LittleBigFantasy Part 1 (Turn-based Battle System!)

LittleBigFantasy Part 1 by TheSeraphor
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y98...r/APhoto-1.jpg
Part 1 of a story series I'm working on as an emulation/homage of Final Fantasy.
It's not meant to imitate any specific Final Fantasy game, but rather embody elements of all the classic titles in an original story.

Works best as 1 player.
2 players may be able to beat it, if they ace the boss.
3 or 4 players will find it impossible to beat, as there is a 6-life checkpoint at which point ALL of you WILL die AT LEAST twice.


I've only just finished this level, and although I've been tweaking everything I can find so that it runs smoothly, I'm afraid there's probably still a few bugs to work out, so I'd appreciate it if you could let me know if anything breaks the level.


When you enter the level you will be given an introduction to the series.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y98...APhoto_1-1.jpg
In a distant world, a world that was once powered by the forces of elemental crystals, there is an ever expanding Empire of Authoria.
The empire is governed by a secret committee known as 'The Magistrates' who rule with an iron fist.

These magic crystals that once held the world in balance, had been forgotten for centuries and resided purely in legend, that is until the Magistrates discovered a crystal themselves.
Subjecting it to experiments, they devised a line of weapons and devices utilising the crystals powers, and put them to work to for their means to world domination.

But then you come along, minding your own business outside the empires capital 'Authoria' when you wander into a cave and stumble upon three magic crystals.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y98...APhoto_2-1.jpg

Use the hidden tunnel to sneak into the city and befriend the rebel cause, who will help you overthrow the Magistrates.

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Learn the secrets of the crystals you hold.

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Enter the capital and avoid sentries.

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Explore the city for hidden treasures, but you'll have to work for them.

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And then...

Spoiler - Fight to the Death!

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The level ends with a climax, a boss fight with one of the Magistrates newly developed Crystal Defence Drones.
Use the powers of your own crystals to take it down in a fully functioning turn-based battle.
The drone has an elemental defence system that renders one element ineffective, but this leaves it vulnerable to being hit with another element.
It constantly rotates it's defence shield to keep you on your toes. Use the right crystals for the most damage, if you use the wrong crystals, you might not make it.

There are Four prizes.
Two are story related, and are merely there for effect. You probably won't want to use them yourself.
The other two are creations of mine that I think others might want to use, both feature in the level.

Spoiler - If you're curious, the logic behind it looks a bit like this:

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y98...r/APhoto_9.jpg
Thanks to the LBPC Logic Pack for making this so much easier, having stock logic gates on tap is what made this level, I have no idea how long it would have taken me if I had to make some of those by myself.

Opening: I LOVED it, but as far as I know there's no way to skip it! A lot of players will be turned off by the sequence if they can't skip it.

Gameplay: When I'm looking at a section of a level, I like there to be at least two textures in contrast. If you just add some little smears of another texture, the cave will look much more visually appealing. Also, I was really unsure where to go for a few of the paths. Moving behind the textures is nice but there should be some assistance to the player showing them were to go. The elevator that brings you up to the tower also bugged for me. when I got to the "hacker" the elevator wasn't there and I had to reset the level.

Secrets: Loved your treasure chests. Also, on my second play through I found the prize under the pillow. It's the perfect blend of being well-hidden and being discoverable. Good work making us replay to find all the secrets!

Hazards:The sentries were hardly hazardous at all - I just jumped right over them when I wanted to. If you're gonna make a turn based RPG why not make ALL the enemy encounters into turn based fights? It hurts the continuity of the level if you're jumping over some enemies and fighting some others. I don't know if you designed the boss or used it from somewhere else, but if you made it, extremely good work! It must have taken a long time to create.

Story: You fit quite a bit of story into a short level - I really admired that. A good back story sucks players in so they need to keep going. It's really reminiscent of those old fantasy games that never let you put the controller down.

This level was great! It really brings back the memories of those timeless epic adventures. I think the battles system was pretty good - it could use a bit of refining. You should be able to kill the enemy without dying (though maybe I just sucked at it :P).

Also, if you get the chance, take a look at my levels. I could use the feedback!

