Emails

I get a lot of interesting emails from people telling me how much they love my games or hate them. So I have made a collection to some of the cool emails I have gotten. No information is shown to identify the person.

I am very sorry, Lautan, I have not answered you (if you had wrote to me). I live in a boarding school (no parents to live with) and the computer has no e-mail,it even has no internet, I had to hack it from the school office so my e-mail is not valid. I hope you are track my e-mailed ideas. Or maybe I am just annoying you. I am sorry to bother you but you would not even imagine how mach I love your games (MT2;MT3). I am sorry I can not register on your site becouse it is asking a activision code that I cant get becouse I have no e-mail! :( But I can still play your games! I am sure modern tactics will be a great game and I wish you will add my stuff. Great job Lutuon PS: Sorry for my spelling, its hard to stude English by my self in a Russian boarding school. (I study Engish and France becouse I always dreamed to go and live in Canada when I grow up.)

So I have been recieving a lot of emails from this guy. I can't reply to him through email so i'll do it here.

Yeah thanks for your feedback. I'm adding many cool guns and i'm for sure keeping the knife ability. I really like the Modern Tactics series too and I hope I can give you guys a lot of new challenges in MT4. Its really cool how you like my games this much and thanks for the support! Its very awsome recieving emails from people all around the world who enjoy my games.

I hope I can one day turn this into my own little buisness. Thanks for your feedback and I will continue making these games.

Ben, I'm wondering how long it takes you to put together a game. I work for a camp, and we are talking about the idea of making a game around a camp theme, and posting it on our website. I don't know if its something you may be interested in working on yourself, or if you could offer me some pointers. By the way, I think Knight Tactics is a great game, although I think the jump mechanics on super goo could use some tweaking.

Way to go, and keep making games!

Cheers, [name] Associate Program Director

A couple days after releasing knight tactics I got this email. I wasn't sure what to say, so I just gave him some information on my games. I never got a reply.

Hey. I was just re-reading my review and I realized I kind of went of the handle a bit. It probably doesn't help that Tactics was and is still my favorite game ever. You really did do a great job with that game, and it's not fair of me to expect something on par with the work of a massive team of people developing for the ps1 from one guy and his understanding of flash. My biggest beef was, as you seemed to have noticed, with the similarities between your plot and that of Tactics. While I realize Square did borrow from Tactics Ogre in many respects of FFT, they did create their own plot. However, its not fair to expect someone with a mind so well suited to programming as yours seems to be to also have an innate mastery of the English language or even the interest necessary to write out an in-depth plot, especially an original one.

Sorry about that. I'd really like for you to go through with a sequel to that game, and I'd be more than happy to re-write my suggestions -- should you desire them -- in a language other than asshole. Your game has a lot of potential, and if there's anything I can do to help you along in bringing it out, I'll be more than happy to accommodate you. Actually, "anything" is realistically more like "anything plot or dialogue related," as my understanding of programming is too limited to do anything beyond articulating what I noticed was wrong and suggesting some approach to fixing it. In any case, I think I could be a good resource to you, and would love to help out. Let me know whether you want any help, or alternately just a nicer version of my suggestions.

Thanks,

This guy was apologizing for calling me unoriginal, untalented and other stuff. I got a lot of hate emails after releasing knight tactics because its so similar to final fantasy tactics.

I would like to thank you, so much, for opening my eys into tile-based games! The colision detection is so much easier, plus the result(specially in isometrics) is awsome! =D

I just have 2 llil questions
when you read the code that YOU made, do you always understand it? Is cause, I, sometimes have my "enlighting" moments, when I can undertand the 'why 'of it all but some other times, I read the code and..."hummm? whats this??"...
Don't you ever feel, when you're reading tutorials, "Whoa, If I was asked to do this I would never get there" you know?

Anyways, Thank you very much,
You just got your self a fan xD

I'm glad I could help someone. To answer his question, I understand all my code by looking at it right away. For his second, I plan out my game in steps. I'll make the character movement one day, the map designs the next. Just keep working you'll get there.

Do you acknowledge that none of Knight Tactics is original? I'm not trying to bash your game it's just that no where, that I saw, did you mention FFT. I'm leaving a review of it as well.

I don't understand its a very basic tactical-rpg. Make a party of five, custimize them and defeat your enemies in a chess like game.

Ya except you used the FFT story as well. The mechanics I would expect to be practically the same it's just that you cloned FFT.

I got a lot of these emails.

I love these kinds of games! I hope you continue making these games. PLEASE!

The answer is of course.

hey I don't have any flash program, so unfortunatly I can't help you with part of making Knight Tactics II, but I do have a lot of ideas for that sort of game in general, and if you are going to be making quality games like Knight tactics, then I don't mind you using them. (Also I'm trying to set up a medium-high quality recording studio in my parent's basement, if you want new and original sounds.)
Just PM me, and I'll try my best.

Wow what kind of ideas do you have? It'll be great if you can make me some sounds, I have trouble getting the right sounds. I will continue to make quality games like knight tactics. My future games will just keep getting better. Right now i'm working on 3d maps, multiplayer and a ton of new game mechanics.

have don't know what people have requested that you add, but here are a few ideas from me, Rather than buying classes and abilities with points, it would probably work better as an RPG if you had characters that leveled up. (I do know that this is starting to borrow a lot from other RPGs, so if you want to venture into something a little less well known, then you could keep your point system, but use those points to 'build' units from the king's army, or somesuch thing that you have in the storyline.) I think that the more customization you can put in than the better, and also people tend to like having 'uber' builds to work up to. I also think that it should cost points for each person who has an ability, not just a one-time payment for the ability itself.

ok, here's an idea that as far as I know is completely new, as I have never seen it used in a game.
Scrap Spell Points.
Instead use Concentration Points.
Exaimple(sp), Sangar the Seer has 8 CP, his ability 'Weekness Seek' costs 3 CP, so for as long as he is using it, Sangar only has 5 CP to use, but if he turns off 'Weekness Seek' then he has his full CP again.
If every magic buff/nerf ability used CP instead of SP, then I think that you would have a much more strategy oriented gameplay as players had to choose who gets said bonuses that turn.
I realize that this would require a lot of debugging, to make it useable.

