Suikogaishi Back From the Dead & Seeking a Bit of Help

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Jack of All Trades
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Suikogaishi Back From the Dead & Seeking a Bit of Help

Post by Jack of All Trades »

For the last few months Yensoo and I have been working on our Suikoden Project. A lot of things have changed though. Unlike last time we aren't trying to overreach. We started out this project with the basics: A writer, a programmer, and an artist. Since then we've added a few very helpful people to our team and things are kicking along smoothly.

We've been at it for several months and even though I'm not ready to reveal anything yet, there is visible progress and some of it is pretty cool. I can talk about some of the features we'll be implementing. A lot of these are standard in a Konami Suikoden game but are a pretty big deal in one made by a small ehandful of individuals.

1. Completely Original Gaming Engine.

Our programmer is cooking this up from scratch. We will not be relying on caveats like rpg maker to complete our game.

2. Duels, Wars, and Battles

We'll basically be using the Battle, War, and Duel systems of Suikoden 2.

3. 108 Stars of Destiny.

One of the largest complaints about our last list of stars was that it was filled with characters from other games. Since plot is my strong suit, it was easy to twist the story to fit around these characters. This time around our SoD list is filled is centered around an original cast with some returning members. Instead of twisting the story around the characters, I'm twisting the characters around the story. People are only coming back if it makes sense.

4. Harmonian Civil War

Instead of trying to expand an existing series of events from the series' canon timeline, we've thrown caution to the wind and created an entirely new story that takes place in the year 480, a full five years after the events of Suikoden 3.

5. Fantastic Villains

Most of our rogue's gallery is inspired from our history's greatest villains and conquerors. All of them have been tempered with real world motivations, desires, and back stories.

6. Respect for the community

Right now, there are a few fan created games that are coming out for the series. Some of these are borrowing resources without permission, have a cast that acts and speaks out of character, and writing that feels like bad fan fiction. This game is doing everything in it's power to keep that epic feel with that personal touch that the series is known for without the missteps of it predecessors or it's own juvenile past. We plan to take negative criticism to heart once we start showing things off. While we can't address the negative criticism of the entire community, we don't intend to ignore it's universally spoken truths either.


The end result is hopefully something that gives the series the proper send off it will probably never see otherwise. We probably need some help to achieve this goal. The first and foremost is a web designer, eventually we're going to need to recruit some artists and play-testers. The best way to do this is to show what we are up to. Unfortunately, most of us are all ready splitting our time. We can't further distill our most precious resource for this goal. If you want to manage our web presence, we'd love to hear from you. Let's face it, if you are a skilled artist or programmer we'd love to hear from you too. If you're interested PM me with your email address or facebook ID. We'll talk.
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Trahison
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Re: Suikogaishi Back From the Dead & Seeking a Bit of Help

Post by Trahison »

Reiterating what Jack said. Can confirm; stuff is happening and it's looking very cool. Right now, we've convened and set up shop on Facebook as it keeps us all in daily communication and accommodates our different schedules. It's a great atmosphere and Jack and the others have completely roped me in. It's a very talented group and the game's narrative is coming along excellently; I'm very excited and enthusiastic about this project and its future.

Right now I'm helping Yensoo in the art department, but we're only two people and none of us have the time we wish we could sink exclusively into the project. Nobody is getting paid; we have jobs, school, human things, and more hands on deck would greatly help distribute the (admittedly enormous) workload that constitutes this project. If you're interested or just curious, throw Jack or myself a PM and we'll give you the run-down and find something for you to do!
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Re: Suikogaishi Back From the Dead & Seeking a Bit of Help

Post by Antimatzist »

I really am looking forward to this, because back then, it seemed you would be putting a lot of real effort in it. It was a shame it didn't come to fruitition back then.

Of course, it seems you're still at an early stage so it will take a lot of time until this will be released (if ever), but I'm looking forward to it.
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Yensoo
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Re: Suikogaishi Back From the Dead & Seeking a Bit of Help

Post by Yensoo »

Awesome! I might post some of the concept art on this thread as we go to maybe pique some interest. ;)
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Re: Suikogaishi Back From the Dead & Seeking a Bit of Help

Post by Jack of All Trades »

Basically, it all comes down to the programmer. Without that we're screwed. Our first programmer was a liar who was leading us on about what he had done, what he could do, and what he was actually planning to do. So long as our current programmer doesn't flake out on us, this project will be finished.

