Hello all. (New Game in Progress?)

[DanaCrysalis]

Hi there, if this is the wrong place to talk about this, I apologize, lemme know where I should be going. 

I am currently working on a Touhou fangame (strategy RPG style), and have myself and a programmer working on it.  We have only really just started designing it (as in we know what we're doing, the basic storyline, etc, just no code done yet), but we will need an artist for spritework and storyline portraits, etc.  Would this forum be the place to go to check for interest? 

Thanks!

[Garlyle]

It would be, but with that said, you should actually post some information about the game.  Get people psyched, -then- ask for help on that.  If people see that there's something actually being worked on, they may be more willing to lend a hand (There's a lot of "Well I think this'd be a neat idea!" "But, could you make it?" "Don't have a clue where to start!" "oh..." around here, and it's kind of discouraging)

[DanaCrysalis]

I have no real problem with that!   :V

So the game is tentatively called Touhou Battle: Dreamer's Ball.  It is a SRPG based off the original Ogre Battle (hence the subtitle, fans of Ogre Battle will guess the reference)  For those unfamiliar with the game, here is some features.

- Compose units filled with up to five characters (Large Units take up two slots)
- Characters, when engaged in combat, have a certain number and type of attacks based on their position in the unit
- Real Time battle map to move units around
- Liberate houses for strategic resting spots and bonus XP at the end of a stage map
- Your army will be composed of a large amount of Touhou characters, some capable of changing focus/class, with unlockable bonus class changes

Here is a link to some gameplay of Ogre Battle:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UNpZLXZl2w

That is the first level, so it doesn't really show all the enemy units pouring out of their base and trying to capture towns and such, but the basic gist is there.  We would shoot for something a bit prettier, of course, not saying OB is ugly, but it is a bit dated.

[Stuffman]

That actually sounds pretty rad.

Still, the best course of action would be to start programming it while using placeholder graphics. I've seen too many projects where people ask for a bunch of help with music and graphics and then sit on their hands while saying "can't do anything til the sprites are done!", and then when they actually try to start programming it afterward they find they don't have the skills/time to follow through...

So basically, I'd advise putting together a small playable alpha version (lets you move units around on a map and get into battles, doesn't necessarily need AI or anything like that) just as proof of concept before asking people to make stuff for you.

Sorry if this sounds rude but it needs to be standard procedure.

[DanaCrysalis]

It is not rude at all!  I was gauging interest, seeing if this was the proper place to ask, all that sort of thing.  We only came up with the concept this week, so I was just laying down some groundwork.  Once we get some actual stuff down, I will definitely be showing it off, no worries about that. 

[Garlyle]

Ah, but you do have someone with the skills to pull it off?  Well, that's a good sign :3

My personal suggestion is not to feel limited by how Ogre Battle did stuff; even if it was a pretty fantastic game, not everything necessarily fits with the Touhou universe.  You may want to consider dropping class changing, but making units more distinct than they typically were (For instance, a lot more 'unique' units), just as an example, because class changing in Touhou seems a little out of place to me XD

[DanaCrysalis]

I am unconcerned about the programming part, the guy working on it is pretty skilled and a Touhou fan. 

Yeah, there won't be any really generic characters in the player's army.  instead of class changing, I was thinking things like Promotion Items (joke one: Buster Sword for Cirno), or having the Prismriver Sisters operate either as 3 Small Units or able to merge into one Large Unit with Concert attacks that hit all enemies.  Stuff like that.

[Stuffman]

Okay, cool, I'll be interested to see what comes out of this.

One concern I have is that it probably won't be possible to maintain the scale of Ogre Battle; you got like 50 units right at the start of the game, even with Touhou's huge cast you'll definitely run out of characters quickly. How do you think you'll approach this? You could try the Patchcon approach (multiple instances of the same character), but it doesn't sound like that's what you're going for. You can also pad armies with nameless fairies but the player would probably create just a handful of squads consisting of named character units and bulldoze the CPU's mook squads. Perhaps it could be a variation of the small/large units, with named characters taking up more space in the squad...but that might cause players to rely on fairies too much when they'd rather use named characters. Argh I dunno, what do you think?

Also, temporary project title should be: ONI BATTLE: MARCH OF THE GAP QUEEN

[Blargel]

Sounds pretty cool, but I gotta say that looking here for graphics is gonna get you nowhere. :V

[Ghaleon]

I have no real problem with that!   :V

So the game is tentatively called Touhou Battle: Dreamer's Ball.  It is a SRPG based off the original Ogre Battle (hence the subtitle, fans of Ogre Battle will guess the reference)  For those unfamiliar with the game, here is some features.

- Compose units filled with up to five characters (Large Units take up two slots)
- Characters, when engaged in combat, have a certain number and type of attacks based on their position in the unit
- Real Time battle map to move units around
- Liberate houses for strategic resting spots and bonus XP at the end of a stage map
- Your army will be composed of a large amount of Touhou characters, some capable of changing focus/class, with unlockable bonus class changes

Here is a link to some gameplay of Ogre Battle:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UNpZLXZl2w

That is the first level, so it doesn't really show all the enemy units pouring out of their base and trying to capture towns and such, but the basic gist is there.  We would shoot for something a bit prettier, of course, not saying OB is ugly, but it is a bit dated.

I kid you not, I always muse to myself why Ogre battle never ever gets re-made, even if only in spirit. I wish you luck. The world needs more ogre battle! I think I even made a thread about it a couple months back>=P

[ChaoStar]

One concern I have is that it probably won't be possible to maintain the scale of Ogre Battle; you got like 50 units right at the start of the game, even with Touhou's huge cast you'll definitely run out of characters quickly.

Well, Nazrin and Suika are their own armies, respevtively.

[DanaCrysalis]

Well, I was thinking it would be slightly smaller scale than OB's 100 unit army (come on, you never used that much anyway, you could only field about 50 anyway), so with proper story management, you could get a pretty sizable army of just characters.  Enemies were going to be more generic fairies, ghosts, whathaveyou, with bosses being recruitables, and other recruits scattered/hidden around stages.

Suika will be a fun unit, as an aside, as she will be one of the ones with a "class change" (They won't be classes, they will be modes, or forms, or something.)  Normal form, she's a Small Unit with Boulder Toss (front, 2x) and Sake Drink (back, buff attack, 2x).  Alternate Mode, she is SUIKA SWAAAAAARM, a Large Unit that is just a horde of Mini-Suikas taking up a lot of space, with the abilities of Suika Rush (hit all enemies) and Suika Shield (All the mini-suikas form a line in front of the party, and block some incoming damage to all allied units at the cost of her own HP). 

Just wanted to ramble about her for a sec so you can kinda see where I'm going with some things.

[DanaCrysalis]

Sounds pretty cool, but I gotta say that looking here for graphics is gonna get you nowhere. :V

Any suggestions on other places I could look after I have a demo movie? 

[Blargel]

Any suggestions on other places I could look after I have a demo movie? 

You might have more luck over at the art section. They do allow requests and the people who actually have art abilities (most of us here are coders with no art ability outside of MSPaint) will be able to see your stuff.