New Mod Released for FF! Pulp Fiction! (not by me!)

[tommyboy]

Riddle Me This presents a two-fisted tale of 20+ missions in the style of the old pulp magazines. Join the Dreamweaver, the Truth, Doc Masters, and other pulp archetypes as they unravel the mystery of the Yellow Dragon.

http://www.alexff.com/goodies.php

Go! Go now!

[Volsung]

"this files contains invalid data"
:unsure:

[Previsionary]

"this files contains invalid data"
:unsure:

mod downloads for me and installs.

[tommyboy]

"this files contains invalid data"
:unsure:

mod downloads for me and installs.

Ditto.
Had no problem d/l'ing or installing , and having a blast playing through it.
Good story, great characters, and the most strategic, fiendishly balanced gameplay outside of the original game.
Highly Recommended Mod.

[Arlecchino]

 :blink:

wow Alex is back.
Thats so great. And a new mod in my favorite style too.
This is a good summer.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

"this files contains invalid data"

Probably just a bad download.  Everyone once in a while, when you download something, something in the file gets corrupted.  It's not common, but the bigger the download, the more likely it is.  Just download it again, and it should work.

[Volsung]

I just downloaded it again and it worked.
(Then  I realised it was a ff mod.My ff is completely corrupted^^ I can't install or uninstall it.I guess I should delete some registration keys...)

[Leprejuan]

I had that weird download thing, but I just Dled again and it worked perfectly.

I'm loving the pulp goodness here.  It's not the exact guys, like the Great Hunt, but close approximates. For those who haven't Dled, I see versions of all these characters:

Doc Savage
Two-Gun Kid
The Shadow
Golden Age Sandman meets Matt Wagner Sandman
Quartermain meets Daddy Jones
Shang Chi meets Green Hornet's Kato
the Phantom
Nightveil
Dr. 13 meets Dr. Occult

I loved playing the Phantom, Doc Savage, the Shadow, and the Shang-Chi approximates.  I really liked the way Riddle Me This brought out the theme of the shadow's operatives and Phantom's concerns with Africa even though he adapted characters in unusual ways. 

At first, I was a little disappointed that the shadow-approximate couldn't hide, but I got to love that hypnotic gas to keep them busy fighting each other until I whip out a little two-gun justice.

Some of the converging masses of baddies make life challenging in this mod.  It works out well for the shadowesque guy and his attacks.  I really struggled with the Doc Savage versus the Raptor(?) acid-throwing guys until I decided that trees are my friends and started smacking them around that way.

I'm currently stuck, if anyone has played through.  I've got Doc K-something on the skyscraper, trying to interrupt the ritual.  [spoiler]I am a big fan of the Alchemiss's Repulsion on the disks method of storming FF's final sequences.  "Ahhhhhhh"  I have been lucky/skilled enough to knock the initial wave of dwarves off the tower with force bolt.  I took out the thug and the other two dwarves who lurk way to the west.  I knock the Priestess down to 1 HP or knock her off the tower, but I always get the "out of time" cutscene.  If I leave the priestess at 1 hp, she makes a little speech and I lose.  If I knock her off the building, I lose WITHOUT the little speech.  Does anyone know what I should be doing?[/spoiler]

[jeremy355]

[spoiler]Don't worry about the priestess just kill the dwarfs and the thug. As long as all the dwarves and the one thug are dead you will beat the level. Every once and awhile a dwarf will jump to the ledge below, this won't kill him, nor can you get to him to kill him. Watch out for this if it happens you will have to restart the level.[/spoiler]

[BentonGrey]

Lots of fun, I'm definitely enjoying this!  It is cool to try and figure out the influence on all of these characters, and he has made a really fun mod!

[oni]

Will a version for  :ffvstr: be made?  Would soemone be able to convert it?  I would like to play it but don't have  :ff: .   :doh:

[rmt]

I don't like  :ffvstr: but I still have it... somewhere.   I think.  I will talk to Alex to see if it can be converted but no promises.

To Leprejuan, interesting post.  Some of those were intentional but some were not, so it's interesting you saw them in the archetypes anyway.

Hit the credits button (or beat the game) to see the creators of the inspiration pieces at least as I envisioned them and it may give you some ideas.  Of course, some of them are very very loosely based and some of the creators made a ton of people so if anyone wants to know more precisely, just ask (e.g., Six Gun Sam is actually based on golden age super hero, Johnny Thunder, not in powers or origin, but in spirit of the comic relief who manages to save the day).

[rmt]

Ok, here's the situation on conversion.

I can convert most if not all the meshes (Green Hornet will not convert but was only included for danger room purposes, not for use in the mod since the mod doesn't allow custom characters).  Shadows will have to be turned off or you'll get some sort of ghosting bug which Tommyboy assures me the rest of the world has known about for years.  Something about how I have multiple villains on the same mesh in most levels.

Sound, background art, etc. are not a problem.  I have converted the fx, replacing a few along the way.

I cannot get FFX to work but that's possibly something minor.  If not, the judo throws, vertigo, crystallization, etc. would have to go.  It's not real FFX intensive so might not be a huge loss, though I'd like to figure out why it won't work now.  I re-ran the control centre and everything seemed fine, but the pull attack and vertigo traps definitely aren't working in level 1. 

Converting the gas gun to a cone was cool.  The crappy decision to reduce the energy tier system to only none, low, medium and high and to remove all the underpowering/overpowering options still bites hard.  Suffice to say I am firmly in the camp that thinks they over-tinkered with the "play balance" and all but ruined the game.

The ungodly garish lighting is not well suited to the pulp style, but eh, whatever.

Now here's the reason you're never going to see the mod for FFvTTR...  maps.

Most of the maps do not appear to work.  In fact, only a few seem to.  And I'm not even talking objects, I'm talking terrains.  Objects I figure I could handle since Tom is converting most of them for Alex for the FF to FFvTTR project anyway.  Whatever doesn't convert could probably be replaced or ignored.  But terrain is a problem.

The most glaring example is in the first level, although at least the characters can move (some, like the Professor's first level don't allow that).  The objects appear normal.  The floor and walls, however, are neon pink.  It's like it can't find the textures.  They're where the level is pointing best I can tell and they're all converted to DDS.  It's the sewer_system map hosted by fxforce for what it's worth.  I have no idea what the problem is, but if it can't be fixed, I'm done because...

I can't get the level editor in ffedit to work either.  It crashes after pre-caching every single time, even when I use default maps from FFvTTR.   I don't know why, but it means I can't add so much as a positional marker into the maps as I can't see where to add them.  So simply using the limited supply of new maps won't even fix the issue, even if I were willing to sacrifice some maps that I'm not sure have a modern functional equivalent, like the skyscraper where you can knock people over the side to their death.

Very disheartening.  I'm open to suggestions but not sure there's much reason to pursue this when it's holding up moving on to other projects (either for  :ff: or simply unrelated hobbies like Guitar Hero).

Anyone have any thoughts?  If this needs to go in technical or there's a map forum or something, somebody tell me.  It's been almost two years since I've tried to get tech help.   ;)

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I suggest you contact GogglesPizanno.  He managed to convert even maps that everyone else has been stumped at, using some more advanced hexing/scoping methods for at least one.  If anyone could convert it he could.

Merging the new FFX with a mod based on an older one is a pain.  The usual results are the state swaps and attributes not working.  In fact, Liberty Bay was successfully upgrades from 3.1 to 3.2 only with m25 doing the work.

I should also be noted that the FFvTTR FFX version are self contained, so they won't work unless all the FFX files are included.