Category Archives: Epic Battle Fantasy 3

Soundtrack Changes

Hey guys, I’ve made some changes to the Epic Battle Fantasy soundtracks on Steam. Soundtracks used to be DLC, but now they are their own type of content, with the main difference being that they no longer require the base game to be owned. If you already own them, you may need to go to the soundtrack’s Steam store page and download them again.

With that in mind, I’ve increased the price of the EBF5 soundtrack from $5 to $10, and the BH2 soundtrack from Free to $10. The EBF3 and EBF4 soundtracks will continue to be free. The price changes are mainly to stop people getting the soundtracks for incredibly cheap, without needing to buy the games first.

I’ve also added two new bundles – EBF5 with the soundtrack, and BH2 with the soundtrack – so you get 20% off if you buy a game with the soundtrack, and this will combine with seasonal sales.

Here’s some other changes:
• The EBF5 soundtrack now includes 3 new songs that were added to the game after the original launch.
• Lots of metadata has been updated – some tracks weren’t numbered correctly, mentions of HalcyonicFalconX have been updated to Phyrnna.
• Some EBF3 tracks weren’t in 320kbps, now all of them are.
• The track “zomg Victory” was removed from the EBF4 soundtrack, because it’s a duplicate from the EBF3 soundtrack.

Buying Phyrnna’s music on Bandcamp is still the best way to support her, as she gets a much bigger cut over there, so keep that in mind too. And finally, if anyone feels scammed by these changes, please get in contact with me and I’ll sort it out.

Tinkering with things

Yesterday I spent the day fiddling with EBF3 on Steam to see if I can get in all the features I want (mainly adding stage quality). Turns out AS2 is just too old, and trying to update it is probably a lost cause. Each way I package the game has different trade-offs, so I trade some options for others. (I can get stage quality working at the expense of game speed and full screen resolutions) Not good.

I also thought a bit about Mac versions of my Steam games. It looks like technically it wouldn’t be much work, only problem is that I have to compile the games from a Mac, and I don’t have one and don’t want to get one. I spent a few hours installing a Mac virtual machine under Windows to try it out. That was a fun exercise but I don’t think anything of value came out of it, it wasn’t very usable in the end.

Maybe someday I’ll pick up a Mac mini or something. I wonder if I even have any Mac users left in my audience at this rate. Sorry guys! I haven’t ruled it out but it’s not a high priority.

Anyway, I’m going to revisit EBF4 next, with some luck I’ll get the game running nicely in Adobe AIR. I’d finally add that Steam overlay, “windowed” full screen, and reduce the amount of compatibility issues users have. This is important to figure out early since EBF5 will be running on the same tech.

EBF3: Updated version on Kongregate!

I updated Epic Battle Fantasy 3 with some major usability features for 2016!

The Kongregate version is now almost the same as the Steam version.
(Pros: Quality setting means it runs better.  Cons: Browsers might delete your saves.)

Anyway, here’s the changes:
• There’s a little options menu which includes sound, frame-skip, and quality.
• There’s a wave counter in battle now!
• Scanned foes’ information can now be viewed at any time during your turn.
• Minigame achievements are noticeably easier.
• Text pops up when a status effect is inflicted.
• The party heals faster when walking around later in the game.
• There’s more useful tips scattered around the menus.
• Bitmaps are higher resolution and the game should look better in cinematic mode.
• There’s more fanart in the gallery now.
• Some links and credits have been updated.
• Little interface improvements here and there
• Lance’s general defence buffed by 10%!

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EBF3: final new features list!

Hey guys, I thought I’d make a detailed list of the changes in the Steam version of EBF3.
Se here it goes:

New Options:
• There’s a new options menu which includes sound, game speed, fullscreen, and window size/resolution.
• The new resolutions are a bit higher than the original one, but they’re not quite HD.
• Game speed let’s you play at double speed if your computer is fast enough – useful for backtracking or grinding.
• There’s also a “Frameskip” setting for slow computers – this will always run the game at normal speed, and skip a lot of frames if it has to.

New Features:
• There’s Steam achievements!
• The Steam overlay works! (You can easily take funny screenshots with F12)
• There’s a foe wave counter in battle now!
• Scanned foes’ information can now be viewed at any time during your turn – like in EBF4.
• Minigame achievements are noticeably easier.
• Text pops up when a status effect is inflicted – like in EBF4.
• The party heals faster when walking around later in the game.
• There’s more useful tips scattered around the menus and tutorial.
• Jpgs and music are uncompressed now, and the battle backgrounds have a higher resolution – so some things should look a bit better.
• There’s more fanart in the gallery now.
• There’s no ads or links during gameplay.
• Tiny interface improvements here and there.
• Lance’s general defence buffed by 10% – he died too much and I don’t think this was intentional.

New Content:
• None.

Misc stuff:
• Steam doesn’t even need to be running to play the game – it’s completely offline and standalone. (But you’ll have to turn Steam on later to upload your achievements.)
• The links and credits on the main menu and ending and have been updated – EBF3 is just a big ad for EBF4!
• The old graphics quality option is gone, because Adobe are stupid – I’ll add this back later if they make it possible.
• The game is Windows only for now – but I’m considering Mac support (and for my other games too). I’ll just need to get a Mac first, and I really don’t want one.