A familiar location appears...

 Dear Players,

Looking forward to seeing you again!

Sincerely,

Lindblum Castle

Blackmoon Prophecy Prelude - Intro (most of it!)

 Most of the intro segment for Blackmoon Prophecy Prelude.

There's a obvious typo when Branch confronts a Branch solider, can you spot it? Video also ends at the boss fight because I forgot to dumb down the fight because it was previously going to be unwinnable (still unwinnable on PC, adjustments to make it winnable were done on my laptop which I'm not on).

Blackmoon Prophecy Prelude Survey

 In order to flesh out how some systems will work, I've created this little survey quickly to see how people feel about certain systems that will be in place and how each player would personally like to see them function. The results of this survey may affect how I develop the game.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScbmt5jKE1Fuv-vAAtphls9MrtaObudRRllvvpGhI3LYsOtkg/viewform?usp=sf_link

Intro Sequence

Something to show off tonight! This is part of Blackmoon Prophecy Prelude's intro. There will an ominous panning bit BEFORE this intro sequence that will be similar to the panning shots at the start of Final Fantasy VI. I will add those parts at a later date!

Blackmoon Prophecy Prelude Main Cast

Time for a little update!

I've been toiling away pretty heavily today on getting the database sorted and I aim to have a functional intro done by the end of the week which is a lofty goal since there's really no form of any intro in the game at all right now. Anyway, these portraits have been imported into the game for a while, but I'm just getting to them now on here (I shared them a while ago on Discord). Here are your eight permanent party members!

Vergil is the main character of Blackmoon Prophecy Prelude. When the game starts, he is a new recruit in the Port Alraune town guard. When trouble comes knocking in his hometown and interrupts his training with his fellow recruits, he pledges to fight back and joins the Lindblum Army.
Vergil's official job is fighter. He can wield knives and swords and has a combination of abilities from the knight and thief jobs.

Salia is Vergil's best friend in Port Alraune. She is not as built for combat as Vergil, but is a fledgling white magic user and is proficient with the bow as a weapon. Salia, while not mandatory in the party at any time, is the game's deuteragonist.
Salia's official job is holy archer. She can use bows, rods, and staves. Her skillset combines abilities from the archer and white mage jobs.

Bocshe Gore returns as a playable character and is just as nonsensical as ever. Bosche is a man who seldom makes sense and typically rambles incoherently before forcing himself into situations (like joining the party in the first game without any discussions with the party beforehand). Bosche is once again a seeker of artifacts, relics, and treasures.
Bosche's official job is seeker. He can use bows and knives. He is able to use abilities from the archer and gambler jobs.

The official main character of the cancelled Blackmoon Prophecy III has earned a spot in this game serving a similar role as she did in her original game as a summoner! Aysha hails from the Lenadian town of Daguero and is a young summoner who wants to go out in search of new Espers to bond with.
Aysha's official job is kindred. She can use swords and hammers. Aysha can use some abilities from the knight job while being able to obtain summons not available to the standard kindred job for followers/recruits.

Aysha's sister Ronan has also made the transition from Blackmoon Prophecy III. Like before, Ronan is a spear user who funnels his innate magic talents into his weapon strikes and he is also able to learn blue magic abilities.
Ronan's official job title is halberdier. He can use spears and swords. Ronan can use a few abilities from the dragoon job while, again, also being able to learn blue magic in the same manner as a blue mage.

Lanse Crescent is a hopeful young mercenary from the kingdom of Branch who seeks to look for paying jobs on either side of the Crystal War. Lanse hails from Oaktown an is an ancestor of Blackmoon Prophecy II character Twill Crescent.
Lanse's official job title is mercenary. He is able to use axes and swords. Lanse's skillset combines abilities from the dark knight and duelist jobs.

Soryu is a master ninja from the independent Village of Zen on the small Zen Isle off the coast of Ivalice. Unlike Nobumasa in the original game who was a ninja who was ridiculed in his hometown before venturing off into the world to better himself, Soryu is an accomplished ninja already and his skills reflect it as he has also learned how to harness the power of black magic.
Soryu's official job title is ninja (surprised?) and he is able to use ninja swords. His skillset combines abilities from the black mage and ninja jobs.

