UI similar to the one in the Tactics Ogre: LUCT remake with a more ye olde-ish flavour would fit very well with what you've made, or so I believe.

As for the camera angles, corners please at least this eye far more than a straight up square view. It might be worth it to make the maps rotate at 45 degrees per turn so that the player can decide which perspective they prefer to play at.

That all is just what I think, anyway! Either way, this looks super promising and exciting. I'm looking forward to playing it one day!

[TheSenpaiCode]

Hello trisdank,

The desert map is one of the bigger maps in the game as the map does play a part in the story line. I have a cattle rib cage model that I will be adding to the scene to add more depth into the desert theme. As for Units, It'll be five hero units verse roughly seven enemy units when battling on the map.

I almost have all of the story line figured out. The story line is pretty unique as it will change depending on the players decision's so there are alternative stories. I may add or change things but as it stands I have 60 chapters in the story line with 30 Alternative stories and 28+ Experation missions.
There will also be a day and night system. Battle at night for different monsters. Also a weather system which will rain during battles or change some maps to the season on the year (adding snowing and snow covered plains.

I based the character classes a bit from final fantasy but also from dungeons and dragons. I was thinking of adding a four or five more classes but that depends on what I can finish with what I'm currently working on.
An idea I was thinking of was a "Demon" class for another monster class.
Some monsters will have an element type to them (4 element types in the game) and can be countered with that element types weakness for a bit more damage.
I have a list of over 120 monsters that I want to add to the game (not including human characters).

Yeah I'll keep the corner camera angle. I prefer it.

I think as long as the 3D models are hand painted like we do with the terrain, then it should look and blend nicely.

I really like the Tactics Ogre UI style and may switch to something similar especially with the dialogue boxes. I had an idea with the UI that would be similar but look different and make this game it's own game rather then a clone.

I feel if I change to 3D models and switch the UI to the style I imagine then the game will stay the same but be it's own (if you know what I mean).

I want to also keep the game simple as possible. Which so far I have. I think people can easily get into the game if it's simple. That way people can also enjoy the story and explore, choose their path and bend the game to the player's unique play style.

A local dealer that sells world wide for "Android" seen the work that I've done so far and wanted to fly me to Calgary so I could meet with some investors that would sponsor the whole game but he wanted to make it an exclusive for Android devices like the Android box, phone, tablets etc. I didn't want to limit the fan base by limiting it to just Android devices though.

[TheSenpaiCode]

Hello again everyone.

I'm here to give another update to some progress on the game.

But first I would like to say I haven't done too much with this project as I've been spending most of my time in the hospital or in bed. The past week I spent 3 hours each day in the hospital and my health has not been well. I am a lot better now and thanks to all the drugs that are now being pumped through my veins I feel happy and relaxed Lol.

So what have I done with the game? I've created a directional indicator system for the characters (as seen below).

I've almost finished the camera to 100%. Just need to add the sound effects to the camera.

I've also messed around with different ways to do a path system. I tried different pathfinders through nodes and mesh to better understand what I could accomplish and what would be possible. The end result was simply to keep it the same that I've had it all along.
I now have a better understanding on the grid system itself with different ways to accomplish the same goal. The node system allows the player to move at an angle, the mesh also allows this same outcome. I tried ray casting to triangle's and square's on the terrain to see if it's possible to highlight and move through the mouse location within a distance from the player, this yield interesting results. However with the raycast method the character's movement on how many units to interact within the mouse distance seemed like far too much work needing to be done rather then the simple grid system that is currently in place.

Updated:
I have made a list of all the monsters and characters. The count of monsters is over 123.
I've added a demon class to the monster list.
I've also created 18 summons and what effect and area they will cover.
I've worked on the story and story board.
I've worked on the dialogue script.
I've worked on the dialogue system some more to improve how it works.

This will be the last update for this project as I'm no longer going to pursue this project. I've received to many hateful comments on other sites about creating a game like this. Even when I explain that instead of 2D sprites I will be using 3D hand painted models to match the hand painted terrain and that I would be revamping everything including the GUI, dialogue GUI and everything to make it a game of it's own. That I had an original story and script done up.
I was just using what I shown to prove that I could create something like FFT and that the bones for the project were there. With the proper support we could of created our own world, story, characters, models and game.

Any ways will always love FFT but guess it's just the past childhood memory now.

[Snowmeow]

It's a pity that harsh comments made you quit your game project.
Would you have some copy of the wip game to I taste it?

[Bonesy]

poster has not been active since 2018, what makes you think it's ok to necropost

[Snowmeow]

poster has not been active since 2018, what makes you think it's ok to necropost

Interest in the project, maybe?
And how I could know that he isn't active since 2018?
My bad, sir.