[IGMC 2015] Blacksword Chronicles

[watermark]

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STORY​

 

Within the ruins of a fallen empire, in a room long forgotten by the world, a swordsman awakens remembering only the words:

 

"Jurdin Kylor must die."

 

Thus begins the tale of a swordmaster's pursuit of a shadowy nemesis across a dark continent ravaged by wars and evil. As he travels the lands, he will encounter characters and creatures weird and strange. He will unravel his past and learn of the part he played and will play, of how the world almost ended and how it might yet end again. But that is a long tale that will take many chapters to tell. This is only the first chapter of an epic set in a massive world of aurablades and mages, of elves and demons, of secret societies and ancient cults.

 

The story begins in the ruins of Myth Laurelin, a once shining city of magic destroyed during a cataclysm centuries ago. The city has since become a haven for mercenaries, misfits, treasure hunters, and grave robbers. Recently, a figure known only as the Sword Lord has taken over this sorry lot and began vigorous excavations for some mysterious purpose. Things were going well for the Sword Lord. He did not count on an unknown swordsman waking up.

 

FEATURES

 

*** 1.5+ hour of intense, action-packed story in a dark and vivid world of sword and sorcery.

*** Featuring the Duel Combat System (a customized Yami Symphony): a battle system of thrilling swordfights inspired by martial arts and fantasy movies, with incredible battle graphics by Richter of the famous Eremidia series.

*** Exotic and beautiful locations from city ruins to underground jungles to the Hanging Gardens of Myth Laurelin, using graphics and tiles by the best artists of the RM community and mapped by the superbly talented Miss Nile.

*** Haunting and heartbreaking music by Darren Curtis, Quigon, Scythuz, Jin Rokudo, and Tam Music Factory.

*** Made with RPG Maker VX Ace.

 

SCREENSHOTS

 

 

 

SUPPORT US

 

If you like our game, please vote for us on the IGMC 2015 site! Click on the link below to go to our contest page.

 



Download the game here!

 

CREDITS

 


Story and Game Design
Mark Waters

Face Portraits
Full of love

Map Design
Miss Nile

Custom Battlers and Characters
richter_h

Character Sets and Tools
Looseleaf
Ice-Ax
REFMAP
Sebastian Bini
The Storyteller01

Battle Animations
Timmah
Holders Animated Battlers

Main Tilesets
Celianna

Tilesets
Candacis
Indrah
Liberty
Lunarea
Mack and Gmork
Panda Maru

Music
Darren Curtis
Quigon
Tam Music Factory
Jin Rokudo
Scythuz

Icons
Avery

Parallax and Overlays
Archeia

Scripting


Duel Battle System
based on Yami Battle Symphony Engine 1.16c
by Yami, Yanfly, Nessiah & EvilEagles

Core Scripts
Yanfly

Choices and Enemy Formulas
Hime Works

Circular Gauges
Efeberk

Resource Packages


RPG MAKER Futuristic Tiles Resource Pack
© 2012 ENTERBRAIN, INC; artist: Celianna

Royal Tiles Resource Pack
Dungeon & Volcanoes Tiles Resource Pack
Evil Castle Tiles Resource Pack
© 2014 ENTERBRAIN, INC; artist: Sherman3D

 

[Miss Nile]

I might be biased saying this, but I really enjoyed the gameplay of this one. Everything is quite well done and polished and the game is well put together. Good luck with it.

 

[Seriel]

*adds to list*

I've got a lot to play..

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Just played this, didn't play it all the way through yet though. Played for about a half an hour. Here's a video! But since I'm kinda not the best Let's Player, I'll give you a text write up too.

Sorry I needed to turn my volume up on me... hard to hear

The title screen does a great job building atmosphere, sadly once the game hit - I didn't feel the same level of atmosphere. It started to build again a bit later, but it still never quite reached what the title screen did. Writing was solid and I really enjoyed when Skip came in. He and Giles had nice personality to bring into the story which was much needed since Dust is well ... ... ... ... ... 

Where this game truly shines though is the battle system. Lots of fun and although the first tutorial felt a bit slow, it did a good job preparing me for when things really picked up. It may not show in the video, but--- It was a good tutorial, I'm just horrible at memorizing things. Adding in combos, which I only ever got one, was certainly going to make things more interesting. As I mentioned in the video, the one thing that I worry about is that it's hard to watch your HP in battle. Not... that I had any means of healing myself, but still! I have no good suggestions to fix this however, as the pace of the battle would be horribly slowed down with any sort of pause and the speed of the battles is part of the joy. However since you take the risk of damage in order to execute a combo - knowing your HP will probably become very important.

