Early Stages: FAQ

What is "Contest of Heroes: The Final Fantasy"
It is a game I'll be developing with RPG Maker VX (whenever it's released).


Final Fantasy? Isn't that a commercial franchise?
Yes, it is. It's really a popular practice among the RM community: ripping off real commercial franchises and butchering them with bad spelling and no relevance to the series in question whatsoever. They call it a fan-game.


So you're making a fan-game?
Due to the unfortunate reputation of most fan-games, I prefer to call it a "tribute" game. As a long-time fan of the series, I want to use my vast knowledge of the games (which is otherwise just wasting space in my brain) and join them together to create an overarching world. This will be achieved through countless references to actual games (for instance, all locations are named after places visited in the various games) while still having a completely original story. I believe this is a huge step up from just using the franchise name to draw attention; which is why Final Fantasy is the subtitle, rather than the title.


Isn't that kind of... uncreative?
I'm really only using FF as a template. There will be references through familiar terminology, and the stories/characters of actual games in the series may be mentioned as part of the world's "history". That said, the story and characters of THIS game are totally 100% original. That means: no Cloud.


So why even make a fan-game? What does this really have to do with FF?
Crystals and Job Classes, mostly. Expect to also see various familiar races, monsters, mascots, summons, airships, items and magic. Again, FF is my template. I want to use it because I want to use it. That's all there is to it.


Okay, what's the game about? Apparently some kind of contest.
Yes, a contest... of heroes. Truthfully, I don't want to go to into the story too much until later. The maker I'm using to make this game doesn't even exist yet currently, so besides planning and scripting, I don't have any progress (like screenshots or demos) I can actually show for this game. I'll be keeping pretty tight-lipped about the story and cast until probably around sometime around the new year. By then I'll have plenty of information to give and character designs to reveal.


Character designs? Are you making your own?
I guess I can divulge this much for now. All characters will be drawn by me. I'll be doing a series of facesets for each character and even drawing up static cutscenes for important scenes. Furthermore, all monsters (and possibly battle animations) will be drawn by me (not simply ripped from an FF6 ROM).


So you're drawing AND writing this game?
I'm an artist AND a writer. That's how I do things. If you're interested in seeing some of what I'm capable of (in terms of artistry and writing), check out http://littlelynn84.deviantart.com/.


Do you need help with anything?
Normally, when I make games, I work alone. But CoH:FF is admittedly the most ambitious project I've ever taken on. As a result, I probably will require some aid. But since I'm neither ready to give a plot synopsis, nor is RMVX actually out yet, I'll withhold all requests for help until I actually know what I need.


Anything else you want to say?
Please keep coming back to the CoH:FF's development blog. It might be basically dead here for a couple weeks, but when I release the first info, you can expect weekly updates featuring in-depth character bios, gameplay elements, job positions and more.

First update will probably be sometime during the last week of December. Maybe if you're lucky, I'll post on Christmas as my gift to everyone.

Until then, thanks for reading, and I hope you'll be back soon.