Entry 5 The Tintignac demo being our priority, we decided to concentrate all our efforts on the realization of the missing resources during this month. This resulted in a very dense communication on Deviantart with no less than 15 publications! Most of these revelations were old Fakemons or regional forms already designed in 2021, but never revealed because of a pending quality check or missing shiny version. I took care of completing this final step for two of our lineages so I can (finally) show them to you. As for the rest of the revealed art, it includes 4 humans (the couple of bards + the herald + the merchant) as well as the sprites of Druichy. All of this was drawn this month. The counterpart of focusing on the graphics is that the other areas have not progressed: – no update of the fangame has been done – no coding has been done – and no communication has been done on the English communities (making my threads momentarily forgotten). ... but we should at least resume coding for the month of May! Abundance of artworks, but bottleneck in pixel art Artworks The artwork domain is progressing very well: 4 humans (including 3 “urgent” ones) have just had their illustration finished, so that there are only 4 lefts for the second town of the game. This is where we see a wonderful complementarity between the artists of the team, as each one works in parallel: – Eysselia had made the couple of bards (and I don’t count two still unrevealed eeveelutions + a regional form in WIP.) – Cataclyptic made the Herald (+ a blacksmith in WIP) – And KiriariArts made the Merchant (+ a couple of innkeepers in WIP) Yes, we have just recruited a new artist: KiriariArts joined us last week and has just added her first stone to the building. I don’t forget SplittingJaws who is in charge of the Keltios bestiary. He has sketched 5 regional forms (1 of which is totally finished) and 2 Fakemons in no less than one evening. At this rate, I estimate that the ToDoList of Tintignac’s artworks should be completed by the beginning of June, which is a productivity that perfectly follows the schedule (which is rare in a fangame!). Pixel art The arrival of Frillecho had brought at the end of March a nice push on the pixel art (and allowed us to catch up a significant delay) ... Let’s add to that a punctual help of Dracoyan and LOX who made us 1 and 3 humans respectively. ... except that this flow of pixel art was abruptly interrupted at the beginning of April. Frillecho went into a rest period; while LOX and Dracoyan could not contribute anymore because it was the end of their school vacations... As a result, in 30 days, only Druichy and Ancient Magnemite sprites could be finished, while no new human had overworlds. The balance of artworks / pixel art is therefore becoming more unbalanced. There are still 11 OWs to do for Tintignac (10 humans + 1 Fakemon). To compensate for the irregularities in availability that are typical of any fangame (because everyone works voluntarily), an additional recruitment of pixel artist will be necessary. Fakemon’s game design: a future bottleneck The publication of the ancient Staryu/Starmie brought me face to face with a reality : the artworks were ready, but the documentation describing the Fakemon was not... So, I had to force myself to write its strategic PDF, which will be done 2 days after the publication of the first artwork. Indeed, the creation of a Fakemon is not limited to drawing it: it is also necessary to establish its lore, its strategy sheet, its statistics and its movepool! (And I’m not even talking about the integration into the game’s databases, which are also in the process of being overhauled!) As long as its documentation has not been completed, there’s a good chance that I’ll delay revealing the Fakemon. The dilemma of movepools At the same time, I have found that my PDFs rarely list a perfectly established movepool. There are several reasons for this: • Almost 40% of existing moves (I’m not exaggerating!) are altered in Sacred Phoenix. This can range from a minor change (modified power, accuracy or type) to a complete rebalancing of the move. • As the mechanics of breeding were different and hybridization was much more limited, the notion of “egg move” might not exist anymore. • The list of TMs (named here “Technical Scrolls”) is not the same. • The Light and Shadow movepool is to be created from scratch for each Pokémon. • The total overhaul of the type affinity forces me to take many more factors into account. The types assigned to moves have a major impact, including those of Status. • In the same spirit, the possibility of having 6 attacks per Pokémon must mean that I have to limit the coverage for each creature. That’s why the notion of secondary types was introduced: if an attack is not part of the launcher’s type or secondary type, it will suffer an “anti-STAB”, which will make it less powerful and more tiring to use. • Finally, with more than 800 existing moves, it becomes a real mess and you have to sort out. That’s why, as is customary in official games since the 8th generation, Sacred Phoenix will not escape a “dexit” and will see a hundred moves removed. Until I have a clear list of attacks and their changes, it will be very difficult for me to establish a definitive movepool for each of the creatures created. (And I’m not even talking about the fact that the 500 Pokémons in the Keltios’ Pokédex will all have to have their movepools reviewed too!) All of these alterations are why I’m the only one who can handle this role. When this list will be clearly established and the specificities of the Keltios world well understood by the other team members, I will be able to delegate them the creation of the movepools and the Fakemons lore. A word about the music Galax is officially considered a member of the team, as his first music has been validated and made official. It is Red’s battle theme. There is also Zinnia s’ theme which is almost finished. On the other hand, Pipevanes hasn’t given any sign of life for more than a month. So, I can consider that the baton has been passed. A lack of sound design The absence of Pipevanes will leave a hole, especially since he was starting to do sound design (i.e., all the sounds under 20 seconds: theme of trainers’ encounters, sound effects of menus, cry of Fakemons...) I realize for example that the victory music (either of a wild Pokémon or of a trainer) does not fit at all with the battle themes used. I tried to replace the successful catch theme with Braxton Burks’, but I’m not sure about the result... There are also the Fakemons who deserve original cries and I wish to replace the menu sound effects by something less synthetic and more “medieval”. The recruitment of a musician specialized on sound effects and short melodies would be beneficial for the project. Special mention if, in addition, he likes medieval or fantasy music. This month’s goals The main coder told me that he will finally be available to start programming on Godot in early May. So, I have to expect a potential crunch period, especially to establish the basics of a video game! (Movements, interactions, basic launching of a fight...) It’s going to feel strange to go back to the foundations of a project, what a developer should always start with when creating a game from scratch. Of course, the PSDK demo is still the main release, and will be for several months. (Godot is still VERY much in its infancy.) On that front, there is still everything related to Tintignac’s mapping and event-making, as well as the crafting functionality that will be coded. I’ll work on that when the Innkeeper and Bardess OWs are finished. (For the rest, I’ll be able to make do with placeholders.) This shows that we really need to prioritize pixel art and recruit a new member. In any case, no new updates are planned before July: we’re still quietly producing the missing resources.
