Phantom Tactics development journal

I played the first two battles (on Normal. After I do those I'll do the rest of the difficulties.) earlier. I don't know if I just missed it while reading about the game, but I had no idea how cool/unique the battle system is. I really like it so far.

The victory music from Wild ARMs was funny.

I just got my copy of Persona 4 in the mail, though, so I'll be distracted for some time. I'll hopefully play through the rest soon though.

Again, the battle system is really cool.

Haha, thanks. I take it you missed the demo a couple months ago.

I'm going to replace the Wild ARMs victory music sooner or later -- I think it's the only remaining track that's not original, but it turns out I haven't actually composed any victory themes recently. Or have I? Maybe I just need to scour my archives.

...Nope, I got nothing.

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

A quick question, the AI is better on the harder difficulties, right? Just noting that they are making some awful decisions on Normal, but that's to be expected. A single unit shouldn't attack into 5 guys haha.

Additionally, it really bothers me how there's a slight green line on an empty unit.

No, the AI is unchanged. If you have instances of the AI being stupid, please send me a detailed description.

As an aside, the AI is overly aggressive by design: I could've made them all bunch up together and then swarm you, and while that would have been a better strategy in general, it makes for a less fun experience.




You mean the HP bar? I can change that easily enough.

By the way, I'd appreciate it if you collected your comments in an email (although feel free to keep commenting here). It's easier for me to refer back to them that way.

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

Yeah, the green HP bar. The outline stays there, I think, and shows up, and it's really weird.

And as for the AI, I like how wounded guys run away, but it seems like enemies shouldn't attack into really bad situations. I realize it's difficult to do, but I had a guy run into this:



Which triggered a combat with five of my guys. Seems like they'd want to run away in those situations.

Or at least attack one of the guys on the edges. Right. The only time that I'd think the AI would want to go for an attack like that is if he thought he'd kill one of your guys that way.

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

I think I figured it out, actually. It looks like if they have a chance to attack a bowman, they will take it no matter what. I'll keep messing with it.

Also silly question, can enemies miss? If what I'm seeing is %to hit (the little bow symbol) then I really don't think enemies follow it. On my way through superhuman, it's incredibly difficult to guess if I'll kill a guy just because of often I do (or rather, don't) hit. That's fine, except it seems like enemies aren't affected by it, they always appear to hit. Might just be incredibly bad luck, though.

No, accuracy is a product of the attacker's Aim (the crosshair symbol) versus the attacker's Evd (the starburst symbol). When they're even, you have something like a 70% chance to hit. The lowest it can go is 20%.

The bow symbol is support damage, which is multiplied after defense is applied. In the first chapter, Bowman has 100% support and everyone else has 50%.

Strategy pointers behind spoiler in case you want to figure things out on your own.

In my testing of Nightmare (one step below what you're playing), I found that I got the best results leading with the Bowman and sticking Janus and Garland next to him. Janus gives the stat boost and Garland tanks. The enemy really likes to target the Bowman since it's ignorant of the Guardian ability and thinks it'll kill him in one attack.

My intent in creating so many difficulty levels was that people should be able to choose to make the game ridiculously hard. I thought Nightmare was challenging but definitely possible. I'm less sure about Superhuman, but then I never tested it.

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

That's what I've been doing. Garland dies sometimes taking all the damage though so I try to use Caden to draw them away.

Also I thought Nightmare was one higher than Superhuman. I have terrible memory, haha.

I couldn't beat the battle where you get Caden unless the AI decided not to move forward so that I could block the bridge. I couldn't figure out what made them stand still for a turn.

I don't know why, but I find this incredibly amusing.

Okay, I've been sitting on this long enough. Playtesters, any notes you have would be useful to have soon -- I'm going to get chapter 1 ready for release.

Then I'm going to release it.

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

Things to do before I release:
- new Zombie anim
- new Cleric anim
- fix the leader bug check

Can I get it all done... in the next half hour? Only time will tell!

(edit) turns out no, but all that's left is Cleric

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

At the risk of being redundant, let me announce again that Chapter 1 is out. If you playtested the game, you'll find that there isn't much different. If you didn't, now's your chance to play the game!

C&C can go here if you want.

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

I did a video review, but I ate it.

Suffice to say that

A.) I really like this game
B.) I can't see my units' current or max HP. There's no value there. Just HP. I'm using the latest stable release, and got an error for it. Might that be the problem?

Yes. Use the included file, which is included for this reason and others.

And feel free to do a text review if you lost your video. I'd prefer you mention that it's a review of chapter 1 only, but that's up to you.

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks