#draug's resurrection

[draugsresurrection]

Outfit Update

Felt it's been long enough that I ought to give an update. Progress on adding passives continues apace, as is the addition of a couple new sidequests, but I've been maybe a little too distracted making alternate outfits of late. It's fun and interesting to come up with new outfit ideas that at least partially represent the character, and generally feature new weaponry, giving a different 'weight' to them, making some outfits just match better when someone's been built more magically-inclined or whatever.

The downside is that making that one base template isn't where it ends. It needs to follow with matching idles, attacks, casting, and mapsprites. Those are much less fun and interesting to make, but no less important if I want things to be done right. Below is the current sum collection of costumes thus far. Hopefully it doesn't break the page. Some designs aren't very finished and are shaded out. While these look impressive (maybe) and finished, I don't think all of them will have all associated parts ready by next update. So it may take another year to roll all of these out, but here's what's planned for the future.

Some designs I'm still not 100% on, especially in regards to colours on some. Should a person stick to a favoured palette, or jump around more? Some just don't feel 'different' enough, either. Marcia (Pink-haired archer) is a particularly bad case of this; 2 is a more casual/personal version of a uniform, and 3/4 are same-y, but 3 might be a little over-the-top for some, so I feel 4 is at least slightly justified to exist. Anyway, feedback rarely hurts. Or, less mentally-taxing, tell me which costumes are your favourites.

[mysmashplaythroughs]

Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon Playthrough

Fighter: Marth.

Game: Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon, Wii U Virtual Console (Nintendo DS). First Released on August 7th 2008.

ENTRY WARNING: This post will contain spoilers for Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon, I do my best to avoid spoiling plot elements of the direct sequel but I do infer one or two things that will become important in that game.

Fighter Bio.

Born prince of the Kingdom of Altea on an island in the continent of Archanea, Marth was the son of King Cornelius and Queen Liza and the brother of Princess Elice. The royal family is descended from Anri, the first King of Altea and slayer of Medeus the Shadow Dragon who was the founder and Emperor of the Dolhr Empire that plunged the continent into war hundreds of years before Marth’s birth. Medeus was later resurrected and rebuilt the Dolhr empire ready to invade Archanea. Marth’s Father, King Cornelius led his forces along with the forces of the allied nation Gra into battle wielding the sacred blade Falchion, the weapon used by Anri in the previous war. He faced the forces of Dolhr and their allies, Grust’s Sable Order of Knights. Cornelius put up a good fight despite overwhelming odds, however his ally King Jiol of Gra betrayed him and this broke Cornelius’s forces which led to his death. Before he died Cornelius sent Cain his only surviving knight to return to Altea and inform Marth of what had happened and to tell him he was now the last hope for Archanea. Gra’s other forces did not take long after the battle to invade Altea and attempt to wipe out the remaining royal family. Princess Elice being the older Sister forces Marth to flee the Kingdom with a small force of knights by teleporting him with a staff out of the castle before she and her Mother are captured by the invading forces. Marth reluctantly escapes with a small force consisting of himself, Frey, Abel, Jagen and Cain, knights on horseback, Gordin an archer and Draug an armoured knight. In order to escape, Frey volunteers to remain as a decoy to buy them time which Marth is upset by but cannot argue against.

Following their escape Marth and his remaining forces are given sanctuary on the small Island nation of Talys home of his childhood friend princess Caeda who rides a Pegasus. Following an invasion a few years later by pirates which Marth’s forces fight off they decide the day has finally come to take on Dolhr, Grust and Gra’s forces, reclaim the stolen Falchion blade and free Altea. Marth meets many characters on his journey with many joining up with him from a variety of places including allied nations and even soldiers who defect from enemy nations. Some of Marth’s new allies include princess Nyna of Archanea the biggest country on the continent, Aurelian commander Hardin, Red Dragon Princess Minerva with her trio of Pegasus Knight sisters and Tiki of the Divine Dragon Tribe, the daughter of Naga the Divine Dragon. Following the defeat of Gharnef, the dark priest who is the driving force behind the whole war having resurrected Medeus and who is using his forces for his own ends, Marth reclaims the Falchion, he also learns before this that his Mother was killed by the commander in charge of Altea. Marth’s forces take down many foes including King Michalis, Minerva’s brother and Camus of the Grust Sable order of Knights. Marth comes to realise that many of his foes are not pure evil and fight for more complicated reasons beyond simply seeking power. Due to this, Marth tries his best to use words and other strategies to turn enemies into friends which is sometimes successful, however he still has the will to fight those who he has no choice but to. Defeating Medeus the war is ended and the continent of Archanea returns to peace. Marth is crowned King of Altea and is loved by his people for his heroic efforts, however this peace does not last long.

Marth is kindhearted, skilled and a good leader, he is also very idealistic holding himself to the virtues he believes in such as his sense of duty and honouring the historic ties his country has to others such as Princess Nyna of Archanea. Having seen Frey and his Sister sacrifice their own safety and possibly lives for him to escape years ago has led Marth to do absolutely everything in his power to ensure the survival of his allies. Marth’s idealism is both his biggest strength and weakness, it is through this idealism he has been betrayed before but it is also through this he has managed to turn neutral parties and enemies into devoted allies and kept his friends very loyal to him. Despite his popularity Marth is fairly humble and often seeks reassurance from others in his decisions which can make him waver sometimes but also allows him to keep an open-mind and take on others opinions. As a unit Marth is of the lord class which allows him unique access to rapiers, a sword that is strong against cavalry and armoured enemies. Depending on the version of the game Marth is either one of the strongest units or one of the weakest due to changes in how weapon matchups work. Marth can only use swords which are not good against lances which both cavalry and armoured units use, this means despite his advantage against those types of enemies he’s often at a disadvantage when it comes to weapon types they typically wield. Marth is also the only one who can visit villages on the maps and this therefore often requires him to travel quickly into dangerous territory he would probably be better off avoiding. Marth receives the Fire Emblem in his quest from Princess Nyna, this allows him to open chests just like a thief unit can and therefore makes him useful in cases where a thief would take up a precious spot in the party. When Marth receives Falchion it does improve his abilities and allows him to have an advantage against dragons, however he can still struggle due to his other weaknesses including in the final battle against Medeus even with his stats boosted as much as possible.

Friends: Marth builds an army of allies who all respect him enough to follow him into battle, due to this I won’t list many of those who can be counted more as allies even if many of them do speak with and have a good relationship with Marth. Those closest to Marth include his family with Marth loving his older Sister and being extremely relieved when he rescues her. Marth’s relationship with his Father and Mother isn’t very explored although he is distraught by their deaths but put his own feelings aside to do what he sees as his duty in leading the army in the war. Marth’s closest relationship is with Caeda who he has a great fondness of and can be somewhat overprotective of, he wishes Caeda would not put herself at risk but accepts her decision to do so reluctantly. Jagen is an old knight who Marth greatly respects often seeking his advice along with Malledus who is his tactician that helps explain a lot of the history of Archanea to him. Merric the mage is a close childhood friend of Marth and his sister Elice. Hardin is not particularly closer than most other allies to Marth but sees him as a genuinely worthy leader of the army fighting Medeus to the point of denying Marth’s claims that Hardin is a better choice to lead the army. Whilst Hardin respects Marth he does have a small sense of jealousy deep down that Marth was chosen to wield the Fire Emblem by Princess Nyna whom Hardin harbours feelings for. Despite this jealousy of Marth, Princess Nyna does not actually have feelings of that nature for Marth respecting him strongly and being eternally thankful for his help, Nyna however is in love with Camus the leader of the Sable order of Knights which puts her somewhat at odds with Marth in facing him although she reluctantly agrees there’s no other way. Finally Tiki has a great amount of fondness for Marth referring to him as Mar-Mar and develops a childish crush on him for his protection of her after she was brainwashed and forced to fight Marth’s forces which could have led to her death at their hands. There are various other female allies who also have a lot of affection for Marth however he is mostly oblivious to all but Caeda.

