Some changes have been made

Hello people. I'm not completely okay yet, but things are starting to look up a little. I got a job so I expect my free time to tank. But I'll keep working and try to get a sizable demo out. I can't say when but I don't want to rush and make mistakes, so we'll see.

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There's something else I want to address. If you aren't observant, then you may not notice that Nessiah has been removed from the team list and Lily is there now. Well a lot of things have happened now, and I feel really bad about it. But I think everything that can be done was done. There are no problems between us and we're still friends I hope.

And on that note, allow me introduce Lily. If you've visited the Magician's Quest link in the blogroll then you already know of her. She's a good friend of mine and she's agreed to take over from the ground up. So treat her well, okay? Here's an example of her work for the curious.

These are the faces that will be shown during skits. Which are side conversations that can be passed over at player discretion. They serve mostly to flesh out characters and give player insight on their opinions about current events, the people around them, and each other.

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And while we're on the subject of changes, Veili is getting one as well. I figured we had the chance since artistic resources were being done from the ground up again, so Veili will be getting changed into her SEB2 outfit. This way she and Gunnar aren't wearing the same thing! Plus it's a more interesting design. I've already started remodeling her sprites for this. Don't worry, it won't take too long at all. I pretty much just need to reshade the hair on her SEB2 sheet and then edit her SEM specific OB sprites and we're done. Here is what I have so far:

As you can see, it's looking better and it'll be less of an eyesore to see the same thing on two characters!

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And then have some screenshots! One thing to make note of now is that there are elements on the status menu now, so you'll know what NOT to do with your characters now. It's all on you~

Also, yes that battle screenshot demonstrates Crossover. You see Mir attacking but she doesn't have a battle HUD! She was called in by someone else for an EX Block.

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Annnnd I think that's about it for now. Have some art to leave off!

Art by Kafuka-Chan.

Till next time~

It's Sunday and I have nothing to do.

Hello people. I'm posting because it's Sunday and there's nothing I can do in regards to my situation today. So! Time for some SE Blogging!

You may be wondering what the heck I could be posting about, but! I actually have been working on SEM a little in the time where I could do nothing else at the moment. Kinda sad huh? With a serious situation at hand, I open up RPG Maker and work. I seem to have a natural skill for downplaying serious things. Well I guess it's okay, since I really can't do anything till monday anyway. Then it's back to the grind for me.

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Well anyway! In the time I've been absent, I've managed to finish mapping two travel areas: The Bifrost Plains, and The Icefall Labyrinth. Both of these locations will be used for various quests, so they needed to be large enough to have a variety of locations within them to execute quests at.

Here's my map designs for the two locations. The red dots illiustrate which maps are done, for the 'Beginner' sectors are available to the player in both locations with the rest of the areas temporarily blocked off for now. It's large enough with just the beginner areas, so the demo should have enough to do within them.

And now have some actual screenshots of the areas themselves.




In spite of my life situation, things are actually coming together pretty well! It's possible to travel through both areas, fight battles, gain SP/RP, advance your skills, and rank up. I'm actually finding it pretty fun to play through myself. But then, I made this game according to what I would find fun, so I suppose that's a given.

One thing that I have noticed is that ranking up, is a slow, laborious process. That's not to say that you don't get stronger after fighting many battles, but with the results I had from playing through the Icefall Labyrinth, I found that gaining SP and advancing my skills happened faster. I was Rank One throughout the entire area, almost Ranking Up at the end but not quite! It's kind of like Valkyrie Profile and it's slow leveling system.

Is this a good or bad thing? I don't know, but with the way it looks, endgame will probably be level 20-25 at that rate. I guess we'll just have to make some adjustments and see. Maybe doubling the RP standard will help speed things along. It would be a waste for endgame to be Rank 20-25 when Max Rank is 999!

Anyway a demo is not too far off! I need to link the story events to the gameplay and create a few more events, some new sprites, get those skit faces in, and then I think we'll be in business!

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I also want to take this time to go over that Crossover option in the menu.

Basically it means nothing now! 8D

To be more specific; I redesigned my approach to that system. Crossover is yet another battle related system that makes use of EX. You see, at first Crossovers were going to be cameo character related skills that you could unlock and then set to your characters in the crossover menu. This means that each party member would have their own Crossover partner and in battle, you could call them to execute a skill for 1 EX Block. With this in mind, it was possible to create a combo of Burst/Ether Skill -> Exceed Limit -> Crossover -> Crisis Recover.

However I've cut that away and simplified it so that the system required no menu. How it works now is that during quests and the storyline, you may meet characters who will actually accompany you during the duration of the quest or storyline event such as Rhia, Alvis, Mireille, Mir, Etc. These characters will join as a GUEST. When you have a GUEST character with you, then you can call them in battle for a crossover skill. Which works the same as mentioned above, the difference being that all party members will use the same crossover skill instead of having their own. GUEST characters will leave the party once the event or quest is over, so Crossovers are not always available.

Hope that answers some questions! And as a bonus, here's a draft of the Crossover Menu before it got cut. There were going to be ten slots for cameo related crossover skills from other RM games. Deciding who was in and spriting them all was kind of a pain, so I decided to stick to SE related characters. There will still be cameos and easter eggs hidden here and there. Find them~

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And to leave off have some art!

Art by Kamikaze-Kaito

And that's all! I'm going to continue focusing on solving my problems this week, but I'll see if I can keep this sunday thing going maybe. But there likely won't be an update for a long while. So enjoy this large one! Bye~

Erm...

And at the drop of a hat, things have suddenly gotten really serious for me. I don't think I will have time to work on SEM or anything for the foreseeable future. I have some massive problems to deal with on my own now. The project is safe, and nothing is wrong. I've backed up too. But I can't work anymore for now.

I'm terribly sorry Anaryu, but Nightmare will have to wait. Maybe we can continue it even after game gale, if it's not done!

Zue, I'm sorry but sprites for Grimoire Nocturna will have to wait too.

And to Cloudreach, I hope to see the chaingame complete someday!

And to the rest of the SE team. SEM is not canceled nor will it ever be, please wait for me!

Thank you and bye for now!