Disco Sun: The Age of Beat

[Salanewt]

Great, thanks! You wouldn't happen to have a list of usable instruments, would you? I just want to make sure that this song works and sounds good enough when I insert it.

Edit: It ever occurred to me that it might be so, but would having 16 tracks be too much?

[Charon]

Waaaay too much. The game starts to cancel out tracks at around 8.

This means tracks playing at the same time though, so if you wanted to do a bunch of different instruments at different times (and be lazy and not use instrument change events) you could put in 16, as long as no more than 8 are playing at the same time.

[Salanewt]

Okay, thanks for the info. I am still kind of a novice for non-M&L audio though, so I will try a different song over instrument changing events. Now to see if I can remove some of the "label tracks" in this new song.

Quick question: I am going to create some new characters soon, should one of them have Whirlwind as a utility?

[FelixWolf]

i suppose that in this game the laughing mushroom will become a usable item, and the effect will make the user go under illusion XD. jk jk
btw good idea

[Salanewt]

Oh no, you found out one of my secret ideas! Thanks! Do you have any suggestions for it?

Anyway, I have another question or two about inserting music, sorry about that. On the positive side, I will have a boss to upload if this is successful.

1: I am guessing that .midi files are not immediately compatible as GBA songs, is this correct? If so, is there a program that I could use to convert it?

2: The next question refers to looping. Can/do I do this through Anvil Studio, Sappy, or hex editing?



That is basically it for questions, and my first song will be ready for transfer once these are ready. I recall reading something about mid2gba, but I have not been able to find any information about it since then. I just found out, but now I am seeing if I can get a good tile viewer that works with my computer. I shall update this post if I have more information, unless someone makes a new reply.

[Charon]

Hey, Sala, I noticed yesterday when testing your hack that Jenna is at level 0 with 0 HP/PP. Is that intentional?

[Salanewt]

I did that so I could start from scratch; Role's class patch is likely to be next on my list of things to use to help with starting over. Currently, everyone has 0 for every stat/level, is named "Slot #" to indicate which slot they take, and has absolutely no starting items or innate abilities (aside from Felix/Slot 4, who should still have the Shaman's Rod and Mythril Bag for story flag purposes). Stat growths are still unmodified, as well as djinn, summons, maps, and several spells/enemies. Oh, text is unmodified as well, aside from character names.

However, I plan on working on all of the characters for a bit once I get some more songs in. So yeah, thanks for helping me with the song!

[Rolina]

You can have a level 0? Hmm...

@Sala:  How many characters is this?  If you want, I can get to work on a 4 Character version.  Leaf and I were discussing this earlier - with 4 characters, there's actually room to account for 10 djinn classes.  It'll be stable, since the game can handle 10 djinn at once, and given some testing, I may be able to pull off even more class varieties.  If you can give me some time, I'll get the 4-member template out.

I'd really like atrius to give us legit template support though...

[Salanewt]

You can, but the stats shown in the editor at level 0 seem to be incorrect because I never changed them in the editor.

I am currently leaning towards four, with the possible introduction of temporary PCs that can not equip or use djinn/summons. So yeah, I would love it if you were to make a four-character template. With the way I am going to set up the temporary PCs, they will mostly use multi-elemental and item classes.

Ah, that would be cool too. It is up to him though; work on template stuff, or work on sprite editing?

[Charon]

Oh yeah, Sala, while you're working on this, I wouldn't mind making patches with music to save you time. Just provide MIDI's and what song number you want to replace and I'll be on it. Just do me a favour and make sure you don't do any updates while I'm working on the patch, because I don't want to have any accidental overwriting. Give me 3-5 songs at a time and I could insert them fairly quickly.

[Salanewt]

Cool, thanks! I am currently working on choosing a few more midi songs, but I have downloaded a few that I want to try out. I shall work on researching other midis/patched instruments that I want to use.

Edit: The main problem for me is not choosing which songs I like, but choosing which ones to replace (with which songs). Where they play can always be changed later, but for the present... anyway, I almost have some more songs chosen.

[Charon]

You could just write down the pointers and replace them, takes like 2 seconds. lol

[Salanewt]

That is true, but the hard part isn't actually replacing the songs themselves; it is deciding which songs I will replace now, and which ones I will keep until I have better replacements for them. Either way, I think I have decided to focus mostly on the battle themes for now.

Oh, and I have received your PM. I shall do some more work on the hack, and then send you the next patch before I am kicked off of the computer go to bed.

Now, on to character planning. I can wait for the class template, but working on the characters' stats and stuff should be something that I can start now.

Edit: I have been thinking, and I might go with the original template that was uploaded. I recall it being made with a full party of eight members in mind, so using it would mean that I do not have to worry about missing classes when I use the class separation patch for my mages and fighters.