Enemies/Rivals: Marth is compassionate and does not enjoy fighting avoiding it when possible as much as he can, however he also acknowledges it is required and will not back down against enemies who cannot be reasoned with. The worst of Marth’s foes are Medeus whom Marth has little interaction with since he is essentially a prisoner in his own castle throughout most the war and Gharnef who’s the true driving force and therefore the true cause of all the pain in Marth’s life. Of the enemy commanders probably the most personal enemy of Marth’s is Morzas the Mage Dragon who murdered Marth’s Mother and King Jiol who’s treachery led to King Cornelius’s death and the fall of Altea. Marth sympathizes with Camus although this does not make him hold back in fighting and defeating him despite trying to find alternative ways to resolve their differences. Finally Marth is willing to fight King Michalis and Michalis believes Marth will kill him, despite their being enemies if Michalis dies he often will entrust Marth with protecting his Sisters who are part of Marth’s army and shows him a level of respect.

Crossovers with other Smash characters: The Fire Emblem series tends to cover different worlds with different entries in the series and therefore characters from the same series aren’t from the same world and don’t crossover in canon. Marth’s world is the same one where Fire Emblem Gaiden/Echoes takes place as well as Fire Emblem Geneology of the Holy War and Thracia 776 although in different time periods and on different continents. Fire Emblem Awakening takes place in Marth’s world but thousands of years in the future with his descendants being a big part of the story. The Fire Emblem series has had a few crossovers with the whole series although they are rarely canon to the plots of the main series, the only case of this that is arguably canon is the Einherjar which are cards that form into spirits that are recreations of various Heroes from the Outrealms which are other dimensions outside of the world of Fire Emblem Awakening and often house recreations of locations from the many worlds of the Fire Emblem series. It is through this Marth appears as an Einherjar and can interact with the cast of Fire Emblem Awakening, including Robin, Chrom and Lucina who are all in Super Smash Bros and other Einherjar such as Roy and Ike who are also from Smash. Due to their existence as recreations rather than the true characters this is not technically a full-on crossover, however the characters from Awakening who are their true selves do get to interact with an approximation of these characters and therefore I count it as an interaction. In Fire Emblem Fates however Amiibos allowed Marth, Ike, Lucina and Robin to appear within the My Castle area and meet Corrin who could battle them, recruit them and receive accessories and weapons from them. In this case these versions are implied to be real rather than recreations or something although interestingly they imply from dialogue that they’re specifically from Super Smash Brothers rather than their own games canon. In Fire Emblem Echoes Shadows of Valentia a similar situation takes place with the ability to summon Marth, Ike, Robin, Lucina, Roy and Corrin, however in this case they’re explicitly said to be illusions taking on their forms. Finally for the main series the upcoming game Fire Emblem Engage has special spirits known as Emblems that take on the form and personality of Lords from throughout the series with Marth being the most prominent one in the story it seems. These Emblems acknowledge they’re not the actual characters so are similar to the Einherjars.

Fire Emblem Heroes and Fire Emblem Warriors are part of their own canon but involve a variety of characters from across the series being summoned to help the worlds unique to those games. Due to this every Fire Emblem fighter in Super Smash Bros has made an appearance and had a chance to fight against or with each other, although for Warriors Byleth, Roy and Ike do not make an appearance. Through Amiibo Marth and some other Fire Emblem characters have also made appearances in Code Name S.T.E.A.M. and as costumes in Super Mario Maker. The most major crossover outside of crossovers with his own series Marth has been in is Dragalia Lost, a mobile game which has now ended service and where Marth made an appearance alongside other Fire Emblem characters. This appearance was more specifically a crossover with Fire Emblem Heroes and therefore the versions of the characters are more based on that than their original games canon. In this crossover two other Super Smash Bros fighters from other series appeared being Mega Man and Joker. Outside of this Marth has not crossed over with other series outside of Fire Emblem.

Why this game?

If I were to choose the game which is the most definitive story of Marth then I would likely have gone for Fire Emblem 3 Mystery of the Emblem, there are two issues with that however, the first is that the game has never been released in English and where possible I’ve tried to play the official releases of games, the second is that game is a remake of the very first game with a second half which is a sequel (called Book 1 and Book 2 respectively). The remake of the first game however in Mystery of the Emblem seems to have taken out certain characters and chapters which makes it not the definitive experience of Marth’s first adventure. Due to this I went for Shadow Dragon as it is a remake of the first game with all the content from the original game plus some additions (which are somewhat controversial and I will go over later). Sadly the sequel on DS which was a remake of Book 2 and expanded upon it a lot was another game that was only released in Japan and therefore the events of Marth’s second game still have not been officially released outside of Japan to this day. I do plan to later play through that game although sadly I have little hope it will receive an official release outside of Japan now.

My past with this game.

So I guess the time has come to delve into Fire Emblem. My story as someone who played Melee when I was younger is probably predictable to begin with, I heard about Marth and Roy being in the game and how they were from another series I had no way of playing since their games had not left Japan. I didn’t know at the time that Roy was actually in Super Smash Bros Melee before his own game even came out. At the time I had a very limited knowledge of RPGs based really just on Pokemon and Paper Mario, to the point I believe at that time I’d think of them more as ‘games like Pokemon’ than RPGs (I also remember seeing Zelda often called an RPG which muddied my understanding back then even further) What interested me the most with Marth was always his trophy in Super Smash Bros Melee. There were some odd trophy descriptions in the game that sounded pretty dark for games I’d not heard of, I believe one was for a Custom Robo trophy talking about a characters ‘Tragic End’ vaguely and Ayumi Tachibana’s trophy talking about her murdered friend (Which having finally played Famicom Detective Club now isn’t that accurate on a whole beyond the murdered friend). Marth’s trophy description sounded like a standard fantasy story, but then ended sounding like after all his hardships Marth loses and his country is wiped out or something. I understand now what events were being described but at the time I remember this description made me think Marth’s game was extremely dark and tragic. Eventually in 2004 the very first Fire Emblem released outside of Japan came out on GBA. This post isn’t about that game specifically so I’ll hold off saying too much on that, but I thought as had commonly been the way with things before then that this was ‘the Fire Emblem game’ that Marth and Roy were from released here because of the interest from Smash Bros. Due to this I remember believing for a time that Eliwood was Roy and of all characters, Hector the axe wielding blue haired lord was Marth. I remembered thinking it was simply a case of them changing their names for the actual game’s release from what they were called in Smash rather than them being totally different characters and it wasn’t helped by me not beating the game for a long time and therefore never seeing Roy’s appearance in it. As to how I learnt the truth regarding it I’m not sure, possibly I read it in a magazine at the time (which was my most common resource back then) or I found out through early internet. The most likely source I can think of for the information is the Spriters Resource which I would use a lot back then and I feel I probably saw sprites for Marth and Roy’s actual games on and therefore came to realise my mistake. 