Thanks for such extensive feeback!

You're right about the intro, however I think I'll need to completely rework the scripting logic to get a skip function in there.
So I'll have to take some time to sort that out properly.

More textures on the rock, great idea, and maybe a couple more "windows" in the rock will make it easier to find out where to go.

The elevator issue I'm aware of. It only seems to happen about 10% of the time, but that's 10% too much.
The only thing is I have no idea why it happens. I've been working on this level for ages (bar a 3 month break in the middle) and that first elevator was one of the earliest logic I put in there and it's been fine on every single playthrough.
It's only been an issue recently and I've re-explored the logic and there's no indication that the rotating toggle switch has fallen out of synch (making up=down) so I have no idea why it doesn't work.

I think I just need to adjust the sensor range and/or rate of fire on the sentries.
It would be totally impossible to make every battle turn-based I'm afraid. The boss alone has taken a ton of logic and thermo on it's own and the level is maxed out.
And yep, made the boss and everything in the level totally from scratch, even the little custom music in the crystal cave.
I just feel it cheapens it a bit to use pieces of artistic design that other people have made.

The boss still needs a little tweaking I know, and while I thought I'd got it in synch, there's a posibility it jumped out of synch if you were lagging at the start of the level and that's why you died.
By that I mean, using Fire against Ice should do the most damage, but if it's not in synch it might not do any damage.
Again it's kinda like the elevator problem, it only happens a small fraction of the time, but I think I might be able to fix it with another AND gate with a proximity switch, I just need to figure out where I can insert it into the sequence.

Thanks again for the great feedback, I'll check out your levels when I get home this evening and drop you some feedback too.

It's clear that you spent a long time on the level. Just a few minor bugs to be fixed. I was going to ask you if you created the music in the crystal cave yourself - I looooved it.

I suppose having all the battles as turn based fights WOULD be impossible. It's still fine to just have one large-scale turn based battle at the end. The lack of turn based fights with the mini-enemies doesn't take away from the level, it would only add to it if it were possible.

Are you going to continue the series?

Of course, I'm already planning part 2 and I have a good idea where it's all going to end up.
It'll probably end up being 6 parts, with one big turn-based battle in each one. The last level might have two big ones though.
Notice the six crystals shown in the intro? Well you obtain all six of those eventually, and lose one of them too, not necessarily one per level though.
There's three other crystals not featured in part 1, which play the major role in the plot further on, and a big part is obtaining one of those three.

The crystals are:
[SPOILER]Set up in three relationship triangles:
Fire, Ice and Lightning (classic rock/paper/scissors set up)
Psyche, Plague and Flare (kinda the same with some exceptions)
Vacuum, Logic and Parity (duality/opposition with a central catalyst) [/SPOILER]

I'm really interested to see how they play out. The crystal mechanics seem interesting, a lot more complex than the age-old strength/weakness binary.

Republished with some improvements.

More lethal sentries.
Some more decoration at the start and in the cave.
Little extra text in the cave and last elevator.
No more confusing sticker switches.
Tweaked the battle system, so there shouldn't be any loss of synch.

Very nice job man, I liked it a lot. I too had experienced the same bugs Lieufa pointed out on my 1st play. For the most part he's mentioned all that I noticed. As for the opening, well I like story heavy levels so I'm fine with the long opening, although I can see where some would be offset by it.

When I get back on LBP I'll try it again now that the improvements have been made.

Intro is now skippable!

I really liked the changes you made - everything is pretty smooth now. The arrows that guide your path were noticeable, but hardly. I found the tip-toe puzzle this time around, but I failed at it a few times, haha. The only thing I haven't figured out is how to get to the little bonus area that you see when you're rising to the boss fight. Maybe I'll find it someday haha.

If you carry on past the last elevator to the boss, and avoid that sentry, there's a stairwell that's closed off.
If you pass the electric fences you can pick up a 'cardkey' that unlocks that stairwell.
The prize inside the chest is well worth it, plus you get the 100% prize too.

