181 replies to this topic

[CastChaos]

Turning point reached.

Now the 3 of the 4 dungeons are finished and I started the 4th. So far all the optional secrets and things that are mandatory, but could be done in VERY free order were hard to think through and organize, but so much of these things are done by now that it's getting easy to plan the rest.

 

What is a big chance compared to my other million quests (except for Valami which was kinda like this already) is that now you not only get more than enough info to decide where to go ingame, now there are optional info shops that outright spoil the ways to dungeons, how to get to the final dungeon, etc.

That's all because I'm tired by now seeing people get stuck on one way corridors, wondering what to do next to hammer post with hammer selected, wondering what to do with a cracked block with bomb selected, etc.

 

 

Now, as for the 3rd dungeon boss...

I made the request in the script requests forum for it the way I did because so far scripters made me feel my scripted boss requests are far too simple. Now, this latest request of mine hasn't got fulfilled and I actually made up a MUCH simpler version, but when I wanted to edit it into the original request, I read the message at the top of the script request forum and realized how natural it is that some requests don't get fulfilled. It would be lame trying again and again. A no is a no. I move on with the quest and handle the case of the missing 3rd boss later. It might even get to be the 4th dungeon boss or the final boss or an alternate final boss. No problem. ... Only disaster.

 

 

I'm still not in a rush to finish this quest, as opposed with how quick I wanted to finish up previous ones when they got any close to the end. However, I see now that it's unavoidable to have a desire to do so. If I have a quest in development, I want to finish it. Coincidentally, I'm in a timeframe that could lead to FWSC be finished exactly one year later than GM, on its first year anniversary.

Now, it's exactly what I won't do. I kept saying even in the case of BB that I wouldn't release it right upon completion, rather keep improving it until it's "awesome" and "wonderquest" and anything... Now with FWSC, I will indeed probably withold release and keep optimizing, improving things. Many reasons exist for this, one is that in a quest with such freedom, it's better to handle the mandatory things first and leave the optimization of the near endgame secrets for later.

 

After that, I probably shouldn't continue this and care for other things than ZC, but if I made anything else, there are 1-2 quests that were requested by surprisingly many. If I ever continue the mainstream episodes in the BB series, I would ask the player which possible continuations would they like.

[Lightwulf]

Glad to hear the progress!

 

I know how it can be with requests.  In the past I've had certain requests that have seemed to go by unnoticed.  In the ways of spriting requests, I've helped out with as many as I was able to, and felt bad when I saw more requests when I was already booked.

I'm not a scripter, myself, but I have studied programming similar to zscript.  I might be able to modify something by reviewing what it already does, but if you're wanting to add something new to a script, I'm not sure I could be of much help...

 

I would agree not to rush it.  Take the time you need to ensure it's as good as it can be/as good as you want it.  I beta-tested (and had some others beta-test) my first quest more than once before I released it.  This is the best way to make your quest bug-free so there's as little to deter your prospective players as possible.

[CastChaos]

And here we stand.

 

Everything mandatory is finished in FWSC besides the final dungeon, ending and the end bosses of the autumn and summer dungeons.

Still many, many optional things left to do and much optimalization/balancing is needed.

 

 

A slightly outdated screen from the summer dungeon:

 

 

Now my biggest public problem is the bosses of the autumn and summer dungeons.

I updated my request for the autumn boss, but still nothing. I don't have time/mood to delwe so deep in scripting to be able to make a good custom boss, just thinking about how I would go about it revealed that I would need to waste LOTS of time looking things up. I'm waiting before making an FFC&supportScript based boss. Normally I could just slack off with a small custom enemy as boss, like as I did in certain towers in GM, but that would put the last nail on the coffin of my original BBV image I started to dream while I was making the 2nd half of GM, back in 2014 of old.

The summer boss originally was planned as an endurance test where you just need to survive for a time, but then I got inspiration for something VERY big. I won't even request it, since if the smaller autumn boss got no reply, this one wouldn't even be read to the end.

