Aetheria: Shadows of the Past

[masterlobo]

Though the images of the skill trees themselves I made myself using some community images. Oops, i double posted.

I see.

Looks really cool

 

[raynesu]

Glad you like it!

 

[raynesu]

Welcome back to another weekly update!

Big News this week!

Updated Crafting System:
The crafting system is one of the older systems in my game and I decided to give it a little of a face lift. Take a look:

Spoiler

A few things you will notice now is that the new system will now show you how much crafting materials you have as well as show you what you have equipped. I thought these smalls things were needed since the old system didn't have them and I found it very frustrating while trying to craft. In that line, another thing that frustrated me was that it seemed like the menus weren't really linked, as in if you escape or finish you are ejected from the crafting screen. So, if you wanted to continue, you would have to talk to the crafter again. Now, you are looped back to the beginning of the crafting screen so you can re-enter the crafting screen more easily.

More Balance:
In the last version of the game magic had a 3-5 turn cooldown between uses in addition to a reduction in the mana pools of characters. This overall made going magic feel very underpowered and bad to use. So, to fix this some of the mana values have been updated as well as a reduction in the overall cooldowns between uses. Single target magic spells now have a 1 turn cooldown and Area of Effect spells now have a 3 turn cooldown.

But now let's get to the real "Meat"

Game Version 1.3 is out!
Yes it's been like 2 months and finally I am done with this new version. In case you forgot, Version 1.3 has:

• A new day/night system
• A new hunt system
• A new story ~sorta...
• Updated Side Quests
• A new weather system
• More game balance changes

As for the future, I will probably begin working more on chapter 2, unless chapter 1 still has big problems. Also I will probably go and reexamine the gathering system. x.x And as always, any feedback, comments, concerns, anything really is greatly appreciated!

 

[raynesu]

Another week another update!

So this week was like a breath a fresh air for me. Getting to work on, plan, design for the new chapter really got me thinking.

Emille:
Yes, Emille is the last character that has yet to have their skills done. Initially, I was thinking of keeping Emille as the water mage character, but trying to make damaging spells using water was kind of hard. So I thought about incorporating ice magic for her offensive spells while keeping to water for her healing/support spells, and I think they turned out pretty well. Here's her finished magic skill tree:

Spoiler

As for her special skill tree I am still working on it, and since Emille is a 'mage' I thought that her special tree needed to be a little different compared to her allies'. I mean a mage beating people with a staff does sound like a compelling ability, but having that for her other 12 abilities doesn't sound very fun. Stay tuned next week for that one!

Final Limit:
Or as I affectionately call it (ﾌｧｲﾅル ﾘﾐｯﾄ). Early into the design of all my characters I wanted them to have some sort of super ability similar to limit breaks in the Final Fantasy series. But I shelved the idea to work on other things promising to get back to it when I start working on Chapter 2. Well, here I am excited to bring you the first of many of the super abilities. It became really apparent to me that if a character went the magic tree, they would have pretty much always have max FP, since they wouldn't be spending it. So Final Limit is the first of a series of other special abilities each character will have to burn the excess FP. But this then brings up the issue of how this will effect characters who are built to use FP instead of MP, and the solution to this is not as obvious to me at the moment. I'd like to see how my little experiment into making this subset of abilities plays out before I think about that problem. Here's a little video that will show some of Emille's skills as well as showcasing what Final Limit really is:

Spoiler

Lore: Purification
So this is kind of an experimental add-on for the updates, I wanted to start sharing some lore pertaining to the story world of my game. This week's subject is on purification. So last week or a few weeks ago I talked about demons and how they are the product of spirits being corrupted by human emotions, and more specifically the negative ones. Exorcists in the story world, well, they're exorcists. So, they are trained in methods to purify or ridding demon's of their darkness.

A few special things happen to a demon and exorcist when purification happens. In many cases the demon will revert back into its spirit counterpart. While more powerful demons such as those of the Fabled Seven, or a Lord of Chaos will simply be banished back to Aetheria. However whatever the case the exorcist is the one who experiences the burden of the purification. When a purification occurs the exorcist is releasing the demon/spirit of its 'evil' making it a part of themselves. In a away the exorcist is siphoning the bad negative emotions away from the spirit, so it's understandable how sucking the evil out of more powerful demons is going to be very hard or even impossible. Purification also does something very unique to exorcists siphoning evil, they get to see the events that either caused the negative emotions or what caused the spirit to become a demon in the first place. This is why in many cases purification is a very taxing practice both mind and body. It is also not very unusually for an exorcist to succumb to the darkness from purification, but that is a story for another time.

That's it for this week. Thanks for joining me and as always any comments, suggestions, love letters <3, are all greatly appreciated. Have a nice week.

 

[raynesu]

I'm back with another week of updates.