Disregard my earlier comment in the video in regards to not being able to go back and change a move - it doesn't make sense once the command input is timed.

The story largely feels like "not my thing," so it's hard for me to judge it on what I saw of it. The writing is a bit dry for me; though again Skip was really helping to break that up for me. In terms of technicalities though, it felt like information was being delivered at a decent enough pace to not be confusing or overwhelming. Giles mentioned a lot of things, but because it didn't feel like something the player needed to memorize, that lacked any negative impact. Some people don't like the amnesia sort of intro thing, but honestly I'm okay with it. It's a surefire way to make the player and their character both require introduction to the world.

To people thinking about playing, if you're looking for a solid game with an interesting battle system, give this a spin! 

 

[watermark]

@Makio-Kuta Thank you for your comprehensive review! I am glad you are enjoying the game so far.

Ah. The title screen atmosphere. That is all Darren Curtis's music. Truly great stuff. There's more of his work in the game. Personally, I am grateful I found his as well as Quigon's music. They truly help form the darker atmosphere of the game. And Scy's helps lighten it up a bit. Also there are music by Japanese artists Tam and Jin as well, and they have their moments too. 

Thanks for the HP suggestion. I'll think more on this. Regarding not being able to say drink potions in battle. That was always something I thought about in RPGs. I suppose what I wanted to convey was that in a real swordfight, would anyone have time to properly drink medicine? However, I am not saying there's no way to heal in battle...

Also the not changing move part was a sort of simulation of one not having enough time to "second guess" once a fight starts. Still, I thought about maybe tweaking this in a way to show how a swordsman would feint a fake move and maybe change it later. But alas, no time to implement in this game.

Hope you get a chance to play more of the game!

 

[Makio-Kuta]

Yeah, once the timed bits kicked in, not being able to backtrack your selections made a lot more sense. I don't mind that this was not an option. When the system was static and I was still learning, it felt awkward - but it makes sense because you'll not have that option to second guess in the timed bits. Overall, this made sense once I hit that point.

haha I can understand what you mean about drinking potions mid battle being odd! It's less the ability to heal that bugged me and just the fact that watching what my HP was at was almost impossible given how fast paced the battle is. If HP (and Aura) was more visible somehow or somehow integrated closer to where the commands are (since that's where your eyes should be focused) that might help. Certainly something to think about - not having the time to look at HP and Aura makes it a bit difficult to make decisions strategically based around them. Again though, nothing that slows the system down is a good option. The speed is certainly its benefit.

You're welcome! I would certainly like to find more time to play. I'm interested in how the combat evolves. and who this Sword Lord is ;D

 

[watermark]

To help everyone who's stuck. Here are some solves. I've made the topics deliberately obscure to prevent spoiling it for those who haven't encountered the events.

 

Regarding the riddles:

Spoiler

The two books you need to pull in the Sorcerers' Library start with "Man" and "Fear". The books are arranged in alphabetical order starting from the top left so simply go through the books until you find books that start with these words.

 

Regarding the...bunch of green people:

Spoiler

If you are having trouble getting past the zombie horde scene, you can do two things to make it easier. One, find the Guardian Pendant within the Library and equip it. It will add Life points. Two, during the meditation phase before the zombies, pick the "Let me out." memory to get the Life up perk.

 

Regarding the shards:

Spoiler

There are three Crystal Shards in the Gardens. One is by the water on the lower left. Another is on the lower right under a tree. You will have to go to the lower right section and then climb up a vine to get to it. The last one is by the waterfall that you see in one of the game screenshots.

 

Regarding the mage:

Spoiler

If you are having trouble beating the mage, there are two things that you can do to make it easier. One, in the meditation phase in the Garden, pick the "As fast as..." memory to get the Speed perk. Two, the "double ranger boots" trick, where you buy and equip two sets of ranger boots from the merchant by the tavern. Both of these will drastically increase your reaction time.

 

Regarding fighting multiple enemies:

Spoiler

The trick to fighting multiple enemies is to "tie + hurt" by looking down each column. For example, you fight three enemies and one does hack, another does thrust, and the third does thrust. In this case, respond with thrust, you will tie and not get hurt from two while hurting one. If all three enemies does different moves, then use parry. If you need more time use the same trick mentioned in the mage section.