I'm still undecided, completely just skipping the boss parts there. The autumn boss, being based on solar energy, could be actually the summer boss and something else could happen for autumn...

 

 

Fortunately the quest is full of unique new features that keep my mood up not getting too down on this.

For example I made up something entirely new, then, since I often make quests that are long to make, others started to do it and released their quests before me. Happens all the time. Now it would seem like I copied them. So I transformed the idea all around and made something even newer of it. What if others make that up, too, soon? We will be scraping the barrel again!

 

The exploration value is so extremely high now that it is to be feared that even exploration addicted, Eppy-like people would say that it's too much. FWSC would be the first quest doing it, I guess.

At least the replayability value is even higher than in Valami... ...which means something!

 

 

And the ending(s)...

It's still important for me to avoid the ending craze of previous BB games, which involved for example intentionally playing in a way to secure the best ending.

So, this is how the ending plans kept changing...

 

1. Dark sequels of terror

Originally I planned 2 sequels, one where Bell and one where her little sister is the playable character and both would have contrasted each other. They would have been very daaaark, too. The twists I made up are to wet the eyes of hardy men, too. No kidding.

The demise of this plan was exactly this. I realized how unreally dark it was and that with this, I'm not getting away from the "ballad" factor of previous BB games.

 

2. Majestic mission to far away

With a smiling ending in hand, we don't terrorize the land.

This ending completely abandoned what GM's most secret ending and FWSC's intro scenes stood for, for a bright future taking place in foreign lands, all about crystals, magic and palaces. All inspired by FFXII.

The demise of the plan? If it's inspired by FFXII, it lasts only while I play FFXII. And I finished playing it months ago. Ouch. Bye-bye foreign land.

 

3. Rise of the sinisters

Let's have just one single small ending and then concentrate on the other characters of FWSC, make them to be the main characters of the sequels! Let Reii Krijg go on a holy quest, through a mystic portal to another land, where others ruled the land and sea. It will be so cool when she perfects her solar powers found during FWSC and flyes around the screen in real time! So good! So food! Isn't it? It isn't.

It would require denotion to ZC and the BB series again, a contract for a new long story arc. Who would effin' want that? Nobody is looking at this thread besides the one bound here by a request being fulfilled (Hi, Lightwulf!). Nobody is interested in more BB, just joke and troll quests of infernal brats, having been destroyed what once ZC was. Sometime in 2006.

 

4. The popular contract. Save your mother, Bell!

But then it came to me like lightning. I was walking my dog and saw a big Sun face on an ad. Somehow reminded me for a frowning Sun that is holding back something... By golly! That's the perfect idea! Using my first idea for an ending, but replacing almost everything with a new, slightly CoP-like story and having actual real reason and motivation  behind character actions, I gave birth to an idea that is actually a contract for another big story arc consisting of many more sequels, but is likeable by the players and even Eppy-like and MeleeWizard-like story skippers understand what goind on and are CARING.

Why? Because it's NOT something like "Here's a goal, go through X dungeons to accomplish it and the quest ends.", rather the goals are at hand, you go into the first area hoping to solve your problems there, not because you hope a passage from there to a land where you hope a passage to a land where you hope a passage to an area where you can solve your problems.

 

This fourth (force) idea gave rise to something that I will actually do now. You won't need to fear which ending you get and the replayability rises up to the legs of the Go... *spoilers cut out*

[CastChaos]

Finally, after 90% of the quest is finished, there's an userbar for it:

 

 

Only things left:

-autumn and summer bosses

-super secret dungeon and boss

-final dungeon and boss with ending

 

Plus a bit of makeup with some scripts and a bit of music.

The main character tiles are fully finished by Lightwulf now! That was the most important thing I was waiting for.

 

 

 

Now, I was always annoyed for assuming that anything I make is long and complicated despite the fact that most of my quests are small and that not all of the BB quests are long (this will be the shortes).