The story development of the 2nd chapter trudges on! But that's some boring stuff, here's some more interesting things that happened this week.

Ciel:
One of the big focuses of the 2nd chapter of my game is Ciel learning how to be an exorcist. The plan is that she will also eventually gain the ability to use magic. So this week I finished what I think will be her magic tree, but of course this is all subject to change. Here is a picture:

Spoiler

Her spirit partner's name is Sylph, which uses wind/lightning magic. When Ciel gains the ability to use magic the plan is to reset player's skill points for Ciel allowing them to reallocate skill points. There may be plans to implement a skill tree reset in the future.

Final Limit Redux:
This week allowed me to get some much needed testing of the ability and some of the ability has been tweaked. Currently, using Final Limit will increase the user's ATK, MAT, and VIT stat when used, though instead of a 100% increase it is now a 50% increase for ATK and MAT; it is still 100% for VIT. Additionally, Final Limit seems to be far weaker for characters that went down the special tree, so in order to make it a little better some changes were made. The problem was that in order to use Final Limit place players specialized in FP skills would be forced to hold off on using abilities to use Final Limit to charge their FP. To make it a little better for players using special skills, FP skills will no longer cost FP while in Final Limit. The last change is a more cosmetic one, but the music will now change at the start of casting the ability instead of the end. Also, the original battle music will pick up where it left off after Final Limit is done rather than start over. Here's video showing some of Ciel's magic skills and the new final limit:

Spoiler

Lore: Making a Pact
So how do exorcist get their spirit partners? That's the topic of this week's lore corner!

There are a few things to know before we get to how a pact is formed between an exorcist and a spirit, the first is that spirits need a vessel to exist in our world. More specifically they need some sort of thing to tether them into our world, since originally they are from a parallel world, Aetheria. We learned a few weeks ago that spirits can be influenced heavily be negative emotions, making them into demons, so the vessel needed to keep spirits tethered needs to be pure. In many cases Exorcists use a stone called Lucite, which is known for its purity, but in some very rare cases it is possible to use the exorcist themselves as a vessel. The risk of negative influence is high using the exorcist as vessels, so this method less favorable than using Lucite. A thing to note though is that a spirit can still be corrupted, albeit slower, when they have direct influence from the exorcist, such as using magic.

A pact is formed between a spirit and an exorcist when the exorcist is deemed ready by a mentor of the Order of the Holy Cross. The mentor makes sure that the exorcist is pure enough, where the exertion of negative emotion on the spirits is at a minimum. When deemed ready, the exorcist will then journey to one of the shattered pieces of the Lightstone. Through the shattered piece they will be able to confer with one of the heads of the elemental clans in Aetheria. If the leader deems the exorcist pure enough and ready to bear the burden, the pact will be formed. The leader will then send one of their kin through the Lightstone, from Aetheria to our world, and the exorcist will then seal and tether the spirit to our world usually using a piece of Lucite. When the pact is over, the spirit can be released of its tether by simply shattering the Lucite near the Lightstone, safely sending the spirit back to Aetheria. If the Lucite is shattered away from the Lightstone, the spirit risks becoming a demon.

That's it for this week! Comments, criticism, and ideas are all greatly appreciated and as always have a good week.

 

[raynesu]

Welcome back to another weekly update and FINALLY the save statue is now an actual statue!

You don't know how long this has been bugging me.

This week is a more technical update, I've been working on adding on to many of the systems currently in place.

Telling Time:
Another thing that has always bugged me while testing the game was that I never could never tell really what time it was! I never knew when it was about to turn night or day. So I thought it was about time I implemented a sort of clock into the game. For the clock, I didn't want a digital or analog display, rather I decided to make it look like an old RPG classic the night/day disc! Here are some pictures of it they are small though:

Spoiler

This clock is also part of a small module, which is in the top left corner, I've added in game which displays some controls that are not so obvious such as the key that opens the Journal. Here's what the module with the clock looks like in game:

Spoiler

Clock in Action:

Equipment Update:
What is an RPG game without more gear progression? I've honestly dreaded this week. Doing the eventing that goes with the gear and crafting system is a truly tedious task, but somehow I powered through it. This week I finished the entire Tier 2 of the gear system, which includes the crafting materials and gear upgrades!

Spoiler

The starting ranks of Tier 2 gear are not as strong as +5 Tier 1 gear but scales to be even stronger later on. +0 Tier 2 gear is actually more on par with +3 Tier 1 gear, however Tier 2 gear has far more bonus traits and effects starting at +0 than Tier 1 has. Another thing that has been done with the crafted gear is that there is more incentive to go with the lighter armor classes, ie cloth and leather tiers. Initially, Cloth and Leather's only benefits were that their impact on your overall AGI was minimal and were cheaper overall, with a major penalty in defensive stats. Now each tier has its own special trait. Cloth will now grant VIT, meaning increased scaling for healing abilities. Leather will now increase the user's AGI at higher ranks. Hopefully this will be a little more incentive to go with the weaker armor classes. Additionally, Wood Armaments like oak and maple, now get additional Mana Regen at higher ranks.

