The Greatest RPG Ever Made

       This is a very, very small webpage, created for the sole purpose of allowing others to download the latest version of my first large programming venture....the Final Fantasy VII Single-User Dungeon (or FFVII SUD for short). It is currently in a 'beta testing version' which means, in English, that it is not nearly done yet but has enough stuff completed that other people might want to fool around with it ;)

Go directly to download section

       I am programming it in Microsoft's Visual Basic 5.0 and sometimes 6.0 (although for this sort of program there is no discernible different between the two); I do believe that VB is Microsoft's only product that does not entirely suck, so I use it. Originally concieved as a text-based adventure game only, alike to a MUD (Multi-User Dungeon), Zork or Rogue, the FFVII SUD has evolved due to my expanding knowledge of VB. It is still text-based in the sense that you do not hit arrow keys to move a picture of a character around; you have to read (gasp!) the room descriptions and the battle messages to figure out what is going on. However, it has little drop-down listboxes, command buttons, life & magic meters and the like, and will eventually have some form of graphics in the combat section. So, it is somewhat more advanced than MUDs and their ilk currently are.

       I've been busy lately, unfortunately, so it's been over a month since I've worked on it. Most systems are intact, my main problem at the moment is figuring out how much damage to have the monsters do. I should get on it soon. Stay tuned. 12/20/99.

       Here is a list of what the beta version has as of 11/15/99:

• Movement system: You can move around various rooms, there are only 4 at the moment, as that is all I need to test out other systems. I use a coordinate system & compass directions; i.e. you go 'North' which moves you up to a room with coordinates of, say, (1,5). It makes it easier to map out which room is where, and to tell the program where the user currently is.
• Combat system: You can fight 4 different monsters at present, with differing difficulty for each one ranging from a Shinra Guard (a blind, deaf man with no arms could kill one of these) to Bahamut (who is nigh-impossible to kill because I changed the max magic points from 200 to 50). Tied to the combat system are the current character features:
  • Life Points or Hit Points
  • Magic Points
  • Magical Spells (no Materia yet)
  • Attack factor (i.e. how strong your weapon is, and your strength)
  • Defense factor (i.e. your armor & dexterity)
  • Critical hit percentage, currently a 1 in 10 chance
  • Vitality & Strength, which help determine the attack/defense
  • Limit Breaks--currently only Braver, which activates each 150 points of damage inflicted upon the player
  • Realism! I couldn't get the actual algorithm the game uses, so I did the next best thing and substituted a 'ballpark' algorithm which gets the approximate damage done based on the attack level. I got this by getting the average damage done to various monsters by Cloud at different attack levels, and getting a quadratic equation based on that data.
• Experience system: You gain experience for killing monsters, which now gets you realistic stats & gain thereof up to level 10 (starting at 6, however).
• Gil system: You gain Gil for killing monsters, which allows you to buy....
• Items system: You may now purchase items and use them in combat; the 3 current items are Potion, Hi-Potion, and Ether.
• Save/load game feature: A very rudimentary version of a save/load game feature is now installed, you may save your progress. One file only at present, I can and will update this ASAP to support multiple 'players'. Caution: At this point you can only rack up XP, Gil and items; but the XP does you no good, and the levels stop 'advancing' after level 2 :)
• Form update: I changed the forms a bit, the status bars are now teal-and-dark-red as opposed to neon-green/red. Additionally a few buttons have been added and a few things moved around.

       As you can see, it is very basic at present. Here is a list of things I wish to add, crudely pasted in from my text file:

STUFF TO ADD

<------------------------------------------------------------------------------>
SYSTEMS TO INSTALL:

REALISM!!!
--Get good walkthru/strategy guide, use it to get realistic starting stats, update levels, etc

Help system
--Instructions/directions for gameplay? May not need

Graphics
--Enemy pics?
--Pics of both yours & enemy's actions
---Sword for attack
---Different pics for magic, i.e. bolt, fire, etc

Music
--Installer which lets you specify where to install
--Check how one can refer to file locations (inside EXE's folder?)

Forms
--Change colors, fonts, font sizes, and/or add grahics to forms


<------------------------------------------------------------------------------>
SYSTEMS TO EXPAND:

Room descriptions/exits
--Set default starting position
--Expand greatly!

Monsters/Combat system
--Add more monsters (variables & stats)
--Remember to change the if-monster variable in room environ settings
--Have certain monsters in certain spots?
--Have some/most/all monsters attack without provocation
--Monsters with MP & spells
--Monster immunity/resistance/absorption of elemental attacks
--Monsters with special abilities
---Causes Fury, Sadness, and the other special statuses

Magic system
--Only add actual Materia system at very end if so desired
--Get new spells:
---Find/win Materia which 'teaches' you the spell, like a AD&D scroll?
---Learn new spells with experience? (I prefer the above one)

Items/Money system
--Add more items once there are monsters with special abilities; see Monsters section

Experience system
--As you go up in levels:
---Different number of sides for attack/defense dice???
---Limit breaks added
---POSSIBLY get more spells; see spell system notes below

Save/Load game feature
--Add filenames/player names

Limit breaks
--Get more as time goes

       At any rate, download it and see for yourself. Apparently you do NOT need the DLL file as I had previously believed. If you get any errors when trying to run the game, PLEASE let me know as it means you may need the DLL file after all, or something else, in order to run the program.

       Download the game!          291k

       Download my short, 'test' fanfic here in Word 97 and Write formats.

       I remain, yours,
       Cyrus Dogstar