So, in a vain attempt to get players who play simpler quests, FWSC's mandatory parts will still be simple (to play, not to make) and without any deep (-ly exposed) story, but recent events made me actually wish to make the optional parts and secrets be just as convoluted as previous BB games were.

 

So, I thought making sad things in quests was what pulled annoyance in my life, but I see now that horrible things happen in real life even without making them in ZC beforehand, so then why to restrict myself in ZC?

The mandatory part is still a simple "go and find the 4 season clothes to restore the seasons" thing where you don't need to think if you don't want to. Your actions are fundamentally define what items you get, what scenes happen, but all your actions lead somewhere, so you don't need to keep yourself to one certain thing, there won't be an early bad ending if you don't get best sword and ring before the final dungeon or anything. Plus you will be able to buy spoiler hints if you REALLY don't want to think.

 

But if you dwell into the secrets, unearthing lost caves and dungeons, you get more than a story-lower usually bargains for. I don't know if ANYBODY is left who still cares story, 'cause I currently don't remember wven among the likers of the previous BB games that they cared story that much, some even admitting having too small attention span for that, but in case anybody cares, they will definitely get it...

They can find out things like:

-who is that character who is in a sense their own grandparent, without any time travel things

-who became the most powerful beings after the Tyrant and all its power sources and gods were vanquished

-just how much bodily and psychological pain can a half-orphan teenager girl survive without a complete breakdown and hospital

 

That's all because I made up the whole history frame for the BB series as series.

Woah, woah! You thought everything was revealed in GM about the universe of the BB series. Well, there have been. But there were some points left unrevealed because they weren't ever asked and I can expand upon that. This will answer such never asked questions, like:

-how come magic can solve everything, with powerful people actually being able to shoot energy beams in cutscenes without being wizards?

-WHY is eventually everyhing about BLOOD?

-just HOW come seasons can be changed without everything collapsing due to the planet shifting rotation and most especially just HOW is it possible to have multiple seasons one time?

-what countries are there besides the one we saw in BB, BBII and BBIV (formerly called Hyrule, then Republic of Ellivenia) and what are the relations between them?

 

 

Today I finished making a sidequest that contains the best scene I ever made, which is even better than those hilarious O_0 scenes in SB that everybody were talking about at that time but probably forgot by now. I already imagine people to keep asking for decades: "Which was that quest? You know, with THAT scene in it".

This adds to the motivation, which wasn't much up until recently.

 

 

I don't actually expect that much that I would logically expect, despite all these and despite things I haven't publicly revealed yet. I learned that no matter how great, unique and everything something is, no matter how much one expects something to be the centerpoint of spotlight and amazement, it always can be overlooked or shrugged down or actually disliked. Most especially if it was asked for, since I never can forget that in 2006-2007, people asked for non-linear quests with big overworlds, yet upon BB's release, suddenly many said it was not linear and that it was bad that there were more than 7 overworlds instead of just 1. And now I don't mean those who zero-stared without playing, rather actual legitimate players.

 

That's all also because everything is still about joke quests and troll quests and the case is just worsening, with such overhyped quests being marked as favourites that objectively have dozens of better aternatives. The recent "your favourite quest" thread was sure a motivation killer.

 

So, if I finish FWSC, it REALLY should finally be my last quest and especially the last BB game. Never mind all the (BB and non-BB) ideas of mine with laser hurling floating girls, functional necromancers, diabolists, sibling murderers, regretting priests, average joes and the worst I should dare. For CastChaos doesn't care, who stars in his quests. It's a den of butchery, violence and sin.

 

 

 

Now I really should get on with my 2 week contest quest, for I haven't even started it yet. Frankly, I wasn't expecting I would get my FWSC motivation back.

 

 

Oh, and FWSC release date? Mah boi, if I really wanted, I could wrap it up by 20th August, the one year anniversary of GM, but in the end, FWSC might come only in 2016, if ever.