Lore: The 5 Elemental Lords
Last week I mentioned the 5 Elemental Lords when a exorcist makes a pact with a spirit, and if you haven't read about it I encourage you to check it out!

So who are the 5 Elemetal Lord?
The denizens of Aetheria can be broken into 5 different clans each embodying an element of nature as pictured below:

Spoiler

The clan in which a spirit belongs determines what type of magic they are able to use and master. The 5 clans represented above are at relative peace with each other. Each clan has a leader and is called an Elemental Lord. The leaders of the clans and their associated royal exorcist family are as follows:
Light: Auriel ------> Family: Elwynn
Fire: Ifrit ------> Family: Lionhardt
Water: Aqua ------> Family: Vienne
Wind: Jinn ------> Family: Fairwind
Earth: Gaia -----> Family: Sohnheim

You may have noticed that there is a 6th clan on the outside which embodies the element of darkness. This clan is a new and unique clan that has formed only recently. The dark clan formed when spirits had the first interactions with humanity during the Celestial Equinox. As you know, some spirits were corrupted during their interactions with humans and became demons, and it is these demons that make up the dark clan of Aetheria. The Lords of Chaos as well as the Fabled Seven all belong to this clan, with the well known Lord of Chaos: Baelerius belonging to this clan as well.

That's it for this week! Comments, criticism, ideas are all welcome and encouraged! Have a great week. I also now have a wordpress site, check it out! Here

 

[raynesu]

Hi, it's been another week and it's time for another weekly update!

This week has been more of an asset creation and acquisition week.

For example... here's a little asset I made for a boss encounter!

Spoiler

More Battlers!
It became very apparent to me while moving forward with the production of the new enemy encounters that I was running out of battler assets ...And a simple recolor wasn't going to cut it. So I did some searching to find battlers in the similar "chibi" style my current battlers are. Lucky for me, I found a huge repository! They are created by a Japanese artist named Monta! (Milano Cat) and I remember someone asking about battlers with a similar art style, so a link to their site is in the spoiler below.

Spoiler

I don't own any of these battlers, just showcasing a few!

Check out more >>> Here <<<

New Battle Backgrounds:
Something that I have always been intended to do was to change the battle backgrounds. They were generic and the art style conflicted with the style of the batters. Another exciting things that the new battle backgrounds allowed me to do was to animate them! Hopefully this will help players feel a bit more immersed in the game with backgrounds that look more similar to the actually environment of the game. Here are some examples:

Spoiler

Some GIFS of the backgrounds:

And here they are in action:

Lore: Lucite
If you remember from previous posts, Lucite is a crucial reagent for making pacts with spirits. Its purity makes it the perfect vessel for anchoring spirits to the world of humans and in fact the Lightstone and the subsequent shards of the Lightstone are all made out of Lucite. However the main difference between the Lightstone’s Lucite and the common Lucite used by exorcists as vessels is the level of purity. The Lightstone’s Lucite is an anomaly is this respect, because it is perfectly pure and in theory is the perfect vessel for a spirit. The less pure forms of Lucite are used by exorcists and are far more abundant than the Lucite that made up the Lightstone. The Lightstone was the only known instance of perfectly pure Lucite. The minor impurity in the Lucite used by exorcists allows for the corruption; albeit very slow, of spirits who have formed a pact. That is why it is crucial for exorcists to gauge the level of corruption of their spirit partners regularly.

In appearance Lucite is a crystalline solid ranging in color which correspond to the elements of the elemental lords: yellow for the light clan, green for the wind clan, red for the fire clan, blue for the water clan and brown/orange color for the earth clan. The color of the stone is caused by the impurity inherent in many pieces of Lucite. The closer the Lucite is to white, the more pure it is. The purest known Lucite, the Lightstone, was crystalline white in appearance.

Lucite also has unique properties which attract spirits and demons alike, while the cause of this phenomenon is currently unknown. Because of this, Lucite is heavily regulated by the Church of the Holy Cross.

That's it for this week's update, comments, suggestions, critiques are all welcome! Thank and have a good week.

 

[raynesu]

It's time for another weekly update!