If you'd like a tip:
[SPOILER]Snake around each fence by tip-toeing and switching planes, then when you get to the last fence, switch to the back plane and do a little hp, very quick tap of the X button, you jump over that bottom rung of the fence without touching the top.[/SPOILER]

I know it looks more complicated than that, and that's the point. In fact if you're lucky and have brilliant timing there's at least three ways you can get through, but that's the easiest way.

I went to play your level again, and when I pressed R1 the screen went black and I couldn't get it changed to light. I wonder if this happens often?

You should have fallen onto the ground and activated a global lighting switch.
Weird, I'll try again.

Republished with some guidelines, so you always land in the field of the global lighting switch.

Played and finished yesterday, I think my first time around I MAY have accidentally grabbed the switch on the elevator and it went up without me... not sure, I forget ;-;

anyway, story wise... kinda odd that three of the six crystals were located directly underneath their city and they never found them >_<.

For the boss, I was VERY disappointed in it. It basically amounted to grabbing the three sponges in a successive order that doesn't change, and every so often you die.

If the order of the things you needed to ttack changed, then it'd be better. Also, if you took a cue from Mario and Luigi and had you have to evade attacks.

So it fires a bunch of things at you. For every one you jump over, it fires a specific amount of paint. So it fires dissolve, you jump over however many, whichever ones hit you add up to a thing that fires paint at the paint switch. If you do this and incorporated platforming into the battle, THEN it'll be a legitimately awesome idea. as it stands now, it's just grabbing sponge ice, fire, lightning and repeat over and over.

I gave it five stars- don't think I tagged, tend to skip that portion. If you incorporate platforming and strategy into it, I'll go back and give a heart- as it stands now, the battle is more a nuisance then anything.

Never played Mario and Luigi, have you ever played Final Fantasy?

I don't think you realise what I was going for, there's no platforming involved.
You may find the battle just a 'nuisance', but chances are you'd play 10 minutes of Final Fantasy, and come to the same conclusion about that.
Final Fantasy games are nothing like platform games.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheSeraphor

Never played Mario and Luigi, have you ever played Final Fantasy?

I don't think you realise what I was going for, there's no platforming involved.
You may find the battle just a 'nuisance', but chances are you'd play 10 minutes of Final Fantasy, and come to the same conclusion about that.
Final Fantasy games are nothing like platform games.

---

The thing is Final Fantasy HAS strategy. You don't just grab ice, get hit, then grab fire, get hit, then grab lightning, then get hit.

There is absolutely no way to heal, no way to reduce damage, heck, even no actual determining what one you're supposed to sue, it always goes in the same pattern! You can't just say it's supposed to be Final Fantasy, and then refuse to add any strategy or any actual changing of events. as it stands now, it takes no mind power, no skill- you just need to remember to grab ice, then grab fire, then grab lightning, and every so often get killed for no reason because there's no way to prevent it because it's "like Final Fantasy".

It's only part one, and I've already planned to do all of those things in future battles.
And I did intend for the elemental shield to be random but I couldn't figure out a way to do it.

You can't just dive in head first, have you any idea how much logic and constant reworking it took just to do that?
Healing is out of the question as you can't regenerate paint switch meters.
The crystals that you obtain later in the series will do other things, such as delay the action of the enemy, inflict DoT and cause the enemy to damage itself when it attacks, but all of that I still need to figure out, and It may not work out the way I planned.

There's never any strategy at the start of a Final Fantasy, you're always given a couple of attacks and a bunch of potions and that's it, and I didn't "refuse to add any strategy" I refused to add platforming elements.

If you can tell me how I can make the element random, I'd appreciate it.


As for the story issue, the crystals were sealed away behind stone. No one would have found them unless by pure chance they drilled into the cavern.
The entrance only appeared because the crystals chose you, and let you in.

I'm republished it with a solution to the runaway elevator problem.
Rather than completely reworking the logic behind them I've simply put the checkpoints in the elevators so you can 'Try Again' if you lose an elevator, and the buttons toggle so as long as you're in the elevator you're in control.
This has also freed up a little more room in the city and there's another small secret points stash.

Republished again.

More hidden points and two extra prizes.

If you played it before more than three days ago it'll be worth your while playing it again now.
And if you got the music item already, count yourself lucky. XD