Phantasy Star: Fringes of Algo

Just a quick note to say I'm still chugging away, demo is still coming, just taking me MUCH longer than anticipated to (and I admit, tediously) sprite the Palm and Mota maps enough to be playable (seriously.. layering each 32x32 section in photoshop for a map 4000x4000 pixels large is quite the task -.-)

I'd say I'm only 1/8 done on Palm. But I'm working as fast as I can ;p

Thanks for the update Rulakir!! Glad to see that you are still hard at work on your project. Don't work too fast....take time to savor the experience, so to speak, and get it exactly the way you want it to be. We'll still be here when you are done.

Thank you for the information too ! Take your time : it's better like this !

The first three levels of Medusas Tower from PS1. (image is a little large to embed)

http://www.nerdrageonline.com/revenant/tower1to3.png

The 'tower' ghost image serves two purposes, first, it looks good zoomed out like this, and secondly, when you actually play you can't even see it, but the tones of it make for a decent overlay effect on the map, the light and dark lines look fairly good.

The project is still ongoing, I just decided not to release a playable demo at this time due to the Palma overworld causing ongoing problems (size limitations in RPGMaker rearing their head, I had to re-size the map I already had half made.. ugh, however, it's an issue that will be solved eventually so the demo will still be released.)

Does anyone know if this project made progress at all? It looked really fun and promising!

Rulakir hasn't been online here since Sat Oct 26, 2013 14:20. His profile has an e-mail button though, maybe you can try dropping him a line.

Hey all, I still do some work on it, it's not dead

Two issues have reared their ugly heads though, and the first is a big one I haven't been able to solve yet.

1) the sheer size of the image files used for the various overworlds (Palma being the main culprit but Mota and Dezo are also causing issues) is causing serious load times, exiting battle being the major concern, timed it takes roughly 10-15 seconds to load the overworld after each battle or menu exit, which isn't acceptable to me. However I haven't found a way to conquer this yet.

2) personal life has interfered (as always happens) due to work, university commitments, and personal health issues, I've only been able to do small pieces of work every few weeks. As it stands, all that is required now to finish a demo up to Succubus on PS1, is to sprite the (viewable) areas of Mota, that's all (and some minor tweaking and testing of dungeons)

Sorry it's been a marathon project, considered coding an engine for it in Java or C but, that would take far too long and be far too stressful, I'll continue with the demo, but if the load times prove too much of an issue, I'll have to stop it until a better way can be thought of.

EDIT: I also had to move all my indoor environment maps (shops etc) onto a single image file, due to RPG Makers map limit making it so I wouldn't be able to fit everything on separate maps, should have thought of that sooner would've taken out many hours of work haha

It's awesome to hear that you're still working on this! The screenshots look promising.

Don't know about the load times issue, I only ever worked with RPG Maker. Maybe you could ask for help with that on another forum? I hope you find a solution.

Personal life comes first, of course. Above all, this is your project and you should be doing it for yourself. So don't feel pressured; take all the time you need with it.

Demo will be out tonight or tomorrow, basically as soon as I get home

http://nerdrageonline.com/sgd/PStarTAC.7z

Demo is released, hope you get some enjoyment out of it, and please leave comments here or via email