This week I much of my time working on advancing the story for the second chapter as well as creating more backgrounds for my game! It's been a pretty productive week if I don't say so myself ^^

Minor Scan Update!
Scan has been one of the abilities that I really liked the idea of. I think that being able to see the enemy's health and weaknesses is crucial for major fights like bosses. While I do like how it is implemented currently, I felt something was a bit lacking visually. Specifically I wanted the player to know what they were scanning by not only showing the name but also the picture. This lead me to learning a bit about using the bitmap functions, which I've always been meaning to do. Here's an example:

Spoiler

Nothing much... but I love how it shows the enemy XD

More Battle Backgrounds!
Last week I showed you 2 backgrounds that I worked on, because most of the work was implementing and creating templates. Since then the number of backgrounds I have made has gone up to 7 to match the many different environments in the game, including editing one of the ones shown last week. All of them, except 1, are animated! Here is a video:

Spoiler

For the first battle, you will notice that it is one of the backgrounds I showed last week however it's edited to fit the game's art style better!

New Loots Screen
As I added more and more item's to enemies' loot lists the number of drops you would get drastically increased. This posed a major problem with the old loot screen since it would not stack similar items. This would then in turn lead to loot screens that were pretty much unreadable since there was so many drops! Therefore I thought it was time to switch to Yanfly's end screen since it did stack and presented item drops better. Doing so also allowed me to add voice lines for when characters leveled up as well as lines for when they received loot. An example of the new loot screen can be seen in the above video!

Coming Soon!
The video also teases a few of the new side stories I've been working on, such as the 2nd Ruined Tower which continues the story from the previous Ruined Tower in the Demo! :3

Lore: The Fabled Seven
This week is about the Fabled Seven, the demo touches on them a little but let me flush them out a bit more.

The Fabled Seven are a group of demons that belong to the Dark Clan of Aetheria. They are a powerful group group and are notoriously feared throughout Aetheria as well as throughout world of humans. There have been many rumors about them but little is actually known about them. However, it is a well held fact that a terrible calamity is imminent if any of the the Fabled Seven are seen.

Each member of the Fabled Seven represents a deadly sin, which are lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride and the identities of two of them are known currently, at least in the demo! They are:

Greed --> Avarice
Wrath --> Atticus

That is it for this week! Comments, suggests, criticism is always welcome. Have a good week!

 

[Biestmann]

Just coming in to say how great I think your documentation for this project has been. Seeing you work hard to implement all these changes and additions week for week is inspiring!

 

[raynesu]

Just coming in to say how great I think your documentation for this project has been. Seeing you work hard to implement all these changes and additions week for week is inspiring!

Thank you so much, posting every week is more of a thing to motivate me to work XD. Also saw your post on your game, excited to see where it goes!

 

[raynesu]

Welcome back to another weekly update! I was on break this week so I got a lot of work done!

Where to start…

Alchemy:

Emille’s identity is that of a mage so I wanted to strongly encourage people to go down the magic skill tree. This however, left Emille’s special skill tree up in the air. Since she is a mage, having her special tree give her abilities to smack people with her staff, while comical, would ultimately not fit the character very well. This led me to combine the idea of an Alchemy system, which was on the list to be implemented, and Emille’s special skill tree. So this week I finished the first iteration of Emille’s special skill tree! Here’s a picture:

Spoiler

This is a special tree that is unique to Emille in which the special tree is more of a secondary support tree. Meaning, the skills acquired from going down the tree aren’t going to KO an enemy like the other character’s trees would. Rather Alchemy gives players access to extremely powerful and influential potions which they can brew at the Alchemy shop to grant certain stats. For example one potion that can be brewed with the new system grants an ally (or all allies later on ) an AGI and ATK buff when thrown. These effects are interchangeable and there are currently 9 unique potions players can brew. Here’s a video:

Spoiler

Brewing works in a very simple way. The alchemy skill tree will give the player the ability essence sap. Using this ability on enemies gives the chance of getting a monster essence, and these essences are used to brew potions. Essences come in 3 forms: ferocity, cunning, and wisdom. Mixing and matching these essences while brewing will yield potions of varying effects! These potions can then be used by another skill in the tree: Throw Potion. The ability is actually 9 abilities in one, all requiring a unique potion to use.

The Arena:

In the demo, players who wanted to upgrade their weapons and armor were given the choice to either farm crafting materials off of monsters or trek up the ruined tower and defeat the boss. In that vein, moving forward having all the ruined towers function in the same way would be both problematic for the story I want to tell with them as well as being repetitive. So in chapter 2 and beyond the ruined towers will no longer function in that way. But then, how are players going to farm for crafting materials?

The solution I came up with is the arena! And compared to trekking up the tower, players will have an easier time farming them as well. In the arena, players will face off in a single battle against a random monster or boss. If they win they receive a prize of crafting materials. Currently, the arena is broken up into 4 tiers: A, B, C, and D. C and D tiers will reward tier 2 crafting materials while A and B will reward tier 3. The difficultly, of course, increases as you go up to higher tiers. Here’s a video:

Spoiler

Unique Boss Drops:

There is definitely a sense of disappointment when a player defeats a boss only to find it drop nothing but crafting materials and gold. Where are the unique and powerful boss drops!? So, all bosses will now have a chance of dropping a unique piece of gear as well as a guaranteed chance to drop some stat upgrade items like ATK Up or DEF Up. Incidentally, these stat upgrades are also now purchasable in the Alchemy shop.

