A few more cave decorations that I'll add today. I'll probably be working heavy on the cave dungeon on Saturday when I have lots of free time.
Just a small update.
Current/max HP and MP are now displayed rather than just current. I always thought it was kind of dumb not being able to see your maximum HP, so this is a welcome improvement. HP and MP bars are also completely disabled now, so they won't be clipping through the currently selected character pane in the party window any longer.
Avee has completed all portraits for Penumbra Crystallis. Of the nine, I'm very happy with eight, and am pondering what to do with the ninth at the moment (which is, fortunately, for a character who won't join for 20+ hours). I'll probably make my own adjustments to it.
Anyway here's a peek at Oalston's portrait:
Unlike in Blackmoon Prophecy where Oalston was a stereotypical black mage with a blacked out face, you'll notice that Oalston's face is very much exposed and viewable in Penumbra Crystallis. Blackmoon Prophecy's Oalston was moderately young, but not so much here. In Penumbra Crystallis, Oalston is significantly older and is a retired court mage who possesses vast wisdom. When I was describing Oalston to Avee, I told him to just imagine Gandalf.
Also, don't worry, just because Oalston's older now doesn't mean that he's going to be another grumpy Hautley type of wizard. Oalston will be very wise and likely be the party's "second in command" after Vahn later in the story due to his mature and wise personality.
Kwehs and warks will be a thing of the past soon, as I decided today what to replace chocobos with.
Penumbra Crystallis will feature a type of large red panda called the "Rapapa" that can be mounted and used to cross swamps! I already have the rapapa sprite finished, complete with Vahn riding it. I'll be testing it later today to see how it looks in motion.
I'll be doing something similar to what I did in Blackmoon Prophecy II where you had an item in your inventory that you used to call/ride the white chocobo Winter. In Penumbra Crystallis, you'll obtain an item about 2-3 hours in that will allow Vahn to call a rapapa on the world map whenever he needs one.
I don't know if I have access to any catchy jingles to play when riding your rapapa, but we'll see what I can find today when I do some testing!
Status conditions! We love them and we hate them. Here are the ones that will be featured in Penumbra Crystallis.
Aura: Target's spirit is increased by 25%.
Blind: Physical attacks miss and non-magic abilities cannot be used.
Death: Instant KO.
Dementia: Lose 5% + 2 MP per turn.
Enfeeble: Target's spirit is decreased by 25%.
Expose: Targte's defense is decreased by 25%.
Flu: Double damage received from ice attacks.
Frail: Character's HP is continuously reduced to 1.
GravBlast: Lose 50% of total HP over two turns.
Quick: Target's speed is increased by 25%.
Poison: Lose 5% + 2 HP per turn.
Rage: Character cannot be controlled and attacks anything, receives 20% attack power buff.
Renew: Target regenerates 7% + 10 HP per turn.
Shield: Target's defense is increased by 25%.
Silence: All magic-based abilities cannot be used.
Sleep: Character is put to sleep for several turns, wakes up upon being struck.
Slow: Target's speed is decreased by 25%.
Sunburn: Double damage received from fire attacks.
The Final Fantasy inspiration is probably evident in most of those, and I also took a few nods from Breath of Fir for others.
I want to mention rings and trinkets, since they are on the equip screen. The equip screen currently looks like this:
(I'll get into codex items later, they'll be important.)
So, each character can equip one ring and one trinket. Rings are going to be pretty straightforward and are where you'll be getting your element/status condition resistances from. Since you can equip only one ring, you need to put some thought into what resistance you want each character to have. Characters like Oalston and Vera will probably need silence protection the most while Vahn being able to resist blind would be important. Of course, some dungeons may prioritize certain status conditions over others (such as a dungeon where most enemies try to inflict sleep or slow), so you'll want to change up what rings are equipped on your characters.
