Rodas Cross: ARPG for the SNES

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tepples
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Re: Rodas Cross: ARPG for the SNES

Post by tepples »

koitsu wrote:Sadly, Japan gave in to this idiocy with their tourist maps, which just goes to show how overly sensitive people are.
I guess part of it was that Japan lost a world war in the 1940s while it was allied with a country whose ruling party had a swastika for a logo, and Japan doesn't want to be associated with that anymore.
koitsu wrote:This is a very different situation compared to, say, Tepples' game called Concentration Room, which was originally named Concentration Camp.
The old story is on my website, though you may have to look at the revision history of a redirect.


EDIT: A pitch for a Concentration Room sequel used to be here. I removed it for not being pertinent to Rodas Cross. I personally strongly oppose the values of the antagonist in the pitch, just as I strongly oppose the values of the organization that is the antagonist of Id Software's Wolfenstein 3D.
Last edited by tepples on Wed Apr 03, 2019 8:04 am, edited 5 times in total.
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nocash
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Re: Rodas Cross: ARPG for the SNES

Post by nocash »

tepples wrote:It doesn't help that Japan lost a world war in the 1940s while it was allied with a country whose ruling party had a swastika for a logo.
Good point. Not neccessarily the first thing that the japanese tourism industry wants to get associated with.

At first glance the crosses looked like an interesting/simple geometrical pattern to me, at second glance the pattern did shortly remind me about nazi symbolism, too, and at third glance my eyes had lost that pattern and I thought that I were mistaken or paranoid about it. But now that Fisher had mentioned it, too: It's hard not to see right-facing swastikas in there. To some level you could avoid the nazi association by mirroring the whole pattern horizontally.

Darker text background would be good, and you could maybe try using some color instead of using black/gray, like dark+darker green, or dark+darker sepia, or whatever. Making the blue text brighter would also increase the contrast.

Hmmm, the energy bars might be really popping out a bit, especially with the dark scene underneath of them. Red bars aren't so uncommon, maybe it's the blue bar that's looking a bit unique/uncommon... roughly reminding me about 1960's red/blue color printing techniques. Or well, at least it's so in the screenshot, on real TV it might appear differently.
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Fisher
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Re: Rodas Cross: ARPG for the SNES

Post by Fisher »

koitsu wrote:are seeing swastikas in something that was obviously not designed to contain swastikas
As I posted before, I think it's ridiculous that some people see these kind of things where they really don't exist and that's certanly NOT the author's intention.
Maybe I just wasn't clear enough in that statement, and (even if I don't want to admit) there are still some big language barriers to me. :oops:
koitsu wrote:Should it be something the game developer worries about RIGHT NOW? A very resounding NO!
As a guy who was practically lynched by "the politically correct patrol" on my social network, I wroted it as a word of warning.
I don't want anyone to be insulted like I was, specially the developer of a very promising game. :wink:
Sumez wrote:I'm a big proponent of inoffensive swastikas.
I agree with this! Someone must remove the "evil" this symbol means to some people.
koitsu wrote: Education is the solution to this, not changing map symbols.
Totally agree with that, although this can take some time.
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olddb
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Re: Rodas Cross: ARPG for the SNES

Post by olddb »

Well, this took an unexpected turn.

The thing is, I NOW see swastikas too! If I concentrate in the white pattern, I see crosses (like intended). But if I concentrate on the
black, I see swastikas. :?

For now, I will follow koitsu's advice and leave it as it is. I hope to offend no one by doing so.
Anyhow, looks nice. Will the music from the trailer appear in game?
I know your a Secret of Mana fan. Me too.
The music in the trailer was actually composed by Kikuta! It was an album released under the Creative Commons Attribution license.
My idea for the original GBA version was to use some of the musics in that album as the game soundtrack. I was using one of the GBA's direct input for the music and the other for the sound effects. I worked alright, if not for the massive size the game gained by adding whole tracks. Later, I chopped the music into pieces (intros, chorus, verses) eliminating repetition.

Now with the SNES, I know no way to transcribe a .mp3/.wav into midi/.s3s (format which I'm using as a base for the music).
The HP/MP bar colors poke my eyes. Making them gradients based on the same colors would have the same issue. I'm not sure what's the official term for that, too much contrast? Jumping out too much?
I will try a more pale blue and red. Thanks for the observation.
I could be interested about the music driver since doing a SNES music/SFX driver is something I always wanted to do and it seems I lack the time to develop full games anymore.
My driver is extremely simple as in right now. It only plays samples in order using the SPC700 timers. I'm also getting random buzzes at initialization in hardware, but not in emulators. :(
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rainwarrior
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Re: Rodas Cross: ARPG for the SNES

Post by rainwarrior »

olddb wrote:The music in the trailer was actually composed by Kikuta! It was an album released under the Creative Commons Attribution license.
My idea for the original GBA version was to use some of the musics in that album as the game soundtrack. I was using one of the GBA's direct input for the music and the other for the sound effects. I worked alright, if not for the massive size the game gained by adding whole tracks. Later, I chopped the music into pieces (intros, chorus, verses) eliminating repetition.