Ceresa Vainstrong is a young woman from northern Branch who distanced herself from the affairs of the warmongering King Branch and the war he has started with the world. Ceresa seeks to rise above the reputation of her kingdom in her travels as she seeks to better herself both as a fighter and as an intellectual.
Ceresa's official job title is pugilist. She can use claws, rods, and staves and can obtain abilities typically used by the monk and time mage jobs.

Battle & World Map Testing

 Two videos to show off today!

The first video is the world map. It is intended to be similar to a tactical RPG's world map in that the player moves about on an illustrated world map and selects a location to enter. Players will unlock new locations on the map as they progress. Blue locations are towns, red are hostile areas where the player can fight generic enemies, yellow are mission locations, and white are optional non-combat areas.

It was pointed out on YouTube by Kaimi Kreissel that the A and R in the location preview images were too similar to one another. I agreed and have since fixed this by adding an additional black pixel to the R, but this change was made after the below video was recorded.

Next video is the very first battle test! There's not much in place yet, but it's a great start I feel. I'm reusing a lot of assets from the cancelled Blackmoon Prophecy III such as the battle transition and many sound effects. I'm also pixelating the RTP battle animation files (shrinking by 33% and then resizing them back to their original sizes via pixel resize) to give them a nice pixelated SNES look.

Field Sprites!

Decided that I'd show off some of the field sprites for this game since I've been making quite a few this week!

Wondering who they are? Well...

1. Adder Legault: General of the Branch Dragoons. In the first Blackmoon Prophecy, he is known as Lord Adder.

2. Ami Peperro: A fledgling blue mage in training from the Lenadian town of Palumpu. 

3. Arvis Beryl: A strategist and tactician assigned to work under Vergil. Arvis is related to Cid Beryl, the Commander of the Augurers in Blackmoon Prophecy II.

4. Bosche Gore: Relic seeker and treasure hunter extraordinaire! Bosche Gore returns in all his chaotic glory. As usual, he won't really speak much sense.

5. Braak Amiro: General of the Ivalician Army. He is one of the four elite generals who make up the "Four Swords of Ivalice".

6. Darius Nobleton: A young Branch dragoon who is eager to impress.

7. Deckar Casca: General of the Ivalician Army. He is one of the four elite generals who make up the "Four Swords of Ivalice".

8. Dragoon: Just a typical dragoon sprite!

9. Gran Goldmore: Regent of Lindblum. He steps in to lead the Kingdom of Lindblum when his brother, King Edward Goldmore, goes missing.

10. Jasmine Amiro: Sister to General Braak Amiro.

11. Jastira Foxglove: Recruiter for the Lindblum Army.

12. Lanse Crescent: An aspiring mercenary with an adventurous heart. He hails from the Kingdom of Branch.

13. Ronan Solaris: A youthful Kindred from the Lenadian town of Daguero. Fun fact, Ronan was one of the two main characters from the defunct Blackmoon Prophecy III.

14. Sabino Ricci: Head of the Mage Academy and Lindblum's senior most magic authority.

15. Salia Fleuret: Best friend of Vergil Augurelt. She is the deuteragonist of the game.

16. Siegfried Sigmundson: A swordsman from the remote Lindblum town of Kaipo.

17. Vera Farabrandt: A Kindred and General of the Ivalician Army. She is one of the four elite generals who make up the "Four Swords of Ivalice".

18. Vergil Augurelt: Main character from the Lindblum town of Port Alraune.

19. Zeul Raithwall: Lord of the Ivalician Military.

Recruitment Example

 Just a visual example of what will happen when a character is recruited or a special character joins the party.

While inputting random names to test that, I realized that there will be a lot of possibilities.  I inputted 40 names for testing and I was still only only the letter D!

Sprites!

 As I get closer to finishing SMWX (my Mario Bros. X side project), I'm starting to ramp up sprite production. A lot of Blackmoon Prophecy: Prologue's sprites are edits from Record Keeper, though a few returning sprites from the other Blackmoon Prophecy games may pop up! Here are the characters/classes that I have finished battle sprites for so far.

From left to right...

Vergil Augurelt, the main character.

Salia Fleuret, the deuteragonist.

Paladin, the character class.

Archer, the character class.

Ami Peperro, a returning character from Blackmoon Prophecy. Her involvement will not be extensive, otherwise she would be a war hero in the first game.

Dragoon, the character class.

Black Mage, the character class.

"The Crystal War" renamed to Blackmoon Prophecy: Prelude

 Blackmoon Prophecy: The Crystal War was a bit of a mouthful, so I've changed the name. The project will now be called Blackmoon Prophecy: Prelude!