[CastChaos]

Progress:

 

Now the summer boss is done with, thanks to for example Judasrising. That's one problem out.

As for the 3 other bosses I was worried about, I will actually get myself together and learn to script them. Two of them are actually easier to make than to explain to a scripter...

 

As for the entireity of the quest, everything mandatory and conditionless is finished besides the autumn boss. So, that leaves the superboss, the customized part of the final dungeon and the final boss with the "one-but-many" ending. Maybe this all will be done by 2017.

 

 

Endings...

When I speak of sequel plans, I only do it to be able to finish this one quest. 'Cause I couldn't finish such a quest without a vision of the future.

That being said, I would LOVE to have many endings, since the player can do things SO different that those really justify more than "very different scenes that lead to the same one ending", but I will restrain myself, for the reasons mentioned in the first posts of this thread. Everybody gets only one ending anyway and most demand to have one ending labeled as "best" and wants to get that. As I said, even I want that if somebody gets only one ending, that the biggest one should be, else my time with it is wasted.

That's why I will make sure that you DO NOT need to pay attention to the endings while playing and don't have to duplicate save datas.

 

 

Story?
OK, only I enjoy story. Even those who claim to like the previous BB games complain about "short attention span" and don't remember key elements of the plot. So, I really shouldn't waste my time with deep story and walls of text.

From now on, if I wanted to have A say the she hates B that won't be through simple strings rather through a scene where A swings an axe at B, missing, but hitting something and then that something stays smashed through the entire game, so that even ones with short attention span remember what happened there. Animated scenes will be the way to go. Again, that's just theory, I don't plan anything after FWSC.

 

 

So, in the beginning of this post, I explained how few things are left then said it was 2017 by the time they are done.

Well, things are needed to be polished up. When I like a feature I made, I need to eliminate my excitement and view it coldly. After this, I surely find millions of errors to fix. Also, I made up the ideas for so many smooth and graphically great things, I should put them in the game at many places, instead of just as special features here and there.

Also, I said long ago that Forbidden City inspired me for special scripted areas. I sure made some things (like a fully scripted minigame, fully by me alone), but it's still not Forbidden City level. Maybe I improve areas according to this.

Sure, you say one won't ever be satisfied with own quest, so I could just keep polishing forever, but since there's no rush and it would be bad to release a big quest nowadays just as, I really have time.

 

This is my most modern quest so far and it has things like animated shoveling, great object "pick up - carry - throw" mechanics integrated into minute to minute gameplay á'la LttP, fully functional potions, etc. and what makes it really modern that everything blends together with real player convenience. But that doesn't mean it's enough yet. Everything needs to fit together even more, to be real smooth.

I wan't to fill a quest I'm making with unique, never-seen features and while I'm think I'm succeeding with FWSC when I'm playing it, then I play/see other quests and FWSC suddenly falls in my eyes. I don't want this. I must fix this before release.

 

Sigh, I don't even know why I still do this. In a few days, it's BBIV: GM's one year anniversary and next to nobody played it.

I rushed it to end the too long development time, but this time, with FWSC, it lasts till it lasts. Even if I eventually never release it, I won't release it prematurely. at the right time or never.

[CastChaos]

Everything is finished, besides 3 bosses.

 

That 3 bosses are the ones I want to be real, scripted ones, but for the request for one I never got any response from a scripter and the other two are too big for me to expect anybody to do for them, so next thing is... Looking through all the available boss scripts and learning to put something together.

 

Then comes much polishing, a bit of graphical lift up here or there and an attempt to modernize many things with scripts, as well as probably adding more optionals to reward the player, if there's any to reward. And since I'm not releasing until all of these are done and tested a million times, my final quest can come anytime betwen 2015's october and 2016's spring, if ever.

 

As for the endings, there's just one, but scenes different depending on what the player did and didn't do, which totals to 2 main scene chains and 2 different true final scenes. End, indeed. This time there won't be a "continued in..." clause in the last string.