Just tell me what sounds you need, and I'll start working on them. I warn you though it may take a while, (as you know good work takes time.)

A review of knight tactics

I like it, a lot this brings back a lot of memories. My only real complaint about the game is you. Yours saying that you did not copy FF Tactics for the Playstation 1. Truth be told you did. I haven't played threw the entire game yet but lvls 1-4 are a direct copy of the game down to where the players are. your missions 1-5 is a direct copy of the story line minus the name of the clan and the princess. All the characters are the same as FF Tactics. Except i cant put enemys to sleep and strip them naked of all their belongings. Now i can't call you a liar or a cheat or anything like that because it's been going on for hundreds of years already copying one thing from another.

When you do Knight Tactics 2 (because we all know you will *grins* )please don't copy FFT for the GBA. The story was bad enough in the game. Adding Items and equipment would also be great.

As Far as Gameplay and graphics goes though you did a good job. would be nice if charaters couldn't walk threw other chars. Graphics are good. Music sounds a lil familar but i'm not sure from where I dunno if Justin Durban has any other music thats more mainstream or what.

It's not often i review a game but I'm definitly looking forward to see what you can do.

Huge reply to knight tactics.

Okay, I'd like to start by pointing out that there is a fine line between using an idea as inspiration and taking that idea and making an inferior copy of it. Final Fantasy Tactics was a phenominal game. One of my favorites. As a result, I like this game as well. However, when taking into consideration that this game was created by essentially stealing squaresoft (square enix these days)'s intellectual property, I begin to not like it as much. For a flash game, it explores an interesting new direction, but I can't ignore the blatant bastardization of FFT plot.
In future incarnations of the game, I recommend first and foremost that you MAKE UP YOUR OWN STORY OR GIVE THE INVENTORS OF THE STORY YOU ARE USING CREDIT FOR THEIR WORK. Make it a Starwars game or even a Harry Potter, or if you like the setting as much as I do, make it about Ramza's descendants or even King Arthur or something. And please, put in some decent dialouge or just use cutscenes or little on-sceen narrative loading pages. I don't want to hear some jumbled jibberish about a scene I'm already familiar with after having played through it several of the hundreds of hours of my life that have been spent with FFT.

Now, as for gameplay, you can begin by copying that aspect of Square's formula better, or maybe even changing some mistakes that they made. First off, a little more individuality in the characters would be nice. I'm not saying they all have to have names and backstories -- more that each would level and gain exp on his or her own. I also liked the idea of recruiting people used in FFT, and the idea of questlines that would yield special characters if followed correctly. It would also be nice to actually be able to change the job of the main character to one of the Dark Knight/Arc Knight (or in your completely unrelated world "noble") classes. Naturally, another peice of this individualization is that, much like final fantasy, certain levels in certain jobs would be required in order to access other, more advanced jobs.

In terms of combat mechanics, the addition of a wait-time for some abilities would make it a bit more interesting, and the ability to target squares not occupied by enemies would also be great. Too often I found myself in a situation where 3, even 4 characters were in a cross-shape, with nobody in the center, and resultantly I couldn't target them with my lancer's abilities. Secondly, the ranged attacks (especially archers) need some work, as does movement. This ultimately comes down to how your code interprets variations in the height of the terrain. What i mean is that an arrow can shoot right through a wall, and while i know in some situations the arrow really could be shot over a wall and into an enemy, you can't do it when both you and the target are 2 feet away from opposite sides of the wall. Third, I agree with whoever it was beneath me about characters being able to walk through each other. This, along with the disregard for height in determining where people can move (my characters had no problem jumping up cliffs 2-3 times their height) takes much away from the tactical aspects of the game. Lastly for gameplay, please make a way to undo an accidental action. Not a full turn, mind you, just movement, or at least the ability to back out of a premature "wait".

Finally, it would be nice to see some summoners or beast classes in the game. It would also be nice to have equipment, stats, leveling, (on an individual basis) and levels of skill in professions. As I mentioned earlier, special professions ("nobles" or maybe an all-magic type) would also be a cool bonus. A few more zodiac-style bosses would also be cool.

In short, borrow more of Square's gameplay and less of their story -- but be more thorough in both next time around. Nice game, but you should give credit where it is deserved.

¡ïhello¡« nice to meet you¡« I'm LJR... I'm so sorry £¬my english is too bad... I hope you can understand what I say ... today I play you game : Knight Tactics I like it very much... I make a small web game...¡¶LJR pet fairyland¡·...In here £º [website] I hope £¬I can use your game in my web game... Can you give me the game£¨Knight Tactics£©'s code £¿ I will keep you info in this game... Thanks very much¡«¡« waitting you revert...

Reply

Hi,

Why should I give you the code. I worked very hard on knight tactics. It took 2 monthes to make it and you want all of it for free?

i love your work iv bin recently bin playing modern tactics and i think im rather good at it. i love that game just to play when there is know one to talk to on the computer or becuase halo got a little boring. is there any way that i could find out when you have something new becuase im very forgetful and probaly wont remember to check your site frequently. thanks for the hours of fun and hope your career goes well.

Reply

Hey,

Thanks for your comments. You only have to check my website once a month because it takes a long time to make a game. (1-2 monthes) You could subscribe to my rss feed if you know how to use it.