Chaos Between Realms <Byte-Off Continued Development>

[fjamesfernandez]

Hello everyone!

Here I will start showing development on Chaos Between Realms. Now that things have died down with the byte off, I can really work on the game the way it was meant to be. For the past few weeks I have been optimizing the assets to make sure that things can fit the way that is needed. Its a challenging process but we all know that is needed to meet the required limitations of the Nes. So with that said, let's get started.

CBR Byte-Off Demo Download

Chaos Between Realms (CBR) development team will be:

Narrative: FJ (for now)
Pixel Artist : FJ (Me)
Coder: Drexegar
Music: Drexegar
Art: FJ and Sol Blaze​

During the Demo, it seems that people who didn't watch the Byte-off 2020 announcement and ended up not being able to know what was going on with the story. So it will helpful if you did watch it. Of course the story will now change and it will connect with the byte off story. So no need to worry about that. So lets make some sense of how the byte-off story took place:

Now with that out of the way, the cutscene in the game would make more sense. The issue is because we recently had an update to Nesmaker I was unable to add the text to the cutscenes and also the whole thing of still showing the sprites while the text was going on. Which will be included in the rebuild of CBR. Let us continue....

​

In sort, Joe and Austin manage to build a time machine. When Joe get sent to 1989, Austin tries to bring back Joe, but instead it brought two life forms from another time/realm to Austin. Thus the time machine breaks and both Joe and the two life forms are stuck with no way of returning for now. How will all of this work and tie in together with no confusion? That's easy with some creativity and fusing stories together

 

[fjamesfernandez]

The Forums aren't allowing any links at the moment so be patient on some details that I won't be able to post up as of yet

Characters (The description and name of each character may chance over time but this is based on the byte off and and my other game.)

DP ("Demo Player") Nasty minded people
-A Time Patrol Warrior


Unknown Life Form
-Last of its kind and is seeking to change that at all cost.


Joe
-JGV's Father, a husband, good friend of Austins and inventor.
Both Austin and Joe manage to make a time machine out of Joe's
old Nes... But things didn't go as planned. Rumor has it that he use to
be in a elite team. But what type of team?


JGV
-Joe's Son. He was trained by his father in classical teachings of combat.
He is also part of a Patrol Team with SJ, Kubo, and Dale.


Austin
-An artist and inventor. Joe's best friend. Austin is now spending
his days trying to get Joe back into his right timeline.


Dale
- SJ's Father, Weapon, and Programmer Specialist. He is always willing to help
people in need. SJ and Dale created Kubo and are apart of the Patrol Team with JGV.


SJ
-Dale's son. Although young, he managers to over come his fathers shadow of
greatness. Both Dale and SJ are updating Kubo for the third time to make him
the village protector. SJ is also the leader of the Patrol Team.

 

[fjamesfernandez]

The characters you'll see here are from the game I was originally working on "Unbreakable Fates: Guidance of Illusion". This is the world that DP was warped to By Joe and Austin. So this will be a prequal to the original game that I was working one which I can easily tie the two.

Alex and Desmond
- Brothers who are apart of the Hunter's Guild. They were tracking down their target
and ended up being attacked by the very monster that DP was after.


Mr. Retro
- A collector in seek of rare artifacts. But what are these artifacts? He will recruit DP
to search for these artifacts in exchange for rewards.


S.A.M (???) (Character and Story made by Eric Bishop who is known in the mod community)
-Found by Joe in the forest one night. Joe suspect that this isn't your
average best fried. He finds him with the dog tags still intact. Joe
built a dog house for S.A.M but doesn't allow anyone to come
near it.





The title screen was suppose to have an enemy but as we all know, tile limitations can get in the way. Of course I can always resize the pixel art and make it fit. But we will see as the development goes further down the line.

The idea



Draft idea



Limitation reality hits you in the face

 

[fjamesfernandez]

So as I mentioned before. Byte off CBR version was rushed assets. They were okay giving the time that we had to complete them, but I am reworking all the assets and to make sure that they are optimized to be universal any where on the map that needs development. Unless its like the final area, I don't want a type of asset just for one area.

Byte Off Mount Kame


Mount Kame Rebuild

Byte Off Path to Mountains


Path to mountains rebuild


Here you can see where you met JGV the second time has been reworked. Maybe ill donate the old assets from the byte off.
------>

So I will be reworking everything in chunks. Once the Forums are updated so we can allow outside links, Ill start showing video progress on the game.

 

[fjamesfernandez]

Here are the "not so old" videos that were made for Byte-Off. Remember the order of game play and scenes may change doing development.

Byte-Off Trailer

First Play through

 

[dale_coop]

Your gfx are really awesome, fj
Thank you for sharing this project <3

 

[fjamesfernandez]

Your gfx are really awesome, fj
Thank you for sharing this project <3

Thank you, but your kindness to help others are better than my graphics haha. I will be showing new game play soon. A lot of things are being added and adjusted which I couldn't add or fix during the byte-off.

Things will change for the better so that I can make the world come together. The title screen and cutscenes (for one) will change to conserve tiles but I believe it will be replaced with something better.