 


If you still cannot beat some enemy, then it's time for the...Indrah Maneuver:

Spoiler

This technique was invented by long time RM veteran Indrah. Basically, what you do is the following. First, make sure you are in Window mode. Then during a fight, click OUTSIDE the window. This will stop the timer and give you all the time in the world to determine what keys you need to hit. Then click back in and destroy the enemy. Repeat.

 

[Vox Novus]

Here's my review (I mostly do a positive negative thing). Might seem harsh/me pointing out a lot of negatives but I want to try and help the developer to improve as much as possible and would expect the same constructive criticism in return. Also I promise it ends up being good in the end. Posted on your game page as well.

Here's my review: Played and completed on normal difficulty

I wanted to give out major credit for doing something relatively unique in terms of combat, it isn't often I see something that initially surprises me like that in a rpg. More so though you take the time to slowly build it up adding an extra layer of depth as time goes by. Music was fantastically selected in this game, even if I heard the same song loop for the third + time it never became tiring. The mapping was really good for the most part although I will say that I feel there was too much "clutter,"

I often started dashing only to end up running into an object. The artwork is pleasant and consistent but has one issue; the portraits eyelashes and eyebrows look like they are on the characters hair usually the bangs (It should usually be the opposite in most cases with the bangs covering up the eyebrows for example) it looks completely bizarre to me. You get to the gameplay quickly this is an excellent decision especially for a contest entry.

Suggestions for improvement:

-There are a few passability problems; on the way from the town towards myth laurelian I was able to walk on the wall of a house. Also in Myth Laurelian I was able to walk on one of the tables that had a spell book on it. In the garden there is a patch of empty grass that seems like it should be able to be walked on but can't be.

-There is also a problem with consistency in passability. Take the garden area, I can walk on some flowers and tufts of grass but in other parts I can't walk on those same tufts of grass and flowers.

-The zombie mini-game; this was probably the part of the game I disliked the most. At first it isn't so bad but you start to reach a point where even the sharpest player can't tell exactly which type of zombie is about to approach when you have 3-5 huddled together in a large group. Had to do this one about 4 times to get past, kind of frustrating because I felt like the problem wasn't my fault at times; If I'm restarting or failing I want it to be because of my errors.

-Sprites/events shake when the camera is scrolling.

-The characters were a little weak (mostly cookie cutter personalities), the most interesting character in the game probably shouldn't be the thief that's with you briefly. The main character's personality is completely dull, if an npc jumped out suddenly from behind a rock and chopped his head off I wouldn't care in the slightest. I get he has amnesia or something but he acts like a robot, often simply saying lines of acknowledgement of what's going on rather than reacting emotionally in any way. Near the end when he goes after the sword lord I'm assuming he is supposed to be angry (and grieving) yet he really doesn't act like it at all.

-That segment in the crystal cave with the poison dirt is almost like trolling the player. It wouldn't be bad if it was just dust but having to open the menu over and over again to heal Irene is just an utter pain but you have no choice because otherwise its gameover. You give the player an item to increase max hp which I used on her to make things easier but since dust is the only one in battle I much would have preferred using it on him.

-Prices seem high on some of the best equipment, I don't think I was ever able to get my money up that high to even check that stuff out.

-Might want to move the potion/item shopkeeper more in town, completely missed them at first.

-Story was weak as well, there seems to have been some sort of war or takeover in the nearby town; it's never really addressed in detail what that is about. I'm assuming the sword lord is being some sort of evil tyrant guy in taking over the town (and if he did takeover the town, who did he takeover it from?) How recent was this takeover because there are conflicting messages in the maps. On one hand you have skeletons which means it must have been awhile ago if the bodies decayed but on the other hand there are random weapons laying around, seems like looters or somebody would have taken those if it was some time ago. I get this is chapter one of something but I felt like nothing was answered. What in the world was up with them capturing the children? Some sort of crazy magic experiment but you don't really see where it is going; might make sense in the completed game but in this 2-hr or so segment its incredibly random. I did enjoy the flashbacks for dust though, at times I almost thought his master must secretly be yoda!

-I can see how this game would turn a lot of players off if they fail to master the combat system. It was pretty easy for me but for those that it isn't you pretty much trap them in a corner; no grinding and no healing items/skills in battle. It's either be good at it or be unable to progress at all, you leave no room for them to compensate for a lack of mastery over the battle mechanics which with this type of system I don't think everyone will achieve even on lower difficulties. I strongly recommend adding grindable enemies or give the player an aura skill that has a healing effect possibly an accessory that adds a regen effect that way the player can use parry to buy time to heal damage.