Moreover, we still plan to finish all of the artwork and scripting even if the worst should happen. This way, the project could be easily picked up by a new programmer. I actually have a couple in mind, should that happen.
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Re: Suikogaishi Back From the Dead & Seeking a Bit of Help

Post by Xelinis »

Jack of All Trades wrote:This time around our SoD list is filled is centered around an original cast with some returning members. Instead of twisting the story around the characters, I'm twisting the characters around the story. People are only coming back if it makes sense.
Good. The excessive character reuse I've been seeing in most fan-games is awful and always winds up feeling very contrived. I've always told myself that if I ever worked on a fan-game and people begged me to bring back Flik and Viktor, I'd do it just so that I can kill them off once and for all.
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Re: Suikogaishi Back From the Dead & Seeking a Bit of Help

Post by Jack of All Trades »

I brought back Fliktor. They fit into the plot very heavily. As of right now they are both still alive, but I have been going all George R. R. Martin, a lot, and on some fan favorites too.
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Re: Suikogaishi Back From the Dead & Seeking a Bit of Help

Post by BrucePrintscreen »

I have the opposite opinion, one thing I find irritating in fangames is the original characters because they're never as good as the canon ones, and because it adds to the obnoxious feeling of pretentiousness when they create bombastic characters. I'm not saying that for you, Jack, I'm sure you did it seriously! One good reason to create original characters is because you don't want to use canon characters and alter them to fit in your game, which seems to have been your reasoning. But it would be disappointing if there are not a few canon ones to tie it to the previous games...

Viktor & Flik have to be in a Suikoden game because they are the true main characters of Suikoden I and II. There is no Suikoden without them. The main character is always an everyman the player can identify with, so the true heroes are Viktor & Flik.
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Re: Suikogaishi Back From the Dead & Seeking a Bit of Help

Post by Jack of All Trades »

I'm just letting the story take us where it wants to. In the case of Fliktor it just made sense. I've always figured that they tried to settle down after their last appearance in the Higheast. It's not like Dunan can afford to publicly fight Harmonia and not overthrow their government, so financing a mercenary force through an intermediary was the way to go add support. I'm trying to use the established and inferred canon of Harmonia and it's borders as much as possible. When characters makes sense, I'll use them.
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Re: Suikogaishi Back From the Dead & Seeking a Bit of Help

Post by Trahison »

We spent a good amount of time picking through recruitable characters from I-V and culled a list of viable ones who could reasonably become involved in the conflict Jack is developing. There are a few returning characters (some of whom have never been recruits) who I'm particularly excited about and we've discussed doing some very bold things with them, but I don't know how much Jack and the others are willing to reveal at this point, so I'll keep quiet.

I think the story in terms of recruits and returning characters is informed primarily by context, cohesion, and opportunity; we aren't interested in shoehorning returning characters into this new story if it doesn't feel right for them to be there because we don't want the story to feel like a fan parade of celebrity cameos. Lots of old faces will be popping up in interesting ways alongside a sizable cast of new characters. I'm especially excited about what Jack has planned for our lead, and I think a lot of people will be when we're ready to start talking about (and showing) what we have and what we're doing.

I was initially dubious of this project when I first heard about it from Yensoo. He asked if I'd help out with the art and some auxiliary stuff and I said yeah because it's nice to have something to do, but I wasn't particularly interested or invested in it otherwise and I didn't have high hopes for what a fanmade game could be. I've since come to have a lot of faith in and respect for Jack and everyone else on the team, and I'm really excited about what everyone's done so far. As a fan of both the Suiko series and a good story, Jack and Yensoo have made a believer out of me. :D
Last edited by Trahison on Mon May 05, 2014 6:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Suikogaishi Back From the Dead & Seeking a Bit of Help

Post by Antimatzist »

Ah I just saw that - you will not be using RPG maker? This is ambitious. Can you tell how far you are at the moment? Is this early planning stages or can we expect first (alpha) screenshots in the next months?
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Re: Suikogaishi Back From the Dead & Seeking a Bit of Help

Post by Trahison »

Antimatzist wrote:Ah I just saw that - you will not be using RPG maker? This is ambitious. Can you tell how far you are at the moment? Is this early planning stages or can we expect first (alpha) screenshots in the next months?
First concepts, story, and the engine are being developed in conjunction with each other in the hopes that everything will finish up around the same time so we can edit, polish, and start programming right away. We have alpha screenshots of the engine as it is right now, but I'll let Yensoo discuss that as he is more involved in the development of the engine than I am.
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Re: Suikogaishi Back From the Dead & Seeking a Bit of Help

Post by Jack of All Trades »

It's really too early for all of that right now. Screenshots just look like Suikoden 2 environments.
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Re: Suikogaishi Back From the Dead & Seeking a Bit of Help

Post by Yensoo »

This older recruitment post I made has a bit of concept art and a pre-alpha screenshot in the spoiler tag if anyone is interested.

http://ffhacktics.com/smf/index.php?top ... #msg196197
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Re: Suikogaishi Back From the Dead & Seeking a Bit of Help

Post by Antimatzist »

Great that you considered one thing that most other fangames don't think about: adapting old character sinto your art style so all "avatars" have the same style.

Looks nice so far, you should consider a hero who does not look like the hero from the PSP Suikoden ( ;) ) and take your time to make a good game!
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