Either way, for a long time Marth and Roy’s games weren’t released here and it wouldn’t be until 2008 that Marth finally got his first official appearance in a Fire Emblem title outside of Japan. I hadn’t played Fire Emblem since the first GBA game by this point but I decided to do so since I’d always been curious about Marth. I forget now if I knew the game was a remake of a Famicom title, I think I did as I feel like I cut it a bit more slack than I’ve seen a fair few people do with it being a remake of such an old game. With that said, out of the two I definitely didn’t enjoy it as much as Fire Emblem on GBA and after playing it for a bit I gave up on it. A fair few years later I was on holiday staying at a small cottage we rented when seeing my grandparents and I had I think my 3DS at the time with a load of games in the case I have. I was looking through ones to play and for some reason I picked out Shadow Dragon again and somehow, it was just the perfect set of circumstances that resulted in me playing it a lot. I really got into the game, not for any real reason other than I was just enjoying it, I still can’t really remember what I found so good but I finally played through a lot of the game getting towards the last few chapters. The main chapter I vividly remember playing was the Wooden Cavalry which is probably the most memorable of the game to me. I think following the holiday I then finished the game finally at home and that was it. Overall playing a fair few Fire Emblems starting with Awakening’s release I realised it was probably my ‘least favourite’ Fire Emblem game, but at the same time I somewhat liked it. From what I’ve heard since I think the sequel which never left Japan improved on much of the game so it really sucks we never got that, but that’s pretty much my history with this game.

My Smash Playthrough.

For this playthrough I decided to play the game on my Wii U rather than my original DS copy, the main reason being I could get screenshots through Miiverse. This playthrough was the first where I realised I had a lot of characters available to me besides just Marth and I wanted to have some sort of guideline for who to use as being close to a ‘canonical Smash Bros playthrough’ so to speak. Luckily I had such a guideline thanks to Fire Emblem Awakening, something that I’ve used in every Smash playthrough I’ve done of a Fire Emblem game since. With the previously discussed Einherjars in Fire Emblem Awakening some were released through DLC whilst others were through free Spotpass teams that could be summoned. Each game in the series would have 10 characters from it that could be summoned to fight, recruit or buy from. Due to this I decided that since these had been chosen as the representatives of the games and this was the only thing that really had a selection of specific teams from earlier games like this at the time I started that I would focus on these characters. Most often one of the characters in these 10 for each game weren’t playable usually being one of the main villains, in the case of Shadow Dragon that was Gharnef with Princess Nyna also not being playable in Shadow Dragon but they were both in the Spotpass team. For the others I would try to set them up as they were in the spotpass teams, although I wouldn’t avoid promoting them if they were unpromoted in Awakening as I didn’t want to limit myself too much.

For this playthrough therefore I focused mostly on Marth, Caeda, Ogma the mercenary, Navarre the swordsman, Merric, Linde a mage, Minerva and Tiki who were all part of the Shadow Dragon Spotpass team. Alongside this, three fairly iconic characters in the series debuted in this game also and appeared as DLC characters in Awakening so I decided to also give them some focus as well, those being the Pegasus Sisters Palla, Catria and Est who are unique in that together they can perform a Triangle Attack (although this arguably is more trouble than it’s worth I believe). Now, I will be the first to admit that whilst I’ve beaten a fair few Fire Emblem games I am far from good at the ins and outs of them, I understand the basic way of playing and can usually make my way through the games after a fair few tries, but I definitely couldn’t give advice on the stats, growths and viability of specific characters etc. All I can say for this playthrough really when it comes to specifics is, I managed to beat it without losing a single member (and I recruited everyone I could in the story through that method). I really appreciated the new feature of the save point on maps in this game and I definitely relied on a fair few cheap tricks for the final maps of the game such as using teleports to try and take the final boss down quickly.

One of the key features of Fire Emblem games is that when one of your characters is defeated they die in the storyline and you cannot use them again. Later games included an option for newer players to play the game without this feature and there were workarounds even in the original game with a special staff that can revive a character but it’s very rare and usually can only be used for one or two characters max in the whole game. The most controversial aspect of this game I believe is the alternate chapters which were new additions. In these alternate chapters brand new characters are available who can be recruited, what’s controversial about them however is that to get them you have to have lost specific units or be below a certain amount of surviving units earlier in the game, so in a sense the only way to see this new content is to actually sabotage yourself by purposefully losing characters. I believe the idea behind this was to not get rid of the permadeath but provide replacements for characters you lose since a fair few of the new characters can serve as replacements for units lost. Another reason this system isn’t great however is that Shadow Dragon is notorious for how big of a cast it has with many of the later units often being alternatives for units that are gotten earlier in the game with some being outright pallet swaps of each other, which therefore makes having these exclusive new characters who are also possible replacements even more redundant. Either way, due to this and from what I know of the new characters canonically appearing in the second DS game and seeming to confirm that they didn’t join in the first DS game, I decided in this playthrough to simply ignore the extra chapters and characters and focus on recruiting everyone in the regular story and keeping everyone alive.

Due to my decision to keep each character close to canon, I admittedly avoided probably one of the most fun elements of this specific game which was how customizable the units are. Each character has their original class from the original game and can promote into a more advanced class, however this game introduced a new feature which allowed every character in the game to be reclassed into something else. This can lead to some pretty funny and unique playthroughs where a character like Wrys the bald priest who has a healing staff can be reclassed into a Myrmidon which is a fast swordsman class that focuses on critical hits. It’s probably one of the most interesting features of the game overall so it was a shame to not play around with it in this playthrough but equally it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Of the most notable chapters for me in the game, probably the ones I remember most are the Wooden Cavalry, a chapter where almost every enemy is a Ballastician who can’t move far but can fire from a very long range making for a very unique chapter, The Battle for Altea which has Marth free his homeland, Manakete Princess which is the chapter where Tiki must either be fought or recruited, Camus the Sable which has Marth battle Camus the leader of the Sable Knights who is one of the most notable boss characters in the game, A Knight-Filled Sky which involves fighting against King Michalis’s forces which consist mostly of Pegasus and Dracoknights, the Dark Pontifex which is the battle with Gharnef to reclaim the Falchion sword and finally my personal favourite the Dragonkin Realm which is the last map before the final boss and has you fighting across Dohlr to reach the castle where Medeus resides. This map has many enemy Manaketes but with the Falchion Marth is now able to fight them fairly well. I’m not a particularly big fan of the final map as it has your group all split up into different parts of the map with very powerful enemies approaching and I found myself that I’d often have at least one or two groups who didn’t have a particularly strong unit who could withstand more than one attack, it was due to this I strategized more around using the warp staff but even that was risky as no character had the power to take Medeus down with ease. Probably the best aspect of this final chapter is gaining Gotoh who is the most powerful default magic unit in the game and has his own unique tome he can use making it feel like getting Gandalf or Merlin to join the party in the final battle.