Honestly if it wasn't for the fact the battle system captured my interest so much I would think this a sub-standard to average rpg with some pretty bells and whistles. However as I said it did pique my interest and I had quite a bit of fun playing it which in the end I guess is ultimately what matters. Over all I am impressed by what was achieved in the time frame and would be happy to give the game a vote for whatever it's worth. Good luck in continuing on with the project!

 

[watermark]

@ Vox Novus Thank you for taking the time to complete the game and write such a thorough review!

- I'll pass on the portrait comments to the artist. She worked quite hard on them, but I think she'll always be happy to hear new comments.

- Yes the passability problems are all mine. I did not scrub the areas as thoroughly as I should have. They should be improved in future updates after the contest.

- The original design behind the zombies was for the player to leave with very little HP, so as to convey the sense of difficulty of the task. However, as you say, it became very difficult to tune the difficulty of this mini game. It couldn't be too easy, but not enough playtesting was done given the time constraints, so it became somewhat hard for some players. This is something that can be improved upon in the future.

- The writing. There is always room for improvement. I am always inspired by how great writers, especially screenplay writers, can invoke intense emotions with so little time. It is something I continually strive for. Hopefully my writing skills will improve as time goes on. Thank you for the comment!

- The grinding. You touched upon something I thought about in hindsight (after the deadline, oh no!). You are right. The game is a bit unforgiving on the normal difficulty. Again, I blame this on not enough testing time (and my bad design decision. ). In the future there should be areas where the player can choose to go for leveling up if needed.

Still, I am glad you enjoyed the game overall. Thank you for the vote and putting up our support banner! 

 

[Vox Novus]

happy to, its not often especially with these IGMC games (from what i've played so far) that I find something so intriguing that it can more than make up for the fact that in other regards I wouldn't have enjoyed it. You showed me something unique and highly interesting but most importantly enjoyable in the battle mechanics.

 

[winningedge101]

I'm downloading this game right now! Looks good

 

[Indrah]

Whee, I actually enjoyed a game! I must be losing my touch XD







(Some notes here, but real time reactions and review in the video)

I overall enjoyed this game. It's a good example of something I always preach that goes ignored, and that is it has a STRONG CORE, in this case the engaging active combat. That alone did a good job carrying the game.

Other aspects fared more or less well. Story, sound and visuals were fine, with the glaring exception of the mapping detail, passability and overall conveyance, which was a total mess.

Characters and story were light and largely stereotypes or very simplistic, but for a short game that is not necessarily a bad thing. They each did their jobs and did not get annoying, so that's a pass with no issues.

HOWEVER! What enabled me to enjoy the game AT ALL was cheating and clicking out of the window to stop time in combat. Without that cheating, I would have had to quit early, as it simply blew by too fast and I don't have the reaction skill for it at all, and even easy mode did not feel easy or even possible without it. So that definitely needs work unless you want to alienate people who are not so fast (at least in easy mode).

Game took me two hours and a half to finish, but I was streaming and constantly stopping the game, so I'm not exactly the regular example. I liked the combat animation in the bosses (they were very flashy and nice to see play out) and the sprite poses are always cool things to see. I think my favorite moment was the zombie thing with your companions thinking it was just three. GIVE ME A PAY RISE YOU ASSES XD I also liked the little flashbacks when you learned skills. They were brief but well done.

Overall, if the game was a bit more polished in the mapping department and fixed in difficulty a bit, I'd easily give this game a 7 out of 10; 8 if the story was beefed a bit (personal preference). Right now those rough aspects are getting in the way, the mapping especially gets very grating and distracts from the experience. For how long the game is meant to be, it's an enjoyable experience.

If those are fixed and more chapters of the game came out, I'd have no qualm with checking them out.

Some things I suggest addressing for a more polished and smooth expeirence:

Spoiler

-Ease up on difficulty and time allowed (it's really a problem of time), ESPECIALLY and at least in easy mode (it was not easy at all, and without the hep of cheating I would simply have given up). Allowing players who are not at all skilled in some way is a good way to compromise. Do this in any way: greatly increasing your stats, decreasing enemy damage, removing the time entirely as an option, etc. Anything will do as long as ANYONE, no matter how unskilled they are, can play it (at least in easy mode, you can see how slow I was even with a cheatsheet in the video).

