Scoring the game

[ZeaLitY]

Gato = Leonid's Castle from Romancing SaGa 3. It was a little tough finding a slow, melancholy ice theme without overdoing it.

[ZeaLitY]

Double post. I think I'll revive an idea I had for Crimson Echoes and go ahead and release a package of SPCs alongside the hack (separate download) as a "soundtrack". If someone would like to make some CD size cover art, it could give it a more professional feel. Maybe just a minimalist Magus shadow would work. In fact, I think I have something perfect...

I'll ask Fuee if we can use it. I've attached it below. If someone wants to do a mockup, it just needs "PROPHET'S GUILE" somewhere on the left, perhaps vertical or something so it's not touching the Magus art.

Maggiekarp is too busy to do a portrait at the moment, so we'll just use the original unless someone has a stroke of inspiration or something.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[FaustWolf]

Only thing that comes to my mind as a Magus portrait is the avatar being used by Lavodox (a close side profile).

Some of the more interesting Magus pics from I've come across can be found at the following links; not sure if any of these even remotely fit what you guys have in mind for a portrait:
http://destinyfall.deviantart.com/art/The-Magus-23586883
http://anniefelis.deviantart.com/art/Man-With-a-Scythe-22833229
http://emperorjustin.deviantart.com/art/Zeal-Trio-FanArt-33355223
http://www.icybrian.com/fanart/kay/kayrealisticm.jpg
http://www.icybrian.com/fanart/kay/kaycollapsezeal.jpg

This one's just for fun. I can't help but laugh uncontrollably when I see this:
http://kurotogane.deviantart.com/art/Tribute-to-Akira-Toriyama-7510749

[FaustWolf]

Anyone thinking what I'm thinking?

Probably not implement-able, but eh, one can dream.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[ZeaLitY]

I guess it's depend on how much time we have left. Chrono'99's going to have the issue, after he adds monsters, of making sure the game is balanced and not totally easy or hard, and JCE's still polishing the SPCs (only three songs are left to import on his patch). Speaking of that, he just blanked out and replaced the original songs (Gato, Forest, etc.) so we won't have to do any moving around. We can just apply his patch to our ROM and voila. He might have a time crunch though, but adding those RD songs won't be difficult.

I'm guessing we could try a portrait palette / image switch right now and create a patch to be applied to the final ROM, even. Any volunteers?

[FaustWolf]

I imagine I could supply a palette for the potential replacement above if people find it interesting enough. But the portrait has to be a certain width and height, correct? It wouldn't be possible to do a longer portrait and use the space ordinarily given to the element as I showed above, is it? If not, it would end up like this:

[attachment deleted by admin]

[ZeaLitY]

Yeah, it'd be a 48x48 pixel image, with 15 unique colors. I forget which one -- the last or the first in the palette -- is ALWAYS transparent, and I think pure black is transparent by default too. I encountered that issue with the "Dark" element icon in the Retranslation.

48x48 is awful small, so it might be good to zoom in on his face.

JCE's free time's expired, so I'm going to try remixing Silent Light and Ocean Palace on an unheadered ROM with his previous patch applied. That way, we'll have two patches to plug in (since I think Vehek will be handling RD).

[FaustWolf]

15 colors, ouch. I found the offsets for portrait data in the ROM. If I can't pull a portrait switch off tomorrow or the next day, just forget about it unless someone else is interested in handling it; you guys obviously have enough on your plates.

[ZeaLitY]

Just in case, my big, fat, outdated tutorial is http://www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Changing_the_status_menu_portraits.html

Every time after the first I followed it, though, I always ended up with a bad transparent color here or there.

[FaustWolf]

Thanks, I was going to look that up! Looks like Paint Shop Pro can get the face resized without a huge drop in quality; it will still look fairly decent, though pixelated. In any case, it'll be a fun exercise in SNES graphics hacking. Time to roll up my sleeves and dive in!

[Vehek]

I'm currently seeing how the songs I've imported (Far Promise ~ Dream Shore and Grieve) sound and making sure they sound right. I don't really know what instruments to use for Final Confrontation yet.

[ZeaLitY]

Here are the Silent Light and Ocean Palace remixes. Since we don't need the originals in the game, I've attached the instrument list so it can simply be changed on the final ROM. I discovered that I can't edit that basic Ocean Palace rhythm that starts it off no matter what I change.

With Silent Light, I went for an icy feel. The Ocean Palace sounds like it's under construction; just check it out and see whether it works.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Vehek]

My current attempts at Far Promise ~ Dream Shore and Grieve. Tell me if you think they need adjusting.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[ZeaLitY]

Grieve sounds great. I guess it'll terminate at the 8 second mark in the game.

Hm, should we just use music box for Far Promise?

[ZeaLitY]

Since I don't need to make a patch for my remixes, here's JCE's final batch:

http://www.blitzkrieginnovations.net/hiddenpanda/Secret%20XMAS%20CT%20Hack.zip

The patch will replace the named songs on an unheadered ROM. He put Pt. 3 of FF6's opening in there, and it can play when the player reads the note on the programmer's room floor (Kids Run Through the City will play as the general room BG music until that note is read).