Lore: Armaments?

They are the weapons available to players in game but what are they really?

If you’ve ever played the demo you may have notices that the weapons in game are just colored circles and not weapons in the traditional sense. Instead of swords and spears weapon upgrades are just called armaments.

Armaments are actually pieces of Lucite that have been alchemically enhanced by artisans from the Church of the Holy Cross. By enhancing the Lucite, you are left with something called a “Blank Armament”. This armament in it’s “Blank” state offers very little in offense and requires infusion to have any offensive capability.

Just like how exorcists use Lucite to store their spirit companions, so can the Lucite in the armaments store the essence of materials found in the natural world. Almost every material found in the human world is aspected in a certain way, and through a skilled blacksmith these essences can be captured and stored in a “Blank Armament”. Once essence is stored in the armament, it changes its color to the respective essence stored inside. Some commonly used materials used in armaments are metals for physical strength, wood for magical strength, and animal bones for a balance between the two. The more essence that is placed into the armament, the more power it will grant the user, though this power is capped at a certain point for all armaments due to its size and purity.

To receive the power stored in the armament the user must only have the Lucite in contact with the weapon.For many exorcists, armaments are the preferred method for upgrading weapons since it allows them to keep the weapons they are accustomed to using, and many of their weapons have a single slot for an armament, any more would cause the weapon to break.

That’s it for this week! Long post! Any comments, suggestions, criticism is always accepted. Thank you and have a good week.

 

[raynesu]

Welcome back to another weekly update! Let's hit the ground running.

Enemy AI:
Many encounters in my game include enemies that are less than intelligent. In many situations they would keep spamming a buff even though they already have the buff or spam area of effect skills that pretty much kill your party. So a tune up on enemy behavior was needed. Now enemies will no longer use buffing abilities when they already have the buff and overall are a whole lot smarter. Additionally I hoped to bring more unique flavor to every enemy by giving them some flavor text similar to what is seen in Dragon Quest. For instance when fighting bats, the bats will start off in a passive non aggressive state, and will only attack when the player attacks the first bat. Hopefully more dynamic and unique encounters will make even trash enemies more engaging.

Skill Reset:
It's finally here, yay! As promised, players will now be able to reset their skill points at the church. By using the currency Scint Shards (obtained from boss fights and rarely from monsters), which previously had no use, players will be able to reset all their skill trees for one character at a time. However, every time you reset any character's tree the Scint Shard cost will increase.

Skill Mastery:
A while back I teased a rough prototype for a skill evolution system. Since then, that plan has been discontinued and instead will be replaced by the skill mastery system. The basic concept of the system is that the more you use an ability the more skilled you become at using it. So, as you use a skill more your skill will level up gaining additional effects or dealing more damage!

Skill Mastery is broken down into 3 Ranks.

Rank 1 is the default level

Rank 2 "Silver Tier"

Rank 3 "Gold Tier"

Every rank you unlock will add, not replace, the new skill variant to you ability list. If a skill is lost using the skill reset, all progress and skill ranks will be lost as well. Additionally, the skill tier (the skill point cost) of an ability will also impact how many times you need to use the skill to receive a rank up. A tier 1 skill, skill point cost 1, for example could rank up in maybe 10 uses. In comparison a tier 4 skill, skill point cost 7, could require 100 uses to level. Skill mastery will apply to both special and magic abilities and is still subject to change.

That's it for this week! No lore! :c And as always comments, suggestions, and criticisms are always accepted, have a nice week!

 

[raynesu]

Another week has gone by and I'm back for another Weekly Update!

...and I broke my game! Or rather I've done a lot of housecleaning tidying up skill databases, etc. So this week was mainly reconnecting the dots and getting the game back in order.

New Traits?!

The traits system was always intended to allow players a small yet meaningful way to customize their characters. So in order to give players more choice I've added 4 more normal traits and about 3 more special traits. While the normal traits are simple parameter increases what was the most exciting about these new traits are the new special traits. Night Owl and Hydrophilic are examples of some of the new special traits. These traits allow a character to ignore the detrimental effects of some weathers. Hopefully these new special traits will open a new dimension of traits in the future allowing players to customize their characters and party even more. Additionally I've been thinking of a way to allow players to decide or pick their own traits since I know it can be frustrating getting your desired one when acquiring traits is random.