I've got a few little screenshots of WIP stuff to share here today. Keep in mind that none of this is at all finalized.

The title screen. There are cloud layers that pan/scroll, which makes this title screen look REALLY neat in motion.

Getting the battle look down. Using Dawn of Souls/Pixel Remaster stuff! The HP/MP bars have been removed since this screenshot was taken.

Testing out the item icons. I am liking the classic FF vibe that this is currently giving off, and I may stick with the default equip menu since it is similar to the original Blackmoon Prophecy's equip screen.

This FF9 system skin that I cobbled together is working wonderfully so far. Here we just have me demonstrating that characters will not have portraits (due to the fact that the player can recruit generic characters as new party members) and instead have their sprites featured on the menu.

I shared all of these on my Discord server already (link is in the sidebar in case you're not there!), so folks there would have already seen these. I'm hoping to have more new stuff in the coming days and weeks that I can share here.

Blackmoon Prophecy: The Crystal War

This has been a known project on Discord for several days, but I'm going to resurrect this dev blog to post about it! Introducing... Blackmoon Prophecy: The Crystal War!

Players assume the role of Vergil Augurelt from the remote Lindblum town of Port Alraune. When Branch dragoons come and attack, he and his friend Salia Fleuret defend their hometown. Vergil and Salia are not enough on their own, and the Lindblum Army arrives to save the day. Vergil and Salia learn that King Kain Silverson, King of Branch, has declared war on the world and seeks to gather the Crystals of the Element. Vergil and Salia are drafted into a growing alliance of kingdoms devoted to stopping Branch's tyrant king.

Vergil is the main character, Salia is the deuteragonist (player controls Vergil while Salia is always present - but she does not necessarily have to be in the party). When drafted (very, very, very early on) by the Lindblum Army, Vergil's bravery in Port Alraune sees him given command of his own fledgling squad along with a small airship, the Queztal (Lindblum is mass producing small airships for the growing conflict with Branch). Arvis Beryl serves as tactician aboard the Queztal, advising Vergil on available missions and activities that warrant their attention. Sylphie Viceley serves as the Queztal navigator. The player can change their party on the Queztal, and I'm hoping to have a regular party size that's greater than the standard four members. Ideally, I want five or six.

There's no world map. The player can use the airship to travel directly to certain locations on a map Sylphie has (it will be a drawn map of the world from the first game that fills the screen when the player looks at it). Mission locations are where the player will land with an assembled party and either:

• Drive enemy forces out of an area.
• Investigate the area.
• Search for something beneficial to the Alliance (Ivalice + Lenadia + Lindblum) or something that Branch is looking for.
• Cutscene/story sequence!
• Random "please help us!" places that appear at random or as part of side quests and are under attack from threats unrelated to the war (which could result in nice treasure and additional recruits, sometimes not even human).

When a mission location is "beaten", it's done and will be removed from the map. Friendly locations, however, persist forever on the map. The player can visit these locations to learn about new mission locations, buy items and equipment, and visit recruitment offices where they can obtain somewhat randomly generated characters to fill their army. Each recruitment office has three characters who can be recruited. Many characters will be able to be recruited. You will pretty much be allowed to have as many, or as few, as you want.

Characters recruited at recruitment offices are generic characters with no plot importance, they're simply soldiers in your squad. They can be male or female and will be randomly given a job and name.

Vergil and Salia do not have fixed classes and instead the player will be able to customize how these two characters function (with Vergil's stats being more geared towards fighting and Salia more towards magic). Additional important characters who join the squad later (say Vera as an example, but she won't, just need someone important for the example) will have operate outside of the job system as well and will have abilities/stats themed around who and what they are.

In a way, it's a tactical RPG until you enter a mission location, at which point it's a regular RPG with cutscenes, encounters, etc. This is going to be my weekend project once SMWX is finished in about two weeks (though starting some sprite editing very soon). Penumbra Crystallis will be worked on Monday to Friday (sometimes on weekends if I feel it needs more work). This is a side project, so I don't expect it to be too grand. Once I settle into a nice groove, it will also be easy to make solid progress on it since it's not an expansive game with a sprawling world map and such. It's more "location focused" like, say, Final Fantasy Tactics. 

For now, I am just doing some sprite work, but will commence working on this on weekends soon!