So while I haven't actually done any coding yet, I've decided on what I'm entering in the contest this year

(Well actually in my mind there would be 3 games if I were to realize this series...Ash, Flame, and Embers).

Anyway, going against your typical FF style RPG (Verdant Forest) I'll be putting something more similar to Desolate together. Combat will take place in real-time against enemies with *gasp* (hopefully good) AI. The story will take place in the future, at the twilight of Earth's humanity. Society has begun to crumble...there have been no technological innovations for the past 300 years and the Earth is dying. That is, until the current head of the world government gets wind of a rumor that the formula for immortality has been discovered. He decides to send his top agent (you) to investigate...And the adventure begins.

Some specs I'm thinking about:
-8x8 monochrome, for speed and convenience
-Byte-sized tiles instead of nibbles for less intensive data organization and more variety in tiles. This is possible since each tile is 8 bytes as opposed to 64 in Ash:Phoenix.
-Pokemon style smoothscroll tilemapping
-A small variety of weapons
-Very smart/tactical AI (this is the hardest part )

Good luck squidgetx. That's a pretty ambitious entry you have! =)

Well, it'll be shorter than most games I think. Probably equivalent to the length of Desolate or so. Also the battle engine will be significantly smaller and easier to code compared to the battle engine of a turn-based RPG. Additionally, after Ash and Zombie Gun I can wrap my head around most of the concepts needed (ie intensive data storage and management, bullet/enemy arrays, etc.)

Probably should get back to work though . I'm writing it all from scratch, hopefully so that I can organize everything better (Unfortunately there is no such thing as a black box in Axe programming...sigh)

Basic tilemapping finished Holding ALPHA makes the character run at 2px/frame as opposed to 1px/frame. Some preliminary sprites made as well. Next, map linking

I agree—when he's moving two pixels a frame, he looks like he's walking at a decent RPG speed.

Anyway, good luck. It sounds fun. Do you have an idea for what Flame:Phoenix would be like?

Looks quite nice. When i saw Phoenix in the title I was sure it was related to Ash:Phoenix. Hoping this gets finished (along with Ash)

Nice, I like the walking speed actually. It reminds me a bit of Robot Wars, minus the intense physics it had of course.

CalcGS+Word macro+TokenIDE = massive productivity

You will also notice a completely broken AI and the beginnings of a UI stat/info overlay. I can't quite decide if I want to have money/shop in this game... hmmm

To do:
-Enemy AI, injury/kickback
-Pickupable items and item system
-Sprite enemies, items, more tiles
-NPC dialog/script engine
-Name input engine
-Finish game content (mapmaking, enemies, conversations, etc.)