From watching LPs of Blackmoon Prophecy and Blackmoon Prophecy II, I learned that a lot of players take a sort of one and done approach to resistances. I'd often see someone slap, say, a white cape on a mage and just leave it on them indefinitely until they'd acquire a ribbon or powerful stat boosting relic, and said players would often be frustrated when they encounter monsters in one area that may try to inflict one condition frequently - a condition that they had a relic that offered ample resistance, but they neglected to equip it. This is a habit that I would like to encourage players to break for Penumbra Crystallis. After the first few hours, enemies will be changing up what conditions and elements they throw at you, and it will likely not be the same ones consistently. Shaking up what rings are equipped on each character will be important! Here are a few examples of rings.
Coral Ring: Grants immunity to flu.
Emerald Ring: Grants immunity to poison.
Fire Ring: Greatly reduces fire elemental damage taken.
Lightning Ring: Greatly reduces lightning elemental damage taken.
And then we have trinkets! These are, as you might expect, traditional accessory/relic items. The ability to resist conditions and elements have primarily become a ring function, so trinkets will grant you other bonuses and effects. We all know how accessories work, so I'll spare you a description and just toss out some examples.
Cyclops Eye: Drastically increases critical hit chance.
Earth Band: Adds earth element to physical attacks.
Falcon Statue: Hit rate becomes 100%.
Power Belt: Increases maximum HP by 25%.
Spell Jammer: Adds silence condition to wearer's attacks.
Yin Yang: Prevents all status conditions (including beneficial ones).
There are currently a total of 22 rings and 42 trinkets. I'm hoping to have those numbers grow slightly, and I will be leaving myself a bit of room in the database between entries in case I want to add some additional ones over time (database is sorted alphabetically, hence the need for spaced entries if I come up with new item ideas mid-development).
What I'm going to add:
Dilapidated looking chests
Doors
Lanterns for walls (will attach to wooden support beams)
Pickaxes
Stalagmites
Wall switch
What I might add:
Mine carts
Mine tracks
Spider webs
Added functional tents to the overworld. This feature missing was one of the biggest complaints about Blackmoon Prophecy back in the day, so here it is!
The first ten minutes of Penumbra Crystallis. I may have additional footage for tomorrow. Very happy with how things are going so far.
Vera added, more skills/spells added, and Zeul kicked out in favour of some neat goblin sprites.
I've created a random name generator that I will be using to name NPCs in Penumbra Crystallis because every NPC has a name in the game right down to random townsfolk who have nothing of value to say!
Here is the link to the generator, as it may be useful to other people for different reasons (such as naming D&D characters or something): NPC Name Generator
Feel free to contact me via Discord if you have any names that you would like to suggest I add. Who knows, they may show up in the game!
Avee has made good progress on three portraits so far. I'll show off two since one of them is of a character who was not a playable party member in the original Blackmoon Prophecy.
So, here's Vahn and Vera! I think Vera looks pretty A+ already. I submitted feedback on Vahn regarding his eyebrows looking a bit "angry", but he's pretty good otherwise.
Second recorded test battle!
What's new in this one:
1. Casting animation for magic. Six orbs representing elements spread out from the character casting the spell and then vanish.
2. Generic unarmed hit/punch animation that the Zeul test enemy uses.
3. Damage number pop-ups altered so that they are the same resolution/scale as everything else.
What I will change/implement today:
1. The volume for the sound effects is kind of all over the place, so I'll work on that today.
2. Going to remove the RTP weapons and replace them with my own today.
3. I want to get the Fire and Frost abilities working, and possibly a healing spell.
4. Add Vera in there for testing a full four person party.
5. Maybe experiment with some battle UI plugins.
Battle cursor is in! I started spriting a hand, but I wanted to make sure that it wouldn't look identical to the traditional fat white glove that Final Fantasy uses, since I feel like that would be a little too blatant. So, I used Ogre Battle's hand cursor as an inspiration here with the thumb poking up and the folded fingers being on the front side of the hand rather than the back.
Later today I'll work at trying to change up the battle UI a bit to see if I can settle on something that fits what I'm going for. I'll probably also be modifying the icon set some more since they are one of the very few RTP holdouts remaining.
