*Why did you want to work on this hack?
I always wanted to create a fangame of sorts, but I never managed to write a decent story on my own due to a lack of imagination, or at least self-confidence... or maybe just laziness. That's why I joined the Crimson Echoes project, since it already had a large plot draft to work with. When I read Zeality's plot outline for Prophet's Guile, I was excited in the same way. It described all the events of the game in details from the beginning to the end. I had never written a complete plot outline, and there was a really nice one right here at disposal, so I jumped on the opportunity to code it.
*What have you done in this hack?
I coded the events, mainly. I also did some maps, a bit of graphic hacking, and altered the monster stats.
*Any difficulties you experienced why making it?
Magus was supposed to wear his Prophet hood during the whole game. From the start we decided that he would remove it during battles, since otherwise this would have required too much graphic hacking. Various tricks were considered to have the player control the Prophet sprite outside of battles, but all possibilities required at least a bit of sprite assembly hacking. We eventually decided that it wasn't really worth the effort, given the short nature of the game and its "quick development" philosophy. In the final version, Magus wears his hood only during some cutscenes. The other difficulties were very minor because the project was well-planned from the start and we had a clear idea of what we could and couldn't do with the CT engine.
*Could you give a bit of a teaser of Crimson Echoes?
The project was resumed in October, and it's now 25% complete. The plot is huge and blends the creative styles of many different people. The game intends to fill the gap between Chrono Trigger and Chrono Cross, but one of its main purpose is to further develop the overarching themes of the series rather than simply involving the old party in a new adventure. I don't want to give away anything precise since it would spoil the surprises, but I can say we're expanding the Chrono themes of "hope" and "dreams" with the notions of "reconciling differences" and "personal attachment". Finally, while Prophet's Guile isn't meant to be a direct prequel to Crimson Echoes, it does allude to an event in the past which will have huge repercussions in the latter game.
*What are your thoughts on the ROM hacking community in general at this point?
Well, apart from the Compendium's forums, I'm not much in contact with the ROM hacking scene. I just hope Prophet's Guile will lead more people to try their hand at hacking Chrono Trigger. Before the release of Temporal Flux, I had never actually hacked anything. Temporal Flux makes things really easy once you've familiarized yourself with the program, but I have the feeling that many people don't realize this because there's a lack of documentation. I encourage people to open Prophet's Guile in TF to see how events were coded, and to ask questions in the forums if they want to start using TF.