One final point I want to go over is the music, it’s mostly pretty good but there are a couple of standouts overall to me with the first being Tiki’s theme (which has appeared many times in the series now and is always good to me) and For the Tomorrow’s Sake which is the opening music to the later chapters of the game and had a lot more impact to me than the earlier chapter’s music which helped make it feel like momentum was building in the story. Anyway, overall replaying the game I still enjoyed it but once again it still remains probably my least favourite Fire Emblem game so far. With that said, unlike its main competition for that title, at least one thing I can say goes in its favour is it isn’t overly long enough to outstay it’s welcome. I still now get a kick out of seeing how it adapted a lot of the things that were quirks of just how old the original game was, such as characters who were pallet swaps, but beyond that I’d say it’s only worthwhile as a curiosity today rather than one of the must play games in the series even with Marth in it. Here’s hoping someday we might get a remake which puts it together with its sequel to make one definitive game for Marth.

Specific aspects about the game relating to Marth in Smash.

Well, this was probably the easiest of any Fire Emblem character to do because of how simple this game is in comparison to later entries in the series, simply put I equipped Marth with Falchion. Marth cannot promote in this game so I didn’t have to worry about what class he was and there’s not any supports like other games so storyline wise I didn’t have a set canon I wanted to follow. I mentioned in my playthrough section but probably the best map for as close to the Super Smash Bros version of Marth as you can get in this game is the Dragonkin Realm map as Marth has all he needs equipment-wise to fight as he does in Smash and the stage is in my opinion fairly close to the Castle Siege stage in setup (I’ll detail that more when I get to talking about stages.) That’s it pretty much.

 Credits.

For information on this game including dates of releases I must give credit to the Fire Emblem Wiki and Serenes Forest for additional information such as Spotpass Teams in Awakening.

The screenshots in this post are taken by me from my Miiverse during my playthrough of the game.

[papillonthepirate]

My half of an art trade with @acradaunt! This is their character Rem, a thief from their game Draug’s Resurrection! I chose this character because I’m a sucker for playing thieves in roleplaying games, and I thought it could be fun to add in the potions and loot she’s stolen :D

[eldritchreveries]

Nicholas' Notes on Water Witches!

A mini documentary on these water spirits in the Hildaverse (as seen in "Abby"!) from the perspective of Nic~

Water Witches are magical water spirits that can be found in many large water sources around the world. They are most commonly found in oceans, but can also be found in lakes and rivers! They tend to be made from the water and sediment of their home water source. They tend to not stray too far from their home and enjoy basking outside during rainstorms to collect fresh water in their bubble of "hair". They can't survive if the water in their hair dries up and will dissipate if it runs dry. So droughts are especially deadly for them. Here's a comparison of two water witches, one from a lake and one from the ocean!

Like the sirens of folklore, these beautiful spirits would often appear on the ships of sailors while out at sea, with a gentle and graceful appearance in order to fool unsuspecting humans. Though later humans would come to fear them, as they showed themselves to be man-eating beasts. When the water witches realized that humans no longer fell for their traps, they stopped the facade and took a hostile approach, attacking ships on sight in a feeding frenzy. It was later discovered that these beings eat bones for sustenence, hence why the meat of their prey is always left behind but the bones missing. Ghost ships like the one I sailed on especially feared them, as our exposed skeletons are easy targets!

Many legends of old with tales of women living in lakes may have actually been water witches! As you can see here in my beautiful drawing~

Underwater, water witches flourish with vibrant flora from their home water source! While up on land, these magical plants growing from their sediment bodies dissipate, only to reappear again once they submerge. It's quite a sight!

No male water witches have ever been spotted, leaving nautical researchers to believe all water witches are biologically female. Those who have researched these creatures note that they seem to just rise up from the sediment of their home water source, resembling human children when first appearing. These beings continuously grow whilst living in their home water source and have been seen to reach heights of up to 20 feet! • Though it has also been noted recently that if the water witch were to leave her home, she will stop growing. As seen here!

Throughout history these creatures have proven to be resistant to human weaponry, and appear to not feel pain. (I suppose that's due to them being made of sand?) In the center of their being lies a blue stone; removing or breaking the stone is the only true way to defeat one of these beasts.

There are old tales of drowned sailors who came into contact with one of these blue stones and were resurrected, though there are no documented cases of it actually happening. I was a draug, I would know!!

Here's a height chart of all the water witches I saw in my day! It seems like all the meanest ones are the tallest!

Thanks for reading!

[acradaunt]

Undine and Heartful Punch from Sleepless Domain and Steffi from Kiwi Blitz, both by Cube Watermelon, done in the same style as I use for Draug's Resurrection.

I'm not entirely pleased with how they came out, to be perfectly honest (and I'm sure the resizing Tumblr's gonna do won't help matters), but I think the mapsprites look better than the full-sized would-be battle sprites. Even if I was too lazy to make East/West ones. There was an intention to edit their designs a little to more match my own (more armour, less modern looks, more subdued, faded colours) but I guess I mostly wussed out. Still, that's why Heartful Punch has more a pronounced breastplate and pauldrons, and why Steffi has a Kiwi Crossbow and no headphones.

[cupcakecoterie]

Cupcake Coterie vs Carter

CAST:

@true0neutral as Hazel, half-elf cleric

@fauxfire76 as Darvin, human bard

@miaaoi as Froseth, dragonborn monk

@lindira as Clarity, tiefling rogue

@hyperewok1 as Remi, human paladin

@sfwarlock as Nai, elf warlock

The Cupcake Coterie reconvened in the Bravo’s Boast, Froseth bearing some really impressive stylised wind-gust tattoos down parts of his back, along both shoulder blades and down to the backs of his hands. It was very extensive work, even more so on a dragonborn given the scales, and very impressive.

They jumped the gun a little on food. I was going to give them a chance to spot what was going on, but they started eating before I managed to give them a chance to spot the issue. The issue came when they declared that they had eaten and I had to call for a Constitution saving throw, because their meals had been poisoned by a criminal element individual that Carter had hired to do the deed. Hazel and Remi failed their Constitution saving throws. So did Flitty. Hazel managed to use Lesser Restoration on herself and Flitty; Remi did herself with Lay On Hands. However, while the two larger beings were more or less okay, Flitty had a whole lot of it in his system. After a few failed saves, Flitty actually died. Unfortunately, Flitty’s death ward actually went off when he got crunched against the wall, that time that Hazel tried to steal Sigwald’s hat. So Flitty, with no anti-death protection, actually died.

Hazel, however, was not letting that stand. And Hazel, as a Life Domain cleric, has Revivify as a permanent part of her spell list. So we ran a Resurrection challenge. Darvin played something truly glorious on his viol. Clarity brought out the leftover squidgy bears and the earmuffs Candor made her, as “a piece of home, to call you home”, and Froseth just touched Flitty’s head and told him “You can’t go, you’re the heart of the group; please come back, we need you”.