Skill Mastery:

So the reason for the database cleaning and subsequent game breaking was to make way for the new skill mastery system. This new system added approximately 100+ skills to the game so a reorganization of the database was needed for me to keep my sanity. Since last week, a few things have changed in the skill mastery system. When a skill is learned from the skill tree it may have a "bronze" border when you see it in the skill menu. If that is the case that means this skill can be upgraded through skill mastery. The ranks of mastery are as follows:

Rank 1 - Buster Blade

Rank 2 - Buster Blade II

Rank 3 - Blade Symphony

By the time a skill reaches the 3rd rank or "gold" border it will change into a uniquely named ability to reward players for their hard work. To master a skill a player only needs to use the skill in battle. After using the skill a certain number of times, it will go up 1 rank. For example the skill Buster Blade is considered a Tier 4 skill based on where it is on the skill tree as seen below:

Therefore it would need to be used 50 times before it ranks up to "silver" and 100 for "gold". However, lower Tier skills will require less uses to master. For instance a Tier 1 skill such as Wide Slash will only require 10 for "silver" and 25 uses for "gold". Mastered Skills are added to your skill list in addition to the base skill. When skills are reset using the skill tree reset, mastered skills will be lost too, but your progress into the mastery of those skills will not. Like many of the systems I develop for the game the main intention is to contour your party and characters to your style of game play and I look forward to play test it this week.

New Demo ~soonish ^.^"

It's been a few months since I released the last version of the demo and I think it is about time to release a new version with all the new features I've added to have you guys try it out! Please stay tuned for this as I work towards this!



No lore again this week :c That database reformatting killed me... I think I'm gunna go lie somewhere. Next week I'll give you guys a big helping of lore! And as always comments, criticisms, or suggestions are all welcome!

 

[raynesu]

Welcome to another weekly update! This week marks the 1.4 release of the Demo! Hooray! Before we get into what has changed let's look at one more update to the Skill Mastery System!

Skill Mastery:

This week allowed me to test the skill mastery and finally integrate it fully into my game. After testing a few things have changed. The biggest change is when a skill is mastered. Instead of having the skill added, it will instead replace the previous level of the skill. This was mainly done because the skill menu got cluttered when too many skills were ranked up. Additionally, to give that little extra reward for maxing a skill's mastery I've begun to replace the animations for the final skill, though this is widely unimplemented yet.

Demo v.1.4.0

So far, I've released quite a few features since the last demo so I thought it was about time to implement them into the demo so you guys can try it out! Check out the main post to see some new pics and stuffs ^^

Key Features Added to Demo:

• Final Limit - Overdrive Skill
• Animated/New Backgrounds for Battle
• New Victory Screen
• Improved Battler Graphics
• Smarter Enemy AI
• Game Clock

Lore: Events leading to the Great Plague - 10xx

(Story takes place 13xx, 9xx is when Lightstone fell)

The Alv empire was thriving and as the new century dawned, many looked forward to the great prosperity to come. The Castellan Empire had unified the Alv Continent by 1024 and had just crowned King Kalder as the ruler of this new empire. Kalder’s first few years were uneventful, the momentum of the Castellan empire was still in full force driving the empire to become more and more prosperous. By 1028 the Alv empire had opened it’s borders to the lucrative trade routes from other empires to the far east. One such empire was the mercantile empire of Lindt, a small empire from a small island continent, made rich my it’s land’s vast amount of resources which included gold, silver and rare metals such as Mythril. But most importantly, they were the sole provider of Lucite to Castella. Although at the time, the spiritual qualities were unbeknownst to both Castella and Lindt and the stone was just traded for its beautiful appearance.

A deal was struck between King Kalder and the emissaries of Orlindt by 1029, which sold land west of Castella in exchange for exclusive trade with Lindt. That land was then settled by merchants, politicians, and citizens of Lindt. The region was then henceforth called New Lindt Republic. As per the trade agreements, the New Lindt Republic was part of the Castellan Empire yet maintained its own set of politicians and officials. As time passed, Lindt began having more and more influence in Castellan politics and Castella to Lindt’s. The two empires then prospered for years to come.

As for the Lucite imported from Lindt, by 1050 it became a fad among all citizens of the Castellan Empire. The fad started when nobles of the Castellan Empire began wearing pieces of Lucite to church outings. The trend then percolated downwards and every devout follower of the Church of the Castella began wearing pieces of Lucite as a sign of devotion. With the largest and most vibrant Lucite, which has a pale blue color, was worn by King Kalder himself.

A few years later in 1056, King Kalder of Castella grew more and more reclusive and by 1058 the now elder Kalder never left the castle. Additionally Kalder began refraining from the political scene leaving all major decisions up to his key advisors a few of which were from the New Lindt Republic. One day after remaining in his room for a couple of days, castle housemaids were shocked to find King Kalder’s frail corpse scrawled on the floor of his chambers, his cold lifeless eyes remained open and clouded. The Lucite around his neck was no longer a vibrant pale blue but a deep black. In is will, Kalder deferred the throne from his son, to a key advisor, Chancellor Roux a member from the New Lindt Republic.