 

[fjamesfernandez]

The new assets for the CAVES are coming out well. It's amazing how quickly you can run out of space so I had to make sure I put the assets together to be used in other areas. There's just a few more tiles I want to add before claiming this area is done so that I can move on to the next. I had to adjust some areas outside of the cave to keep the consistency going. Though yes, my game is Top over view, its not the same as Zelda. Mine is more Forward top view.

​

Old to New
---->>

Of course this isn't the layout of the screens. I was just making sample screens to see what I can put together to make things work. I can even add the outside mountain slops in this cave as well to give it a more unique path. The Byte off Cave section well be reworked to make sure there arent any issues and have more of a flow. There are some areas I do want to keep that was in the byte off.

Soon, hopefully next month I will be showing some new gameplay footage if I don't get too busy.

 

[dale_coop]

Beautiful Caves <3

 

[fjamesfernandez]

Beautiful Caves <3

Thanks Dale ^_^ You are always cheering me on. It means a lot and keeps me going. With the cave I made a final Version. Will show them later. Right now I am going to show your newly renovated workshop in CBR. Will add some final touches when the time comes. It took some organizing to do away with assets I didn't really need and make some more sense to your Sewers. But did you know you have something lurking in your Sewer that only a few pipes separates you from it? Scary!

​

 

[Jonny]

Looking great. I like that camera angle. Reminds me of New Ghostbusters 2 which is awesome. Although, your graphics are looking better and more diverse. It looks like a really fun type of game to work on.

 

[fjamesfernandez]

Looking great. I like that camera angle. Reminds me of New Ghostbusters 2 which is awesome. Although, your graphics are looking better and more diverse. It looks like a really fun type of game to work on.

Hmm I haven't played that one but yes its a top down view and thank you ^^

 

[fjamesfernandez]

here are some side by side comparison of the updates I am making since the Byte Off Competition. There is still things I need to add when the time comes. I said it once and I'll say it again. Just because its the developed on NES doesn't mean I have to make it look like the games back then on NES. Pixel Art has evolved and there is just not excuse. Not even with the NES Limitations. I know it's not much but I still wanted to show some progress. The next video will show game play and new elements for the environments.

 

[Jonny]

Hmm I haven't played that one but yes its a top down view and thank you ^^

The HAL labs game wasn't released in America. You guys only got the rubbish one instead! If you can get a ROM or whatever its worth checking out just for the game mechanic.

I can't agree more about graphics. There's so much more to take inspiration from now. You could also say the same about music too. Some music by nesmaker users sounds like nothing I've heard on NES before.

Anyway, CBR is starting to look really excellent. It's a great idea to show the dev stages side by side.

 

[fjamesfernandez]

The HAL labs game wasn't released in America. You guys only got the rubbish one instead! If you can get a ROM or whatever its worth checking out just for the game mechanic.

I can't agree more about graphics. There's so much more to take inspiration from now. You could also say the same about music too. Some music by nesmaker users sounds like nothing I've heard on NES before.

Anyway, CBR is starting to look really excellent. It's a great idea to show the dev stages side by side.

Hmm, I'll look into it. I believe I have all the ROMs lol but I do own NES games so, heh And thanks, things are coming along well for the most part.

 

[fjamesfernandez]

So, I have been working on in-game portraits for the narrative part. Normal NPCs will not have any portraits, only the important characters of the game. I remembered last time someone mentioned that I would have to remove Joe, Austin, and Dale, but they will serve their place in CBR. When there's a well and creativity, there is a way. The original plan was to have it in color but due to flipping the images when need (Because these are sprites) putting the colors in code will take up too much space. Those are in my words lol I am sure there is a technical term for all of that which I can't articulate it lol

Each sprite is 5x5 tiles. I have a few more to make when the time comes in further development.

​

 

[dale_coop]

Oh !! LOVE it

 

[fjamesfernandez]

And these are finished for the most part. On to other things now. Some of the silhouette are cameos from other Nesmaker original IPs. I wonder who they might be

​

 

[CutterCross]

And these are finished for the most part. On to other things now. Some of the silhouette are cameos from other Nesmaker original IPs. I wonder who they might be

So basically... you're looking to have this game be a crossover bridging a ton of NESmaker community IPs / worlds?

I can get behind that idea.

 

[fjamesfernandez]

So basically... you're looking to have this game be a crossover bridging a ton of NESmaker community IPs / worlds?

I can get behind that idea.

Well what happened is that CBR was never meant to happen. I was actually going to do a SHMUP. But that's when the CBR idea came along. I merged it with the RPG prequal I was was working on. Because we didn't have the RPG module Unbreakable Fates was going to be an overhead adventure game. I was hoping by then when I finished it (no where was i even close) that there would had been an RPG module so that I can start working on the RPG I wanted to make based on the story I made.

But with the byte off CBR demo I was able to write the merged story in as a Prequal times two. This time adding Nesmaker either creator or their IPs or both (depends how they fit in the store or to be introduced. Because of the "Time" them I will be able to put them in and have their own roles, of course with the amount of space I am allowed to have with all of this. But who knows, may be they all don't need to have portraits but still can be featured some how. Or if there was ever a port outside of Nes they can be fit in there

but it can be possible to have them cross over. Maybe even in DP's true game. There is that big house in CBR "wink wink" lol