Given Clarity’s failed Animal Handling check ... they just made the resurrection check. So the first use of Revivify went to Flitty the faerie dragon.

Their course of action was clear after that: let Darvin do his performance at the Book, Bow and Dragon, then go to Carter’s rooms and office at the Hiresword Lock Guildshall, kick the door in and deal with him. The idea of turning him inside out was floated.

Darvin did quite well at the Book, Bow and Dragon - made 180 gold total with a rather hilarious little ditty about the other side of the epic heroes; the times when things go wrong. The Thunderwave, the hammer through the crockery, the failed Stealth rolls in Star Coast, the petrification ... and rounded off with the Bunny-Bard incident. Then the tiefling from Arcane Ink who arranged a date with Darvin afterwards (name of Welfred) arranged to meet up with Darvin after the Carter-related activities, while the others arranged to have a more in-depth conversation with Torinn the following evening, after the dinner at Remi’s parents place.

Then they went to see Carter ... and that went differently than expected. They were dealing with a surprisingly well-armoured level 15 Fighter equivalent. At level 5. Hazel got one-shotted to unconsciousness straight away, Darvin made fairly good use of Thunderwave, Remi was the one who did the most damage but Second Wind took care of that ... and then Froseth noticed a faintly glowing pendant that Carter was wearing, and let them know that maybe removing it might be an idea. Remi managed to grapple Carter and pulled the amulet off...

And Carter went all Last Crusade mummified.

Remi dropped the amulet really really fast, and they discussed what to do next. They eventually handed it off to the Governor’s inner circle guards, who cordoned off the area until they could get some people from the University to check the place over for any other magical artefacts that Carter might have been hoarding - it seemed that the amulet was something he picked up in the Southern Lands to augment his strength ... and given that the Southern Lands are full of evil, it basically ate him.

Darvin went out on his date with Welfred after that - good wine, romance, and finding out what all those tattoos on Welfred did. Darvin came back the next morning more relaxed than anyone has ever seen him, so we’re saying it went well. Welfred is ... well, it’s one of those “My bounty is as endless as the sea, my ... *ahem* love as deep” things: he’s not given to monogamy but he cares for and respects his partners, and would clearly be more than happy to hang out with Darvin some more, for more than his ‘fine ass’.

Hazel had a squee moment when it turned out that Andri had made cranberry bushes grow outside the Bravo’s Boast, and Mori, who agreed to look after Flitty while they went after sea hags the way she had the previous night, agreed to make fresh cranberry jelly for Hazel when they were next at the Boast for dinner.

They spotted a couple of things on their way to the spot they were told was probably the nest. One was bronze wyrmlings, playing and fishing above them. The other was Shatterstone (though they don’t know the name), the bronze dragonborn settlement just off from Belarys.

Then they reached the nest, and it was a mess. There were a couple of shipwrecks, which everyone but Clarity used as cover. Clarity was actually stealthing as best she could in the fairly open area, examining the carrion pile and determining that there were dragonborn bones in there...

And then a suspiciously localised tidal wave smashed into Hazel, Darvin, Remi, Froseth and Nai, knocking Hazel, Remi and Nai prone and doing some significant damage. And, when the localised tidal wave receded, they saw ... it wasn’t a sea hag. It was what I call an Ocean Hag, modeled largely off the Draug Witches - the big green corpulent lumberers you see in TSW. And, despite it being a bit early, we called it there because that? That is going to be a fight.

[jasonsutekh]

Dead Snow (2009)

A group of young men go on a holiday to a cabin where they discover a stash of gold. The curse attached to this treasure resurrects an army of Nazi zombies sworn to reclaim it.

 The zombies are interesting enough and different from the generic zombie films because they are also Nazis. This doesn’t make too much f a difference to them though besides adding a bit of back story to them although the origin of their curse isn’t really explored properly. They appear somewhat intelligent because they have a leader and a specific aim but they are still true to traditional zombies because they can’t talk, plan or use weapons.

 There were a few decent actors but the characters were all rather similar so if one of them died then there wouldn’t be much emotional impact because it is often difficult to tell them apart, especially if the scene is too chaotic or the camera work is too erratic.

 There was some good camera work in the film; a lot of handheld techniques which made the action feel more realistic but without resorting to crude limitations that would come with a found-footage film. So there are still a lot of embellished shots of the great mountain locations and the close personal touch of the handheld chase sequences.

 The plot was pretty typical of an independent horror movie. There were quite a few clichés like characters who want to needlessly split up or a courageous, good-looking character who rushes into danger only to be swiftly killed. It would make low-budget, independent productions like this a lot better if the script had a bit more work and a lot more attention was paid to the character’s motivations.

 6/10 -Just a cut above average-

 -This film was inspired by a map featuring Nazi zombies on a Call of Duty game.

-The film was originally going to be called "Rød Snø" (Red Snow) as homage to a Norwegian mini-series of the same name.

-The monsters in the film are a mixture of typical horror zombies and a Norwegian mythical creature called a Draug. This creature would inhabit graves or rich or important men to steal any treasure they were buried with.

[barbosaasouza]

Interview: Pure Nintendo speaks to the Perfectly Paranormal team about their new game, Helheim Hassle

The creators of the bizarre and brilliant Manual Samuel are coming back into the game this year with their new release, Helheim Hassle.

The new game is inspired by Viking folklore, but is just as weird as its predecessor. You play as a pacifist Viking called Bjørn, whose limbs can detach and recombine in different shapes.

You go on an adventure in which you encounter a host of mythological mayhem including Norse Gods, dragons and goblins. You have to use your ability to reattach your limbs to solve puzzles along the way.

Pure Nintendo caught up with the team at Perfectly Paranormal to find out more about the new game ahead of its release.

Pure Nintendo: Tell us about your game Helheim Hassle.

Perfectly Paranomal: Helheim Hassle is a narrative adventure game with puzzle platforming bits that revolve around detaching, attaching and flinging around your limbs in a modern Norse Mythology setting. See how well formulated that was? I have practiced that line a thousand times, which is coincidentally the same amount of years that passes between when the main character dies in the viking age, to the time period the rest of the game actually takes place. It is set on the same Tuesday as Manual Samuel even though it has a Norse Mythology theme. So the whole thing has a “Norse Gods…where are they now?” feel.

PN: What made you want to create a game about Norse mythology?

PP: We want to build a world where every legend, mythology and religion is real. In Manual Samuel we explored some biblical stuff, but being Norwegians, Norse Mythology seemed like a natural next step. We also wanna explore the hilarity that will ensue when we cross over some of these mythologies. What would happen if some of these different gods met each other? Or had a disagreement? The Tuesday Trilogy is a way for us to have this crazy and irreverent mish mash of cultures and mythologies!

PN: What kind of mythical monsters can players expect to encounter in the game?

PP: Let’s see, we tried to include the most popular gods, and some less popular ones. We also tried to -not- include some -too- popular Norse gods that you keep seeing everywhere. We also made a point out of trying to include some creatures that are only briefly mentioned in old norse legends, and giving them bigger roles in our thing. 