While the Chancellor himself tried to convince people that he had no hand in this sudden change of heart many accused him of regicide and treason. The most infuriated was Kalder’s son, Kalder II, who claimed to be the rightful heir to the throne. Kalder II backed by the followers of the Church of Castella began the process on what is know known as the Purges. Kalder II and many followers began throwing out people of the New Lindt Republic from political office and some officials from the Republic were publically executed. Kalder II the posed strict restrictions on people from the New Lindt Republic and barred them from having influence on government. Relations between Castella and Lindt thus began to decline under the rule of Kalder II.

A few years later, Kalder II’s sanctions on the people from the New Lindt Republic grew stricter and people began to notice a faint fog enshrouding the castle. This fog continued to grow stronger, until it enshrouded the entire city of Castella. At the same time people began falling mysteriously ill and people began to notice their Lucite dulling in color. Hysteria began breaking out throughout Castella as more people fell ill. Looking for a scapegoat, the people blamed the New Lindt Republic for the mysterious fog as an attempted to dethrone Kalder II. In retaliation, the people and Castellan army mobilized and attacked the New Lindt Republic burning and destroying everything in the province. Rich merchants and nobles from the New Lindt Republic fled, returning to Lindt, however commoners with nowhere to go suffered the full wrath of the Castellan people. With nowhere left to go, many citizens from the New Lindt Republic became refugees and were shunned by the Castellan people. It was at this time that the Lucite became jet black.

That's all for this week. As always any comments, suggestions or criticisms are all accepted and encouraged! Have a good week.

 

[raynesu]

I hope you guys are enjoying the new demo, it’s time for another weekly update. This week was a pretty fun one for me, this week the main additions are two new regions/zones. I had a lot of fun making them!

New Zone: Shifting Forest (tentative name)

Spoiler

As I was working through the 2nd chapter of the story, it became very apparent to me that the “farming” zones that were available to players were not as common in the 2nd chapter, with many regions locked behind quests or story. So this is your generic forest zone with a few twists. As of right now, this zone’s purpose is for optional exploration where players can train and explore.

Here are some more screenshots:

Spoiler

Yes, those are moving platforms! ^.^

Another thing I wanted to try in this zone was to somehow distinguish this zone from the other forest levels. So by changing the battle background and adding some mechanics such as moving platforms, I’m hoping to give a reason to explore this place.

New Zone: Kallah & The Mirage Desert

Spoiler

I know the buildings look pretty bad :/ Looking to replace them.

The above image is of the town of Kallah. Kallah is pretty much the gateway to the Mirage Desert. This zone overall was a really exciting one because first of all it is a change of pace from the temperate other zones. But more importantly the Mirage Desert is a modular zone. This zone was inspired from the game Secret of Mana, in which I remember getting lost in the desert for the longest time! >.> I wanted to bring that feeling to my desert and I think I have accomplished it. Pretty much the entire desert is a giant puzzle.

Spoiler

Lore: On the nature of magic

How does making a pact with a spirit allow exorcists to use magic? Short answer, it’s complicated. All citizens of Aetheria are attuned with the natural forces present in their world of Aetheria. One such force is a malleable force called the Aether. Exorcists are able to tap into this force through their spirit. So in a way, spirits act as conduits of Aether and the amount of Aether avaialable to exorcists is based on the proficiency their spirit has with manipulating the Aether.

When Aether is drawn from a spirit companion it is shapeless and malleable. With their will, exorcists are able to shape this Aether into what they want. Though shaping Aether into the elemental aspect of their spirit allows for easier Aether shaping so many exorcists use magics that match their spirit’s aspect.

While an exorcist can shape Aether into something like fire, in the human world, Aether conjured fire is not exactly real fire. While it has many properties similar to fire like appearance and heat, in the end it’s not really fire but Aether. This allows for some interesting interactions, for example Aether conjured fire is not easily put out by water like normal fire.

That is it for this week! As always any comments, criticisms or suggestions are all accepted! Have a great week!

 

[raynesu]

Welcome back to another weekly update. Unfortunately this week I’ve been out of town at the East Coast Game Conference in North Carolina so not much work has been done this week. >.>

While I haven’t been able to work physically on my game because I was out of town, I have been thinking about the future and my goals for this project. So, I thought this week I’d share where I’d like to be and outline tentative milestones I would like to achieve.

So there are 3 overall things that need to be done (which are quite obvious)

• Finish Chapter 2
• Finish Chapter 3
• Polish Chapter 1-3 (QA)

Currently I am am working on chapter 2, so I still have a ways to go! However looking back at some of the older updates, I see that I’ve mainly been working on game features and not the game itself. While that is not good for story progress I think that these features needed to be implemented, since I believe that the game play is very important for a game. Yet, I can not neglect the story either; it is the combination of both that makes a good game in my opinion. As of right now, I believe that I have implemented enough game features and now am moving towards completing the story.