EXTREMELY early test battle. Menus will be changed still, I haven't played with the UI at all, and battle log up top needs to be removed. Also need to get some custom weapon sprites in as well. This is a start though. The Zeul sprite from Blackmoon Prophecy is obviously just a placeholder.
I didn't think that I would be at this point already because of my hesitance to work on battles (since I don't even have anyone doing monster sprites yet), but after deciding to compile Vahn's battle sprites and try my hand at making a few things for battle animations, I'm feeling cautiously excited about tackling some test battles in the near future.
I'll probably try to have some kind of test battle running this week sometime. It will probably have Vahn and Hans attacking a placeholder Final Fantasy enemy, or a just a box with a monster name in it. We'll see.
Very happy to say that, as of today, Avee has agreed to help with portraits. I am vey excited to be working with him again, as he created the character portraits for both Blackmoon Prophecy II and Blackmoon Prophecy III (RIP sweet prince).
There are nine party members in Penumbra Crystallis, so I've separated them in groups of threes and sent them to Avee in chronological order of appearance. This means that Vahn and Hans should be finished first hopefully, and I'll share the portraits here when I receive them from Avee. Can't wait!
LOTS of weapons to collect in Penumbra Crystallis! There's a lot of clear Final Fantasy inspiration, and tons from real world weapons and mythology. Behold!
Also not listing who uses what weapons, as I want to keep that - as well as who a few party members are - a surprise.
Axes
Hatchet
Tomahawk
Lumberjack
Pickaxe
Battle Axe
War Axe
Crescent Axe
Dwarven Axe
Forseti Axe
Great Axe
Labrys
Sagewood Axe
Bunyan Axe
Francisca
Totem Axe
Templar Axe
Rune Axe
Parashu
Gigas Axe
Platinum Axe
Atlantean
Balestarius
Blunts
Mallet
Club
Shillelagh
Cudgel
Mace
Spiked Club
Sledgehammer
Kaladanda
Morningstar
Warhammer
Ukonvasara
Flail
Greathammer
Mjolnir
Bows
Short Bow
Hunter Bow
Flat Bow
Long Bow
Elven Bow
Ranger Bow
Houyi Bow
Falconer Bow
Recurve Bow
Apollo Bow
Alpine Bow
Krishna Bow
Compound Bow
Hinterland Bow
Valkyrie Bow
Sniper Bow
Griffon Bow
Artemis Bow
Heracles Bow
Greatswords
Estoc
Greatsword
Kladenets
Spatha
Claymore
Flamberge
Gram
Giantslayer
Zweihander
Goliath
Thanatos
Einhander
Durendal
Ragnarok
Knives
Dirk
Kris
Dagger
Rondel
Anelace
Machete
Stiletto
Goblin Knife
Carnwennan
Cleaver
Waterdancer
Main Gauche
Thief Knife
Parazonium
Baselard
Orihalchum
Yatagan
Soul Knife
Katar
Rostam
Ninja Swords
Kodachi
Ninjato
Wakizashi
Kusanagi
Bizen
Kotetsu
Fujin
Musashi
Kage
Oni
Akuma
Katana
Mutsunokami
Raizen
Odachi
Zanbato
Hyakki Yagyo
Ryujin
Murasame
Rods
Rod
Metal Rod
Wizard Rod
Pole Rod
Adept Rod
Sorcery Rod
Caduceus
Poison Rod
Flame Rod
Icicle Rod
Lightning Rod
Kaleidoscope
Magus Rod
Prospero
Fey Rod
Sanctum Rod
Holy Rod
Shadow Rod
Mistilteinn
Force Rod
Nirvana
Spears
Spear
Javelin
Alpenstock
Thorn Spear
Battle Spear
Partisan
White Spear
Birdslayer
Pike
Aram
Scorpion Tail
Voulge
Longinus
Halberd
Trident
Ascalon
Glaive
Dragon Lance
Holy Lance
Gungnir
Swords
Shortsword
Sabre
Broadsword
Ancient Sword
Katzbalger
Cutlass
Fire Sword
Ice Sword
Thunder Sword
Rapier
Gladius
Falchion
Dainsleif
Royal Cutlass
Tyrfing
Scimitar
Rune Sword
Platinum Sword
Atomic Blade
Excalibur
King's Blade
Whew! Onward to compiling the armor list!