But to cut it short, you can expect to see some popular gods, dwarves, dragons, draugs, giants, and some other creatures from scandinavian folklore. We also have a bunch of Goblins who are originally from British folklore, but we included them because…we did.

PN: How did you come up with the idea of losing and reattaching body parts as a puzzle mechanic?

PP: We wanted to make a game similar to Manual Samuel where you had to navigate your body parts, preferably one at a time, without actually making Manual Samuel again. We feel like body-stuff is starting to become a part of our brand, so who knows how we will ridicule the human body next time?

PN: What is your trick to balancing out the narrative and the puzzles?

PP: Our trick is to have the obligatory puzzles as simple as possible. All they ever do is to teach you something new you can do with either your body or with the puzzle elements around you. None of them are designed to make you sit there and scratch your head for an hour. Other than that we have puzzles we call “narrative puzzles”. These puzzles are less about pulling levers or standing on buttons and more about talking to somebody or stealing a smoothie, or insulting somebody so they can kick your head in anger so it lands somewhere it needs to be. 

We have a healthy balance between platforming puzzles, narrative puzzles and cutscenes. We tried to make the game in such a way that you spend equal amounts of time on each. The cutscenes are of course skippable if you’re not into that kind of thing, but the game will notice, just like in Manual Samuel.

We also have secret puzzles you can find around the world. Those can be designed to make you sit down and scratch your head for an hour so good luck with those. The secret puzzles can both be platform puzzles or narrative puzzles themselves.

PN: Between the premise and your previous work, it feels reasonable to expect this game to get bizarre. Just how weird does this game get?

PP: I see people make faces when they have to bite their own arm with their head to make a head-arm combo that can climb ladders. We could say that’s as weird as it gets but I think we’ve built up a tolerance to weirdness through the years. It probably gets weirder without us noticing, but hopefully gamers enjoy that unique and weird element in our titles. 

PN: How similar is this game to your last game Manual Samuel?

PP: The art style (arguably better this time), the humour, the fact that you die within the first level and get resurrected by one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse (this is not Death contrary to popular belief) and oh yeah, the fact that you have to sometimes go through the hassle of having to steer your body one limb at a time.

Let me tell you where it definitely ISN’T similar and that’s the length. This game is about 5 Manual Samuels in one, even more if you count it in regards of content, all the secrets and all. We really pushed to make this game a with a breadth of content for players.

PN: Manual Samuel was a smash hit which currently has a 9/10 rating on Steam. How do you plan to top that performance with Helheim Hassle?

PP: By making a far superior game! (We hope it works.)

PN: What is the one most important piece of advice you can give players trying out Helheim Hassle?

PP: You can backtrack anywhere anytime you want so don’t get stuck trying to pick up a seemingly unpickable collectible. Go and unlock a leg or something and come back. Also, if something happens that confuses you, go play Manual Samuel, you might get more context there. However, those parts are brief and insignificant for the main story. Helheim Hassle is very much a standalone game.

Find out more about Helheim Hassle by visiting the game’s website here.

The post Interview: Pure Nintendo speaks to the Perfectly Paranormal team about their new game, Helheim Hassle appeared first on Pure Nintendo.

Interview: Pure Nintendo speaks to the Perfectly Paranormal team about their new game, Helheim Hassle published first on https://superworldrom.tumblr.com/

[theycallmeshaggyrogers]

Boy oh boy am I BAD at ironman runs

Finished my H2 Ironman run of Shadow Dragon and while a lot of the characters I lost were units that were outclassed by others to begin with, I still think I’m pretty bad at Fire Emblem sans Awakening (which is basically Baby’s First FE Game anyway).

Every fucker I lost in this stupid campaign:

Gordin 

Bord

Julian

Wolf

Wendell

Vyland

Radd 

Jagen

Caesar

Cain

Darros

Draug

Wrys

Cord (later resurrected with Aum Staff)

Characters I didn’t bother to recruit for one reason or another:

Matthis: Lena was too far away on the map for me to talk to him; also a shittier cavalier than Roshea.

Rickard: Only Julian can recruit him? And Julian is dead af at this point.

Jake: Forgot to talk to Anna at that one house early on in Chapter 11. Let him live though.

Beck: Didn’t visit village. Time was of the essence and I don’t recall him being a great unit despite being one of two recruitable ballisticians.

Every gaiden chapter character: Because I’m not the kind of person to needlessly kill off viable units in order to meet the low personnel requirements to access bonus chapters.

Also, Marth died a bajillion times mid-game due to H2′s enemy stat inflation so I guess this isn’t a pure Ironman run but I digress. Will attempt to write a nice, thoughtful analysis of SD

[draugsresurrection]

Draug's Resurrection 1.2.1

1.2.1 marks the addition of a whole new tab to the main menu, called Passives. It introduces a new way to upgrade your character, by Enhancing Spells/Skills along various basic attributes (MP Cost, Damage, Recharge Time, etc). In the original design for DR, every spell had five versions as you learned it, each with steadily improving stats. That's why the spell learning is broken into five sections like that. This addition harkens back to that idea, but makes it a bit more specialized and puts some player control into it.

Passive Abilities is also part of the earlier mentioned Passive tab, and gives characters boosts in more specific circumstances, like when surrounding an enemy, making Buff spells hit all allies but take much longer, or make an archer-type characters do more damage when performing their scarce few Direct attacks or while standing in the middle of the battlefield. About 70% of these Abilities have been completed right now, although they're naturally the less mechanically complex ones. Which generally means less interesting, too. They're all visible, just the ones that aren't done cost 99 Points to equip, of a maximum possible 50 or so.

The Passive tab also lets you see character's support status with each other (now called Unities), and now raises characters' elemental defenses as well.

Along with new upgrade routes comes more weapon types, also giving you a higher total maximum level. I was always dissatisfied that some mid-late Skills were created, some didn't actually end up on weapons themselves, and had to be Personal Skills (notably Rapier-oriented Clear Thrust and Lance-oriented Joust). First came Flamberges and Sarissas, then Chimes as a heavy physical Staff weapon (though they were Maces for a bit, until Macana came along and gave a decent non-Bash option for Maces), and the rest shortly fell into place.

Some of those new weapons have some of 25 new Spells and Skills added, many of which are focused on Terrain Effects, Movement Skills, and Enhancements. The existing Terrain Effects are now stored on the tile, rather than the caster, making them more versatile than before, and some fights now start with Terrain Effects already in place.

Minor, but probably really useful to everyone who isn't me. Pulling up the Battle Log can now also give you access to a nifty lil' reference of any active Ailments or the like currently active in the battle. It can expand to be bigger if it's a really convoluted battle.

The last big new thing is the ability to remove Draug from the party. Storywise, nothing changes, but it's great news if you didn't like the defensive-oriented playstyle Draug prefers, or just want to level your characters more evenly.

Actually, the really big last thing should be the end of the game crashing due to memory issues. I don't fully understand all of it, but older programs had a cap of how much Memory they could use, usually 1-2 GB. The cap has been editted to now be 4 GB. Why it was hitting 1GB at all is still a mystery to me, but considering a could run a random given game from ~2000 and it'll also hit 600+ MBs of RAM (despite their recommended requirements back in the day being about a tenth that), it's something about how modern PCs run… something. I dunno. I don't really get it. Regardless, issue should be fixed realistically forever.