With that being said, that brings up a conundrum for the weekly updates. While I like doing them and think they have been helpful for me to plan and target what I wanted to accomplish, doing weekly updates that mainly focus on story progress sound kind of dull and not to mention may spoil some stuff I want to keep under wraps. ^.^ I am currently thinking of a way to keep these weekly updates fresh. Any advice on this would be great!

Now let’s get to the nitty gritty the time frame I want to achieve the previously mentioned milestones. Here is what I was thinking:

• Finish Ch. 2 – End of May
• Finish Ch.3 – End of June – Mid July
• Finish Polish/ QA – End of August

This may be really optimistic.

While I love working on this project, I want to move on to other ideas I have for games and I would like to start developing and learning other game engines like Unity or Unreal. Anyways, according to this schedule I should finish with this game by the end of this summer, though I will try not to remove content from my planned story due to time constraints; I want to finish this project right!

This may be really early to think about the game release and stuff, but the question of how am I going to release this game has crossed my mind. Will I try to sell it for profit? Free? Well, right now I think I am just going to release it for free. From the very start this project has first and foremost been a passion project and I’ve had so much support from the RPGMaker Community I don’t think it would be right to sell it for a profit. So right now all I plan is to release it onto forums or steam workshop for free, with all contributor’s works credited of course.

That’s it for this week a bit more of a wordy update this week. Hopefully this update outlines the course I want to take in the weeks to come! And as always comments, suggestions and criticism are all accepted!

 

[Imadeanaccountjuattoaskthi]

Excellent game. My only gripe is with the dialogue; it could be better. Other than that, great job! I especially love these weekly updates and lore additions.
Keep up the great work!

 

[raynesu]

Excellent game. My only gripe is with the dialogue; it could be better. Other than that, great job! I especially love these weekly updates and lore additions.
Keep up the great work!

Thank you, you're too kind. Also the dialogue, WAHHHH it's like I'm a boss and you found my weakness. I think my dialogue is the weakest part of my game! :/ I'll try to improve it in later versions.

 

[Rukiri]

I really like this, keep it up!

 

[raynesu]

Welcome back to another weekly update! As I discussed last week, I have shifted my focus from developing game play features to advancing the story. That being said, I’ve been thinking how to reformat the weekly updates to compensate for the less frequent feature updates. So, I’ve broken it into two things: creation of new zones and creation of story/quests.

New Title Screen!
Made a new title screen, think it looks pretty good.

New Zone: Korelia

The first zone I want to introduce is Korelia. This town is planned to be a major plot point but I don’t want to spoil anything. It is loated just outside of Castella. Overall I was trying to create a small quiet town.

Spoiler

New Zone: Windlost Meadow

This zone was intended to be a very open zone with little to no barriers. Currently I am trying to decide which monsters will inhabit this zone. Currently this zone is slated to be an exploration zone, which is an optional zone with side quests.

Spoiler

Story Progress:

So as mention in older posts, I am currently working on chapter 2 of the story and to start off the new story progress section of my weekly updates I thought that I should first outline some key things in Chapter 2. Chapter 2 will have your party split up into 2 groups. One group will be Ciel and the new character introduced this chapter Emille. The other will be of course our exorcist duo Raid and Rylus. For Ciel and Emille, chapter will focus on Ciel learning how to become and exorcist. At the same time, Raid and Rylus will continue their investigation as junior exorcists.

Lore: Liches

As part of their training, exorcists are taught to not feel negative emotions, such as hatred. This is not only because demons feed off negative energy but also to protect the exorcist themselves. Since all exorcists are sensitive to spirits, they are affected by negative emotions more than normal humans. If they are exuding too much or are exposed to too much negative emotion they risk slipping into madness and eventually becoming Liches.

Liches are human which have succumbed to the massive amounts of negatively charged Aether and essentially become demons. In this state the Lich no longer recognizes their human self and usually maniacally fixates on accomplishing some sort of warped goal. For example if an exorcist succumbs to hatred and becomes a Lich, they may fixate on getting revenge. Liches are also able to use magic freely without the aid of a spirit partner.

Because of this risk, the Church of Castella claims any person or child that is found to be spiritually sensitive. Usually people claimed in this manner are given two choices, serve the church or be either exiled or executed. Many criticize the Church for being so resolute on this issue(the public does not know the true purpose of this rule and the existence of Liches), though the Church views this as a necessary evil to protect both the exorcist and the people. There have been few known cases of Liches ever since the church imposed this rule.

That's it for this week and as always, comments, suggestions and criticisms are all welcome. Have a great week.