 

 

 

You know what I realized?

With all these wonderful custom things around that makes some quests doesn't even look like they were made with ZC, my originally very custom FWSC (with pick up script, shop script, fully functional shovel, special LTMs, etc. etc.) only as special like a 8+1 dungeons LoZ quest was in 2007. While I made maximum use of 2.10 during 2007-2011 and felt ahead of most everybody else, since they just kept scrapping their projects that weren't making full use of their chosen engines anyway, now I'm well behind the ages. Nowadays (for a few months by now), I keep seeing features and solutions that I wasn't even thinking of and the scary thing is that these aren't necessarily in top material wonderquest: they are coming as natural even in regular quests, joke quests or 2 week contest entries. A top-down action RPG that has mechanics resembling LoZ or even LttP are too mainstream and old now. After all these things I came up with, after all those scripts I received, I just look at Forbidden City, Freedom in Chains or Slipstream and I feel I'm making the "official 6th". Depressing.

 

 

 

 

And what modernization I was speaking of?

-Yes/No selection to have the player choose between alternatives seamlessly. Because having the player been told to "stand there and press XY if you want to permanently turn A item to B" is just so 2.10 and can make the player waste item A unintentionally.

-Awesome graphical effects, like how the main collectible was bathing in lasers in Freedom in Chains up until it was picked up.

-More autoghosted enemies, made by me.

-More scripted traps...

-...heck, more traps that makes full use of 2.50.1

And much more.

[Avaro]

I've read your last few posts and I got to say you shouldn't feel so down about other quests "outclassing" your quest or something. I'm pretty sure that your quest will be special and unique enough, especially when the world is great and immersive.

Also, about the matter of new quests having features that your own quest has, I've experienced that issue myself before. xD But scratching and removing a feature just because someone else released their quest with that feature first isn't a good idea. It actually is a bummer when it happens, but it doesn't reduce the quality of your own quest or anything.

Edited by Avataro, 22 August 2015 - 03:48 PM.

[CastChaos]

Well, dear Avataro, it's also heavily because the time used. Making a quest as custom as FWSC is takes extreme time away. I wanted to have some rest during this four day weekend (that is because national holiday in Hungary), but making the upper floors of the final dungeon + making the scenes before/after the boss and making the endings took all 3 of the last 3 days... After this, I subconsciously _demand_ something that makes use of 2.50.1 as much as BBII and BBIII made use of 2.10.

And making a quest should be for fun and making something new (as in BBII and BBIII) is from where I'd expect fun, but when I see that "item VS enemy" element system in Slipstream and realize that that script-looking feature was probably made completely without scripts yet look so modern like it wasn't even just ZC... then I feel I missed the opportunity for fun.

The feeling of realizing some hacky method to churn out more from an engine I would have initially expected... now THAT is what is missing now. It was there when I was making my later 2.10 quests, it is there when I'm programming at work... But now I feel with 2.50.1 as I felt with 2.10 in 2006. And I can't catch up for I can't ZC all day anymore and I don't have enough power to think of heavy scripts after a hard day of programming.

I can't even say that I at least have the quests I made, since less and less people can/want to play 2.10 quests, plus the bigger the numeric designation of a series episode, the less people will play it (for not playing or giving up on X often makes people not play X+1, like only story mattered).

I was so utterly happy when I found out how to make it seem so in 2.10 that the compass fills the map with data, like in OoT, instead of just pinpointing a given location. I made that in BB (and maybe BBIII, I don't remember). But in FWSC, I had only few of these "ahead of people" moments. I had some, just not much.

 

 

 

Making this last area in FWSC took long, because, as I forgot to say in my latest post, the upper floor of the final dungeon will depend on the player.