It didn't amount to anything, but I would like to make a brief footnote here that I seriously played with the idea of doubling the resolution of Draug's Resurrection, but ultimately went against it. In part because a lot of things are hardcoded in a way that would make that not great, but mostly because it seems like certain resolutions simply cause the game to freeze, and it seems machine dependant. Disappointing, especially as boards looked way better when viewed further back, but the stability risk was just too great.

In more normal news, Alternate outfits have been expanded a fair bit over the year, with most characters having two alternates and their default. Since that's honestly probably the most interesting thing to look at, I'll end this post with a few characters, showing of all their outfits.

Download still available on itch.io.

[draugsresurrection]

New Year Recrawl

So, I think this place kind of got away on me. There's been multiple DR updates across last year, but posts simply didn't make out here. I've tried being on a multitude of new sites in hopes of even the faintest traffic, and spreading those posts out slightly to clearly see which sites worked and which didn't, and, well, none did. So by the time Tumblr's turn came around, I was just so disenchanted and mentally drained that I just... didn't.

But anyway, new year (sorta; complications pushed this back about three weeks from intended), new update, attempt to be less terrible. Version 1.1.4 has three big update features, and a couple of smaller ones. Two of the bigger updates are a casino that's there more for moral obligation and making its town more standout than a sign that I actually like or use such casinos in RPGs, and a major change to all humans, giving them varied resistances based on their weapon, magic, and armour types. This includes the player's party, too. They're relatively small modifiers, but make fights quite a bit more volatile, and defensive positioning more important.

The main update, at least to me, is the ability to buy new outfits for party members. Why did that get prioritized? Well, two reasons. One, this does potentially address complaints that certain characters don't 'look' like their roles, like Alice being the de facto black mage, despite looking more like a healer with her pink dress and flower in her hair. The second, the main one, being that I think the ability to visually change a character is worth a lot in a game that tries you to drastically change a character's stats over the course of the game.

Equipment is tied to levelling up, and, say, Lucy swapping from a Iron Saber to a Steel Scimitar might see her Attack/Magic split go from 15/18 to 28/13, resulting in her playstyle changing dramatically for her Scimitar duration. Having her look different (at the player's own free control) is a good way to mark this change. Some outfits will try to look more mage-y, more armoured, more speedy, and so on. Gale above is another perfect example; normally a staff-user, she could instead equip a Dagger and be a speedy frontline support fighter instead. Maybe it's not that big a deal for other people, but some of my own play/test sessions are months apart and I frankly spend a solid five minutes wondering why someone's magic is so awful before checking their gear after battle.

But that was just stuff from one update of, uhm, seven, since the last time I posted here. To speedrun the highlights of additions since then; 100 New monsters have been added to the game. ALL enemies now have Weak, Dead, and Attacking frames. Some AI fixes, again. Academy Lessons provide uniquely crafted encounters as a way to teach the player about certain spells and mechanics. Ineffective spells/skills have a subtle 'fizzle' animation. A proxy of a Trophy/Achievement system has been added. Autosaves were added. And lastly the turn timeline that was the focus of the previous post here.

Just noticed I didn't include a download link yet, so let's just end this cleanly with that. Link to itch.io download here.

[draugsresurrection]

April Progress Update

April marks Draug's Resurrection as being 12 years old. I suppose the date the project started isn't as prominent anymore, and the release of 1.0 is the more important date, but all the same, hearing it makes me wither and die a little inside. Or a lot.

Anyway, in more positive news. I've been outlining my goals for the entire year, slowly picking away at whatever I'm the least unmotivated not to do. It's always a bit of struggle to work on any aspect of the game that's not right at the start, as my brain screams nonstop that nobody's ever gonna see any of it. Anyway, said goals are:

Turn Timeline - As shown in the image above. Pressing ESC now also shows the predicted turn order of all living characters on the battlefield (except the current person’s turn, because that’s redundant). It's pretty basic, really, but I've found it makes battle feel more orderly and easier to follow. Unlike everything talked about below, this is completely finished and works fine right now. My only possible quibble is that this marks the first time the term ‘Round’ is officially used to denote a ‘tick’ of Speed being added to everyone. I think it’s a clear enough term in context, though.

Extra sidequests - There were about a dozen left on the floor, of varying levels of interesting. So far, only two of them are approaching completion. I have to fight myself a lot here, as there's a fear that they might be kinda filler fluff without adding any meaningful content or fun decisions. I doubt I'll finish all dozen this year, but I'd like to finish at least four. One of the more interesting/difficult aspects of the sidequests already added was the need for 'guest' characters, which leads into...

Puzzle fights - Basically, the recent system changes let me pull up four completely new characters from scratch anytime. The best usage of this that I thought of would be a series of preset battles, generally focused around specific skills and combos. On one hand, this kind of makes it like some kind of psuedo-tutorial thing, but on the other hand, it would logically make more sense if a NPC who gave these challenges with in the Academy, about as far away from the game's start as possible. I'm currently thinking that completing a minimum number of these will need to be finished to be granted access into the Academy now, but then will otherwise be entirely optional.

Supports - Not exactly unique, but these little conversations between two party members when resting at the inn fell to the wayside really hard. Only about 40 of them were ever written, and I know I need to have at least five times that for them to be a worthwhile mechanic. I just really, really, REALLY know I suck at writing two people talking about normal things, so I doubt I'll make too much progress here.

Arts - I'm always a little conflicted about doing extra art, because I get nothing but ire for my efforts. The most dire thing is redoing most outside field boards, as they basically devolve into empty screens of green. Forests and mountains look tolerable, so the intent is to mountainize the heck out of these wide-open fields. Slightly less critical is making actual dead sprites for monsters/human enemies, as about 90% of them still have placeholder X'es on their eyes for their dead sprite. Least critical (but probably the most fun) is making split physical/magical animations for monsters, as almost all have just one animation for all their attacks. As things sit, three Estarian boards have been redone, and I hope to redo a couple of the Northern Wastes boards by the time version 1.1 comes out.

New Monsters - With the nonlinear nature of gameplay and four monsters per battle, I still found that the current number of monsters isn't nearly sufficient. You still see the same things too frequently. A whopping 120 new monsters are underway of being made, with about 75% being finished right now. In short, this changes any given area from having 18 level-appropriate monsters to 27, and lessen the chances of being utterly stomped by something from a higher spawn table. All of the internal data (stats, movesets, random/determined spawn data) surrounding these 120 new monsters is finished and in the game. Just the sprites remain.

Library of Souls - Basically, a sort of Bloody Palace side-area-subgame. In an RPG. There's gonna be multiple different 'modes'; at least one on starting from scratch and tactically growing yourself quickly at checkpoint shops, one that's more endurance-oriented and eating through your potential stock of all 25 party members, and one that's just, well, normal. It might be a great place to have fun sets of monsters with specific synergy or feature human bosses that are almost never fought in normal gameplay. It's probably gonna need to be a bit stand-alone in nature, but I think it could reward alternate costumes for party members, or something of that nature. While fun to think about and something that might add metagame weight to doing NG+’ses, it's very, very low priority right now.