[Salanewt]

Okay, so I have Disco Sun 0.3.1 finished if anyone wants to try it out. I am going to wait until I make it to 0.4 before I add it to the Downloads section... If anyone wants to test it, I may need you to do some minor work. In Notepad or something, I need at least a few people to record:

- Deaths, and what killed them
- Sanctum Visits
- Monster difficulty, as well as bosses
- PCs, and how easy/hard it is to use them

Anyway, a changelog:

- Some of the characters have been renamed, further renaming may occur;
Isaac -> Barry - Starts at level 9 (not yet useable, will be useable in 0.4)
Garet -> Shelly - Starts at level 6
Felix -> Andrew - Starts at level 2
Jenna -> Janet - Starts at level 17
Sheba -> Sarah (not useable, might become a temporary PC later)

- Ivan, Mia, and Piers are currently left as empty slots; they shouldn't be referenced or obtained yet,
- Custom base classes for Barry, Shelly, and Andrew. Janet has two completed classes in her line,
- Janet comes with two Mars djinn; Corona and Sizzle,
- Some songs have been replaced; only one should be heard in 0.3.1,
- Vermin, Wild Mushroom, and Brute are all enemies that can be fought; the Brute is Ruffian's replacement that uses psynergy,
- Psynergy bestowing stones are now artifacts; they can be bought and sold at the item shop,
- Party 1 shouldn't come with djinn anymore.

Bugs/Oversights:

- Sizzle doesn't have an animation,
- Menu sound effects are all muted for some reason, and is not just a VBA option like I previously thought,
- Some enemies may seem a bit too difficult; this is from the difficulty aspect that I added with editor v0.2, and enemies may be rebalanced for 0.4 if they are too difficult,
- While unlikely, it may be possible for Shelly to join with a djinni. This is not supposed to happen if it does,
- This is also unlikely, but you are not supposed to be able to get passed Barry in Madra. If you do, please report how you do it,
- It may be possible to obtain the NPC class. However, there shouldn't be enough djinn to allow for this yet.

Credits:

Charon - For all of her help with audio-related stuff, including her patch.
Teawater - ASM research/help, character adding and removing research, djinn research, etc..
Role - While currently unused, a ROM patched with her template helped give me ideas on organization and such.
Various musicians - For the use of their actual songs (will be announced as they are heard in-game).

If I should credit anyone else, please remind me and I will add you to this list.

Tips:

- Like Janet? Don't get too attached to her ability to fight.
- Summon rushing doesn't always get you anywhere.
- Because Andrew is a fairly weak character near the beginning, you may have a hard time protecting him until you get Echo.
- Need some gear? Visit the stores in Daila! Be sure to check for rarities...
- Once you reach Madra, your adventure should be nearing its end; Barry blocks your path to the jail cell, so you should not be able to visit Piers/Slot 7 in jail.

And now that this is out of the way, please give me some feedback... Oh, and enjoy!

[Mion Sonozaki]

Drain punch is too strong.

Also, the Whirlwind Bow kinda ruins the start of the game. If Garet dies, then Felix being level 1, it kinda makes the difficulty SKYROCKET at the start of the game! Then is the fact you gotta grind up starting money for basic equipment.. And then grind up to level 5 on Felix just to beat the chestbeaters...

Reduce the price of the bow and raise the start level of Felix to 3.


Also, need moar Miror B

[Salanewt]

Thanks for trying out my hack! Now to address some of your suggestions.

1. Drain Punch? I only have it as Drain in the version you have; but Drain Punch should be weaker than Drain near the beginning.
2. The Wind Bow's price is now 900. However, as it is a temporary item, you should only be able to find it in stores until later on.
3. Felix is now level 3, but you don't really need to grind on the Chestbeaters; I beat them at the starting level. Granted, it did take a few tries.
4. Maybe, but I am not sure if I want to do too much with mixing Pokemon with Golden Sun. I shall wait and see...


Oh, and I should add one or more things to the bugs/oversights. Some of these things have already been fixed for the next release, while others are a bit too odd for me to figure out.

[Mion Sonozaki]

Why not just make the Wind Bow a starting item? It makes a lot more sense considering that an unknowing player would still spend away too much money on equipment before the bow. Being 900g does not make a huge difference. Might as well make it a starting item and decrease the amount of G you start with.

[Salanewt]

I am thinking about it, but Whirlwind isn't going to be needed before you get Barry when we have map editing. It would only be granted for testing purposes if I decide to do this.

[Mion Sonozaki]

I am thinking about it, but Whirlwind isn't going to be needed before you get Barry when we have map editing. It would only be granted for testing purposes if I decide to do this.

So since this is all temporary crap until Barry, would it not be better to make it 0g?

[Rolina]

Lishy, stop whining.  By your logic, since no hack is complete yet, everything should be free and we should allow monsters to die in one hit.