There are 8 (eight) different floors, all personalized for the player. If one collected every regular optional item, the given floor will require them to be beaten. If the player showed strange thinking and played not how players usually would, they get a "strange" floor that can't be beaten with regular logic. If the player didn't care anything, especially not NPCs and pawed his/her own way, they get a floor that gives no hints and is not set up in a cartoony "the world revolves around the player" way. Etc.

 

 

Other thing to note is something I don't know if anybody pays much attention to.

By the end (or earlier, if one goes for optional things) a real drama folds out that I actually could imagine as a novel. Like some teenage novel, just bloodier. Maybe like those RPGMaker horror games, like Mad Father or especially Misao. I still see so that actually nobody cares story anymore, since as I said, even those who played Valami and BBIV: Guardian Mother (those 4-5 people?) said their attention spans were too short to appreciate any story.

But what is in FWSC totally could be folded out into a novel and I'm speaking about the relationship between Bell and the other kids of her age in town. This is also what makes so that if I still made sequels, these other kids could be main characters, too. So, IF anybody appreciates story and bloody version of teenager drama with less clichés and more tearjerking moments, then it's there.

So, I list some of those characters:

(foreword: Bell never goes to school and thinks that all other kids dislike her)

 

Agni Shine:

Bell considers Agni her biggest hater. Agni is popular, carefree and often distance keeping or even emotionless. Agni doesn't like adventuring and is running a shop with his father. Despite not having any special body, she is popular among boys.

While unlocking optionals: It is revealed that Agni's relationship with adventuring is more complex than pure disliking and she has some secret connections with Bell.

 

Reii Krijg:

Daughter of the TV-Radio tower's owner, extremely fiery and battle loving. Her will to acquire greater and greater powers is always bigger than her competence and she is easy to be angered. Her body wins any boy for her that she wants to win... which is almost all of them. She looks down upon the weak.

While unlocking optionals: It is revealed what secret connections she has with Bell, as well as what is hidden behind the fiery nature.

 

Picky G:

She loves to pick berries. She also likes to explore and research in the wild, which often takes her to dangerous places. She always acts too quickly and eventually regrets it, so it's hard to be with her for an elongened time.

While unlocking optionals: Working on this now.

 

Moyol Bapti:

Brother of Cure, the lazy girl who always skips school. He gets addicted to anything that can be addictive and goes high and low to find these things. His favourite is getting hit by bubbles, because having one hand disabled just feels so gooooood... He is often seen trying to convince others to consume harmful things, but at least he rarely hurts others with words.

While unlocking optionals: Working on this later.

 

Valasso Valo:

The boy whose parents' relationship was stabilized in the canon ending of BBIV. He was a baby at that time, but he still notes that Bell's mother was the one who saved his parents. Bell hopelessly loves him, as do many other girls, because his body and the aura she gives off, despite her father being deep in crime (he was the ex-lawyer in BB and BBII) and his mother had chronic suicide mania (as seen in BB and BBII).

While unlocking optionals: His real side will be shown with his real intentions with Bell.

 

There's more, but I actually don't have that much time I imagined, so I stop now.

Yes, most of them are girls, this is the Touhou effects. I started FWSC under heavy influence of Touhou, many characters were inspired by girls from there...

 

So, I just don't know if anybody would care all that in the end.

In BB, I was so excited about the story, but then I gradually learned that I was alone with this.

[Lightwulf]

Well, I dunno' about everyone else, but I'm into story/backstory. (It just doesn't help that I haven't played the previous BB quests... )

 

The only problem I have with that is that, in ZC quests, if there are multiple NPCs in the storyline, unless they're directly involved in action I have a hard time keeping them straight/remembering them.    In a movie it's much easier because you can see more of their face.  With NPCs that use common graphics, it can be a little tougher unless they're seen quite frequently.  If I have to postpone playing a quest because of schoolwork or other things making me too busy and then pick up where I left off later, it can be tricky to remember details unless they really stood out to me at the time.  (Of course, I'm just bad with remembering names in general. )  Don't change your quest because of me saying these things, though; these are just my lamentations because of my weaknesses.    I love the fact that you're building off of previous quests with character details like this!  

