The Palace of Revelry

 I decided that I would make a post showing the layout of the Palace of Revelry, where the entirety of Triad Triad: Tournament of the Elements takes place. Here's a basic map showing the layout and where the rooms connect.

So, as you can tell, it's not overly detailed or anything and just serves to give you an idea of where each room is. I'll do a master map later when the game is completed that has plenty of detail in it. For now, I just want to explain what each room is and what purpose they all serve, starting in the Altar of Origin (where the player begins) and branching out from there.

Altar of Origin: This is where the player spawns into the Palace of Revelry after telling Dionysos who they are (you pick your character prior to appearing in this map). Jihl Nabaat hangs out here and gives you the basic gist of where you are. It's a simple map, and has a sort of "homey" feel to it that I find a lot of starting rooms have in Metroidvania games and such. There's always a bit of comfort in going back to the room everything started in.

Verdant Park: A lush park with canals running through the center. Card players and other random folks come here to relax. This is the first place I'd recommend new players go to play cards, as there are several NPCs who play cards here and several of them more or less just use starter cards.

Endowment Emporium: After starting out, you are advised to come here to pick up your starter cards. The endowment agent will give you seven cards to start, and that's about all there is to it! You can return here at any time in the future if you somehow manage to fall below four cards, at which point the endowment agent will give you more free starter cards to get you back on your feet.

East Wing: A simple hallway with some NPCs hanging about, with some of them willing to play cards with you. Leads into the Exchange and Recycling Depot.

Exchange: A market where card players will offer you high quality cards in exchange for several lesser quality ones. They may also ask for a little gil as well. A neat little place for players to go to see if there's anything available for trade that interests them. The cards that will be available here will change based on the player's progress through the main story (which is the six elemental tournaments).

Recycling Depot: You can come here to discard your unwanted cards. Put cards into their corresponding recycling units and you will get a small sum of gil in exchange for the card.

The Promenade: A large open area where people relax at tables that sort of serves as a central location since it serves as a sort of nexus between the east and west sides of the palace. There are some card players here of various skill levels. After completing the initial quest that takes you to your HQ, a moogle will show up here who can teleport you all around the Palace of Revelry for a small fee.

Promenade Cafe: The first cafe players can happen upon. Cafes are basically lawless areas where card rules are all over the place! In addition, they are the only place where the Indirect and All card exchange rules are in effect. If you're feeling confident in your abilities, the cafes are a good place to pick up new cards.

Main Hub: After completing the initial quest that leads you to your HQ, you can come to the Main Hub to enter any of the six card tournaments at will. Expect to traverse through this map a lot for a multitude of reasons, as there are useful locations on both sides of the Main Hub, the card shop is accessible from its south side, and you'll obviously be coming here to enter the tournaments.

West Wing: A long vertical hallway that serves as a connector for the four HQ maps. Headquarters are where you go to progress the main tournament quests and more, so you will walk through here frequently.

Cornelia HQ: The headquarters for characters from Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy II, and Final Fantasy III.

Tycoon HQ: The headquarters for characters from Final Fantasy IV, Final Fantasy V, and Final Fantasy VI.

Alexandria HQ: The headquarters for characters from Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, and Final Fantasy IX.

Gridania HQ: The headquarters for characters from Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIV, and Final Fantasy XV. Final Fantasy XI is technically represented, but exclusively in the tournaments.

The Cloud Walk: A courtyard-esque walkway with platforms over clouds that lazily drift by below. Similar to the Verdant Park in that this is a place where NPCs come to relax.

Cloud Walk Cafe: Like the Promenade Cafe, another place to go to take part in card games with NPCs who play by random rules and the All/Indirect trading rules.

Library of Revelry: Don't understand some of the rules of Triple Triad? Come here for a full explanation on how everything works.

Trivia Den: Come here to take part in a trivia mini-game to accumulate gil. Trivia questions are all related to Final Fantasy. 

Chamber of Dionysos: Private chamber where the God of Revelry, Dionysos, resides.

NPC Cameos

I'm allowing anyone who wants to appear as an NPC to play cards with in Tournament of the Elements the opportunity to do so! All you need to do is tell me your NPC name and gender and then select five cards for them to play with! 169 of the 360 (!) cards in the game are available to be picked and range from low level play to upper mid level play. Excluded are all high level cards and unique cards.

You can fill on the following Google Form to be added to the game: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdk1ruJN6qCZKebP6gP0AV536mlrHKeQe6OTvqRAje1CWlsrw/viewform

Card Shop Test

 The Triple Triad script for MV doesn't have a card shop/booster pack feature (though both were promised), so I had to do something myself! This the result. I think the FF1 shop theme was also a nice touch.

Testing, Testing, Testing...

So, all 350+ cards have been entered into the game's Triple Triad plugin, and now I've started the testing process to check for conflicts between cards. Currently I have a small list of potentially 15 or so cards that have had their numbers entered incorrectly, which was to be expected given the large number of cards I entered. There were bound to be a few errors!