Now with the SNES, I know no way to transcribe a .mp3/.wav into midi/.s3s (format which I'm using as a base for the music).
Ah! Now I remember that album. It's been a few years since I listened to it. I had forgotten that curiosity that it was CC licensed. It'd probably be fun to use it as the soundtrack to a video game. (...ha ha what if you advertised the game with "Soundtrack by Hiroki Kikuta" ??? I bet he'd be surprised.)

As for transcription, that's still usually best a task for humans at this point.
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olddb
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Re: Rodas Cross: ARPG for the SNES

Post by olddb »

Added two short videos op.
Last edited by olddb on Sun Mar 18, 2018 7:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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tepples
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Re: Rodas Cross: ARPG for the SNES

Post by tepples »

Here's a different cross pattern to try, so that players will not see a certain symbol in negative space and draw the wrong conclusion.
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olddb
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Re: Rodas Cross: ARPG for the SNES

Post by olddb »

:D Thank you.
Will be on top of my priorities. I guess, you will be in the game credits now. :D
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tokumaru
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Re: Rodas Cross: ARPG for the SNES

Post by tokumaru »

Another option is to increase the spacing in one axis only, so the black-to-white ratio doesn't change so much:
no-bad-symbols.png
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Can anyone see anything offensive in this pattern?
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koitsu
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Re: Rodas Cross: ARPG for the SNES

Post by koitsu »

Why is this still being discussed or beat on like a dead horse? The author stated what was being done:
For now, I will follow koitsu's advice and leave it as it is. I hope to offend no one by doing so.
There is no problem to solve. Someone will eventually see something offensive -- this is literally confirmation bias, and that isn't the fault of the author or the mazes. The author has already publicly stated he/she has no "pro-swastika" agenda. That's it. Nothing else need be said/done. Why is this so hard for people to understand? Don't give in to confirmation bias -- be subjective.

Edit: BTW, I want to clarify something here. My main concern, and why I keep harping on about how this is a non-problem, is that this kind of unnecessary focus will kill the homebrew author's passion/interest/drive to continue working on the game. I don't want them to lose that spirit or enjoyment. Some of the best stuff we've seen in homebrew communities has been from people who stay focused on what their heart is set on doing. I want folks worrying about "swastikas in the map" to really ponder that.
Erockbrox
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Re: Rodas Cross: ARPG for the SNES

Post by Erockbrox »

I will play the beta or demo and give feedback. Also if you are doing a cartridge release many other members here use Paul at infiniteneslives.com
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Re: Rodas Cross: ARPG for the SNES

Post by nocash »

And here's how the old pattern would look like flipped horizontally, but that's still risking that somebody will sooner or later say that...
If you look at it in a mirror while playing the title music backwards, then you will hear the game clearly saying "my sweet fecist!"
The other two new patterns posted earlier above are looking nice, too (but risk to offend advocates for respecting traditional asian symbols).
Either way: You got yourself into real troubles!
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tepples
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Re: Rodas Cross: ARPG for the SNES

Post by tepples »

nocash wrote:If you look at it in a mirror while playing the title music backwards, then you will hear the game clearly saying "my sweet fecist!"
Ocarina of Time had similar problems with Islamic material, and that was published by a Big Company(tm).

So anyway: I have an SNES PowerPak and can probably cut out some time to try private test versions if needed. Because I'm not an expert at the specific genre, you'll end up with feedback from a novice, which is valuable in its own right.
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olddb
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Re: Rodas Cross: ARPG for the SNES

Post by olddb »

nocash wrote:And here's how the old pattern would look like flipped horizontally, but that's still risking that somebody will sooner or later say that...
If you look at it in a mirror while playing the title music backwards, then you will hear the game clearly saying "my sweet fecist!"
The other two new patterns posted earlier above are looking nice, too (but risk to offend advocates for respecting traditional asian symbols).
Either way: You got yourself into real troubles!
Lol. :D

So many options.
So anyway: I have an SNES PowerPak and can probably cut out some time to try private test versions if needed. Because I'm not an expert at the specific genre, you'll end up with feedback from a novice, which is valuable in its own right.
Thank you. I will have something ready by next week.
Edit: My main concern, and why I keep harping on about how this is a non-problem, is that this kind of unnecessary focus will kill the homebrew author's passion/interest/drive to continue working on the game.
Thanks.
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olddb
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Re: Rodas Cross: ARPG for the SNES

Post by olddb »

Edit: Added Demo file to OP.

Let me know what you think!

Still got trouble uploading sound cleanly in real hardware. Just re-power the snes, until sound its clear.

Thank you.
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