 

I understand where you're coming from, BTW.  Since I'm really into story, I made an elaborate introduction for my first quest (I didn't make it long on purpose; it just ended up that way because of all the details that I wanted to include); then I found out, as people played the quest, that most people were frustrated with how long my intro was and just wanted to skip to the action (and so I did make an option to skip the intro, BTW).  Later, when I saw a few playthroughs, I noticed that only one of them actually appreciated the details of my intro.  So yeah, there are a lot of people out there who don't care about story.  But... there are at least a few.

 

Good luck on finishing the rest!

[CastChaos]

I made custom tiles for many NPCs, like for example Reii or Valasso, also the more important adults, but many kids are from the regular NPC roster. What helps is that if one important kid is placed with certain colors, I usually don't use the same color for similar looking, but random NPCs, also the important NPCs appear at featured places and most often without the presence of filler NPCs. Thinking about it, I don't see the current setup any confusing. For example, filler NPCs never walk up to Bell.

 

Don't worry for not having played the previous main and side BB quests... BBV started a new story arch. The worst thing that can happen is that you don't realize that the "Aquaria plaque" is named after a BB boss and when Valasso is reminiscing about Bell's mother saving his parents, you don't actually recall playing the related sidequest in BBIV.

All BB quests are playable withou playing the earlier ones and BBV's story can be appreciated without knowledge of the previous stories.

 

 

 

BBIV: GM was rushed because I wanted to finally put an end to the extremely long development time. I never was sitting on a quest for THAT long before. More than 2 and a half years... Beating BBII: SB's 2 years of development.

But this time I rather risk BBV never happening than releasing it too early.

For that, I need to watch out much and understand what does what people say mean.

For example, I already know what will be part of the bogus comments: like, "*points out a randomly chosen feature* I don't like that there" where "randomly chosen feature" is so randomly chosen that it can be in all quests (like, subscreen scrolling down when pressing enter) or something that is entirely liked in some other quest that was made by a more overhyped user.

All these bogus things often makes me forget that errors indeed can slip into quests and I need to think very hard what error could be in FWSC. I actually noticed some danger points:

-Now there are ONLY as many HCPs to have the player get maximum hearts AND maximum hearts is a requirement for one certain thing, so I must make sure that anybody who truly wants to get all HCPs can possibly do it. Grabbing even one "-1 HCP" by accident actually makes it so that max hearts are impossible to get, which I already see some complaining about, BUT what is to be seen here is that the thing that requires max hearts is just one alternative. For example, if you play evil role, that max hearts thing ceases to be a requirement for anything you can get.

-Now on 2.50.1, I can do what I couldn't in BBII: Seasoned Blood on 2.10: one season's secrets seamlessly affecting the other. But then I need to watch out not to make all secrets be like "activate in one season, walk around a lot to get back there in another season to get actual secret", but also not to make all secrets affect only that season where they are activated. The real thing is, if the secret is indeed useful only in another season, it must be indicated. So far I'm kinda good on that.

-There's extreme freedom. You can beat the dungeons in any order, you even can postpone part of the intro gameplay to the near end. I just must make sure it truly is this way and no players need to report back that "I wanted to start with the autumn dungeon, but I see that I need to beat the boss of the winter dungeon just to enter, why did you say I could choose the order, now I'm mad". For this, I repeatedly need to move things around and change how you get items.

-Picking up a bush might reveal a different undercombo than when it's slashed. Now, I know players, they won't try picking up all bushes when they can just be slashed, so I need to at least hint to one being special. But I DO need to place a good amount of these bushes, or else players who pick up many bushes will be frustrated that the undercombo is just the same as the slashed one... About the same with diggable spots and solid combos you can dig out.

And more that I don't remember now. I must play again and again, seeing that everything works in any order and think of how various types of players would think.