A match that I should have won, but the Aerith and Valefor cards seem to have had their numbers entered incorrectly.

Anyway, I'm spending most of my free time at work today testing as many cards as I can and watching for conflicts. Fortunately I have a quiet job where I'm left alone for most of the day, so I can get away with this! After work I will be fixing all cards that I know have issues. My goal is detecting as many of these as possible today so that the majority of them (but hopefully all of them) are known to me today, and then I can just squash the occasional one that pops up in actual game testing after.

I'm hoping to also have functional maps and an intro by the end of the weekend as well! The focus of the game has changed a bit from picking a team to join to instead picking an established character from the series to play as. I'm using Record Keeper sprites, but it seems that either the game does not have field graphics for all characters, or my source for these sprites (the ever helpful Kaimi Kreissel) didn't have them, so I'll be limiting the selectable characters from each game to 1-4 characters (depending on roster size), and will be picking the most interesting/popular characters for each to be selectable. Other characters that are not selectable will appear as your NPC friends/teammates.

Eargasm! The Music of Tournament of the Elements

My intention with Triple Triad: Tournament of the Elements, aside from trying to make a fun card game, is to make your ears sing with joy! Here's an idea of what you'll be having banging against your eardrums when this side project is completed...

Final Fantasy Mystic Quest: Fireburg Theme (Orchestral Remix)

Final Fantasy: Chaos Temple (Arranged)

Final Fantasy: Main Theme of Final Fantasy (Arranged)

Final Fantasy VI: Setzer's Theme (Arranged)

Final Fantasy VI: Spinach Rag (Piano Version)

Final Fantasy VII: Rufus' Welcoming Ceremony

Final Fantasy VII: The Gold Saucer

Final Fantasy VII: Still More Fighting

Final Fantasy VII: Wall Market

Final Fantasy VIII: Balamb Garden Theme

Final Fantasy VIII: Shuffle or Boogie

Final Fantasy VIII: Slideshow Part 2

Final Fantasy VIII: Victory Fanfare

Final Fantasy IX: Quad Mist (Tetra Master Theme)

Final Fantasy IX: Tantalus' Theme

Final Fantasy IX: The City That Never Sleeps

Final Fantasy X: Brass de Chocobo

Final Fantasy XIII: Nautilus

Final Fantasy XIV: Cheeky Theme

Final Fantasy XIV: Return of the Hero

Final Fantasy XIV: Ul'Dah Day Time Theme

All that and more!

What is Triple Triad: Tournament of the Elements?

Triple Triad: Tournament of the Elements is a side project I started on August 9th, 2021 in RPG Maker MV that primarily revolves around the Triple Triad card game from Final Fantasy VIII.

The game features a ludicrous total of 360 cards. In comparison, Final Fantasy VIII only had 110 cards. I believe that this total of 360 cards even surpasses Final Fantasy XIV by a few dozen! Here is the first test game that I recorded, which features cards from several different Final Fantasy titles:

I've vaguely mentioned that there's more than just "playing cards", even though it will be the main focus of the game. There is going to be a story, maps to wander around on, and a bit more. Basically, the game will revolve around characters from all dimensions being summoned by a playful god of fun and revelry named Dionysos in order to take part in the Tournament of the Elements, and extensive Triple Triad tournament that will see the winner be declared the Triple Triad King (or Queen). 

Upon being summoned, the player (who chooses their male or female character), gets to present themselves as a hopeful competitor to five different teams taking part in the tournament. They are Team Gabbiani, Team Highwind, Team Bunansa, Team Manderville, Team Nabaat.

Team Bunansa is headed by Balthier.
Team Gabbiani is headed by Setzer Gabbiani.
Team Highwind is headed by Cid Highwind.
Team Manderville is headed by Julyan Manderville.
Team Nabaat is headed by Jihl Nabaat.

Players will "interview" with their chosen team, which decides the game's system/window skin and starting cards. The player is then warped to their teams respective HQ on the tournament grounds where they will be able to accept missions for gil (which is used to buy card booster packs), interact with team members, and have beginner level games with team coaches. You'll also be able to view your trophies in your team's HQ.

In the tournament's hub map, players will be able to enter the respective tournaments which are Earth, Fire, Ice, Lightning, Water, and Wind. The objective is to beat each tournament, making friends and rivals along the way, until all six have been beaten. At this point, the final tournament is unlocked where you get to go up against Dionysos himself at the end to earn your respective title of King/Queen of Triple Triad.

Worth mentioning, there will be NO battles and NO menu! Pressing escape will bring up a small menu with these choices:

- Card Gallery
- Team HQ
- Save/Load
- Exit Game

There are a few more things I'm going to do that I hope will make this a fun little side project. I'm not really making this for any reason other than to have fun, and I hope that anyone who tries the finished project has fun as well.