My ideal would be to put out version 1.1.0 with all the new monsters, the turn timeline, a number of redrawn boards, and the two mostly-done sidequests in it, sometime in mid-late May. But we'll see; that's a pretty optimistic goal, but I know I've been dreadfully overdue to talk about progress, so I know I had to post something.

[draugsresurrection]

End of an Era - Version 1.0.0

This currently released version is finally 1.0.0, after almost 12 years. Download link at itch.io here. Although, in a lot of ways, it's just finishing off what wasn't by 0.9.7, that being the final set of 20 spells. Plus an additional 26 completely new ones to fill outs some spots or further utilize new mechanics introduced.

Now, truthfully, my playtesting hasn't been as extensive as I would've liked for THE big version number, nor does it mean the game is truly 100% complete. There's a lot of extra art work that I really would've liked to have done in time, especially related to the animation additions of 0.9.7, but seeing as things are mechanically finished and real-life issues might complicate things in the near future, I need to call it now. Again, ideally, this is not intended to be the final update, but if it is, I think it's a fair enough spot to leave it. Further, if I'm being perfectly transparent, I think for there to be any further growth, DR at least needs to appear finished enough that someone might want to actually touch it. Can't fix something if I don't know or don't think it's broken, you know? Worst case, save files are transferrable to new versions, so there's little fear of lost progress if a new version does come out.

So, with all that said, let's restart this at the very, very top. Draug's Resurrection is a completely free nonlinear RPG with a focus on incorporating that nonlinearity both narratively and mechanically. It features a unique turn-based battle system that has elements of tactics games and classic RPG battles, and allows for fairly ample party and character customization. While the tale of Draug's quest to re-obtain its nine artifacts and recover its lost memories and power is fundamentally a simple one, each of those events finds a way to culminate and effect future events, both in obvious and less-obvious ways. Total estimated playtime for a playthrough is... pretty hard to nail down, but I feel comfortable in saying at least 30 hours. With its nonlinear design, any two players (or any two playthroughs) should see fairly distinct differences, even if they take the same general path and alignment.

[draugsresurrection]

All Spells completed

All spells and skills are finally completed, a task that's taken me nearly 8 years. In addition to the 20 or so holdout spells, another 25 brand new ones have been made, all told bringing the total up to 526. These final spells are primarily based around counterattacks and trap tiles that continually do damage (or some other ill effect, in the cases of Quicksand and Miasma Cloud). Some party members had some minor spell-list changes, with Chizuru, Minerva, and Julie gaining completely new slots. Everyone else lost permanent access to some spell or another in exchange, but they can still cast those old spells if they have the appropriate tome equipped.

The fun/annoying thing about counterattacks was finding a way for them to be effective in enemy hands. Fundamentally, they're treated as Enhancements, and seeing one would give their ruse away immediately. My workaround is that the game straight-up lies to you when an enemy uses a Counter skill, claiming they're just Defending instead. And if enemies have multiple Counter-skills or Defend active, they stack so as not to be suspicious. There's still hints that they're not actually using Defend, as Counter-skills take MP and may result in different Enhancement potencies or take longer to recharge from, but I hope this system is tricky without being frustrating.

The only thing left before I call this Version 1.0.0 and release it is to edit the movesets of enemies to incorporate these new spells, do some more playtesting, and maybe some extra animation work for party members. I'm aiming for sometime in early October.

[draugsresurrection]

Draug’s Resurrection 0.9.7 Released

0.9.7 makes some pretty massive strides, although I feel some of them are things people would argue should've been there since day one.

Despite the negative feedback, I went all-in on making quick one-frame attack animations, broken down into physical, magical, and 'third', a bonus category I can specify to make specific moves for specific characters look more standout. All characters, enemies, and bosses have at least one, though most are limited to just one for now, excluding your own party members, who all have two. All told, well over 800 new sprites have been made to support attack frames so far. In a similar vein, damage numbers now appear directly above the target in battle, in addition to being mentioned in the toptext. Both of these things make battles feel a lot more dynamic and engaging, even if nothing mechanically has changed.

Whiterock got a fair bit of an overhaul, making it less unfair if you go there immediately. A couple bugs and design flaws were addressed (the massive Whiterock Volcano got split from 2 boards into 9, as it turns out the engine can't reload old boards, but has to lock up new memory for each new board you go to per session). The biggest change was allowing you to recruit Oliver much earlier. There's four different ways to do so, and can interact with basically every single event on the island, so many got heavily reworked.

Lastly, and far more optionally, Save Obelisks have been dotted across the world, alongside the option to restrict saving to only in towns and in front of said Obelisks. However, by default, you're still allowed to save anywhere. Either way, they can be a helpful reminder to save regularly and a warning that a boss may be ahead very shortly.

Basically, the only things holding it back from being 1.0 are the lack of a full-blown epilogue, a few errant skills, and a need for more bug testing; all of which are time-consuming and unnoticeable in most circumstances. Anyway, link to the download at itch.io here.

[draugsresurrection]

Sprite Attrition IV & Whiterock Updates

While some work was done on the ceaseless load of attack sprites needed, most of last month was mostly spent on fixing up issues with Whiterock and adding visible numbers directly to the battlefield, as shown below.

It, like a lotta things in DR, probably looks a lot better to see it in action than to just see a tepid screenshot with a number lazily floating in the sky. Regardless, like attack animations in general, this is probably something that should've been added decades ago. While this information was already provided in the toptext, nor was it particularly demanding to get it work, I think it adds a bit more impact and immediate feedback to attacks. It displays exact numbers for Beams/Walls and Multihits, so those especially are improved.

Back to Whiterock, the big change is allowing Oliver to be recruited while still on Whiterock, if you go early enough. There's four separate ways to get him to join, and he has something to say about essentially every event on Whiterock, so there's a fair bit of content added there. Alongside that, there's a few minor tweaks to make an extremely early Whiterock more palatable. It's still not really recommended to do extremely early, unless you really know what you're doing, and Chizuru cusses you out much more clearly if she doesn't think you're ready (based mostly on playtime, money, and potion count).

Lastly, while it's limited to only four characters right now, Third animations now exist. These are used (for player characters only, probably) whenever a specific spell or skill needs some extra flair. Marcia's obviously has some personal significance to me. In addition, I changed the way the normal 'Physical/Magical' animations are determined. Previously, it was strictly based on damage typing, but after seeing too many fringe cases (most Direct Magicals and Indirect Physicals, like Lunar Blade or Rock Barrage), it's become its own variable, giving me more freedom on how moves are displayed.

I'm sorely tempted to say that I'll be releasing Version 0.9.7 on August 16th, regardless of if I've finished an attack animation for every single enemy or not. If it comes to that, I sincerely doubt anyone’ll realistically see those missing enemies, and those that do are already 20+ hours in, so are gonna be a lot more forgiving. All in all, there's already a fair bit of content added, beyond what the massive quality-of-life the attack frames and damage numbers add to combat, and hopefully setting a date in stone will get me to stop getting sidetracked.