[Mister Snooze]

I am looking forward to playing this game when it comes out! Sounds great and you know how I love your games

Cast

[CastChaos]

Thank you!

I actually often think about you when I think of the finishing of this quest.

 

 

As for progress, I finished much of the base polishing, now the remaining three bosses are being worked upon, and it seems I won't be left alone in the dark with it.

 

Polising is actually a strange animal here. Now that everything is finished, I feel FWSC less complete and coherent than before. I have a guess that it's because there are so many scripts imported and I know of so many 2.50.1 tricks that now I feel incomplete when I'm not using all of them on all screens. I must make sure that while adding a few more things, I'm not going overboard and won't everything be a colourful mess.

 

I also don't have illusions.

I put more effort into the polishing/stabilizing/testing into this quest than into most of my other quests (the stability level compares to Valami's, so it's 1000 times higher than of GM's), but the general reaction will be the exact same like to my 17 other very very different quests.

I already see people complaining about while most gaps being jumpable, those few ladderable gaps being solid while in the air, even though Bell explicitly states ingame which dephts she is unwilling to jump above ingame. I see people complain about the extremely heavy exploration despite the fact that most are not mandatory and there are shortcuts/warp gradually unlocked AND you actually can pay for the straight, full-spoiler hints on where exactly to go and why.

The goal is simply to remove the reasons for justifiable negative criticism and have each element and feature be explained by some other element or feature, building immersion, consistency and a lack of need for a huuuuge help thread where people keep asking for directions every 10 mins, like in BB and SB, which gave not enough directions and had many explanations out of game.

 

 

And since there won't be sequel or any quest I make after this one, it was also very hard to handle the endings, but I did it. It's perfectly optimal: not a cliffhanger that would make you immediately want to start the sequel (as opposed to SB), but neither is something that would make you think FWSC was abruptly closed just to finally end it.

 

 

 

You know, when I was making CoP (BBIII), it was so exciting to have such a long story type series, longer than any (because though Link to the Darkness had at least 4-5 episodes if not 7, it wasn't story type at all), but now I see the EXTREME negativities in it, with the leading one being that it's a scientific law that each episode is being played by fewer players than the last.

I can say, each one is different, just because you quit the easy-to-get-lost, sometimes unfairly hard SB, you still can play the linear, easy CoP.

I can say if you don't know the story of one, you still can enjoy the story of the next one.

I can say many things.

There's nobody to listen.

 

 

 

By the way, I thought about making the 2.5 version of SB and CoP (not BB, because Twilight_Knight is already making BBDX), just to have a 2.50.1 compatible version of them (just some slight changes and 2.5-specific bugfixes), but then what if a new Windows comes out that has 2.50.1 as bugged as Vista/Win7 had 2.10? Should I keep remaking all my currently 15 (soon 16) available quests every 2-5 years? No thanks.

[WindRobe]

im also looking for forward to another great quest from cc, i also enjoyed your quests

[DarkFlameSheep]

I guess Valasso Valo his father is Dynamite, but can't remind his mother's name.

 

Yes, most of them are girls, this is the Touhou effects. I started FWSC under heavy influence of Touhou, many characters were inspired by girls from there...

It's very interesting, I would like to know your favorite character.

 

And you released Rahpsody, so I will get new used game pad to play it.

[CastChaos]

Valasso's father is that thief looking NPC who was running the thief shop in BB light world and had  abig manor in BB inverted world, but resided in a cave in SB.

His mother is that girl who was in Saturnlight Spa and said "Take this key, I won't need it anymore because I kill myself". She was often found at the edge of a ledge in SB.

 

 

My favourite Touhou character is... hm, was it Flandre Scarlet or Reiuji Utsuho? Or Seija Kijin? I don't remember, hard to choose. All three were the inspiration behind one character, each.

Flandre -> Bell and a secret character

Utsuho -> Reii

Seija -> not telling to avoid spoilers