Penumbra Crystallis is my new project in RPG Maker MV, and it is a remake and reimagining of Blackmoon Prophecy. All graphics and music are now custom/original, and sound effects are from royalty free sources. There will be no RTP or rips present anywhere in Penumbra Crystallis.
"But UPRC, why don't you do something different? Why Blackmoon Prophecy again?"
That is what someone asked me on an RPG Maker Discord server, though not verbatim and much less sarcastic than the original wording. The simple answer is that this is not Blackmoon Prophecy. This is Penumbra Crystallis. The two are going to be very different things, and this is where the reimagining part comes in. If I intended on just straight-up remaking Blackmoon Prophecy as an original game and keeping the game entirely as it was (sans Final Fantasy references and rips), then what would be the point? No, this is something more than that. Not only are all Final Fantasy elements removed, but the game will also unfold in new ways and the actual gameplay and mechanics will not be identical at all.
"What is the same?"
Vahn will be out to save national treasures from the being known as Malacore. Vahn will be accompanied by friends such as Hans, Vera, and Nobumasa, and they will adventuring across the globe on their grand quest.
"What is different?"
Almost everything else. Again, this is a retelling of the events of Blackmoon Prophecy as a fully original story. Characters and places will remain intact, but a lot of events will unfold very differently. This is evident right from the beginning when the player chooses to start a new game because they will start in the town of Valla rather than in Branch Castle. In Blackmoon Prophecy, you couldn't venture to Valla for 15-20 hours and getting there required the airship, so things are clearly different now!
"What about the gameplay?"
Since this is a project that is now influenced by Final Fantasy rather than directly based on it, expect the gameplay to still feel familiar. From random battles and save points to three tiers of elemental magic and a suspiciously large type of animal for you to ride around on, lots of things will still ooze Final Fantasy while not being Final Fantasy. I want Penumbra Crystallis to be a love letter for fans of the old Final Fantasy games, but I suspect that those who appreciate the NES/SNES Dragon Quest games will also find lots to enjoy here.
There are two changes with the gameplay that I'll briefly mention that I think are very positive changes.
1. There will be much more balance and parity between party members. Blackmoon Prophecy was an unbalanced mess, and I attribute this to the fact that I did work on a huge chunk of the game back before I found my groove in RPG Maker. I was not experienced and was prone to making countless mistakes with balance and game design. All playable characters are going to feel useful and interesting immediately, and they will come with more dynamic abilities that do more than just "hurt/heal for X HP" like in the original.
2. The equip screen. Equipment is divided up like this:
Weapon
Shield
Head
Body
Legs
Ring
Trinket
Codex
Codex
Now, the major changes here are the last, well, four things on that list. Armor is being split up between body and legs so that characters can feel more diverse and appropriately geared, and I expect the overall armor gains to more or less match what the game would be like if I just had body armor.
Rings and trinkets will be where you get the majority of your extra stat increases, resistances, and cool bonus traits. Rings will be where you mostly get your elemental resistances and such while trinkets will more or less be Final Fantasy relics in everything but name.
Each character will have two codex slots. Over the course of the adventure, players will be able to purchase common codices from shops and well as find rare ones in dungeons and other such locations. Equipping a character with a codex will likely grant them a cool bonus of some sort that you won't normally get on other pieces of gear such as increasing evasion, critical rate, hit rate, and so forth. Some codices will also grant special battle abilities to certain characters, so make sure you equip them to the right characters!
That's mostly it, so I'll finish with screenshots.