-Mapping, mapping, MAPPING. Please, please fix it. I liked the layouts, the spread of terrain and how to navigate them were perfectly fine, but the use of tiles, passability and overall visual aesthetic was terrible. Passability by itself contributed to a lot of butting walls and wandering aimlessly, specially in the garden section. I would say entirely remake and polish the maps (the layout can stay, but the execution needs rebuilding from the ground up). The map area THEMES were fine, but the execution was bad.

-I had some trouble getting used to the combat stance icons. I'm not sure HOW to change that, but making them more visually distinct may help.

-At the start of the game the sound is strangely absent or generally very quiet. Some tweaking of sound design during that period would help.

-I'm not sure if the plot has holes or if I missed them. Even for an episodic game, having a self-conclusive plot is important. I have no idea who Dust is, why he's where he is at the beginning or why he's going east at the end. It's never clear if he has amnesia or what, I think overall that backstory part needs some work to make it more understandable. I also never understood what the entire growth potion was supposed to do? Even if you're tryign to carry a mystery over multiple chapters, there should not be so many question left as a “what the heck was that?”.

-Giving Irina a couple more scenes before her big one would help not make her feel quite so rushed. It's not TERRIBLE right now, but some easing there would be ideal.

-The zombie section had clear problems with the display. I understand to some degree that's the fault of the engine, but it really needs some polish to make it less of a confusing mess, since it was fun otherwise.

-For such a dilapidated town, the tavern is weirdly clean and well furbished. Either the town or the tavern are having a tonal problem and should be shifted.

-Changing the crystal shards in the garden for animated little light glints would help a ton. And of course, fixing the garden mapping in general is a must, because it's by far the WORST area about passability (seriously watch the video, I was so frustrated there):

-Tone town the time the cave gets and stays “dark”. The pulse itself is not a problem, but the amount of time it stays dark (and as such making you stay still and bored) is a tad too long.

-Change the button to speed through text. Do NOT use the run (shift) control (arrows) or regular accept/cancel buttons, as there's a very high chance the player will have them pressed by mistake and flash through text accidentally (this happened to me a lot. Simply change the button to A or any other empty one).

-Unless they are actually lootable items or similar, I strongly recommend getting rid of icons as map decorations. They look clearly different from the maps, so the player automatically assume they're to be picked, when they're not. (Even weirder, you used weapons, which already exist as regular TILES).

-Equipment was a bit underwhelming. More variety and maybe addind an extra slot would be nice. (Maybe increasing attack instead of defense as a choice? Anything really). This isn't a strong point, just an extra.

 

[watermark]

Yay! People, I have survived the review of the piranhagoldfish, I meant lovely goldfish. XD

 

Seriously, Indrah, thank you for taking the long time (2.5+ hours?!) to play through the game. You have given me some great advice to improve in the future.

 

Yes, the relationship was rushed cause, well, the time limit. It would've been better if there were a few more quests to build the love, but I wanted a kiss scene in my game, damnit! There's gonna be some kissing going on in this house! So scre* it, it's getting put in! XD

 

I sayth to our wonderful mapper Miss Nile, thou shall make it messy. So she did. And I loved the mess, but several reviewers have said that this aesthetic makes the map confusing as they don't know what to search or pick up. This is good advice. I never thought of that. On a side note, the tavern was clean cause I wanted to convey how hard Irene and Boris works by showing how clean the tavern is compared to the rest of the place. So that was by design. 

 

Yes, the passbility issues. I did not scrub it hard enough in playtesting. I will definitely have to improve this in the future.

 

Now we come to the biggest risk of this game, the difficulty. When I first made the battles it was so slow I was yawning. I thought, people need to feel excited in this fight! They need to feel life and death! So I...made it too hard apparently. Yes, in hindsight I wish there was more playtesting and tweaking time. Now, due to an advice from RMN, I did make a non-timer version, but in fairness I will have to release that after the contest. For now, people, go buy and equip those ranger boots! And pick the "as fast as..." memory! (See the faq in my thread.) Or use the "Indrah Maneuver". (I never even thought you can do that. Always amazed how fast netizens can crack a game.) Also, if there should be a sequel, I am rethinking the whole battle system. Especially since there will have to be team swordfights.

 

I will definitely check out the video later in depth.

 

Thank you for the review and recommendation! There are of course, parts that can be improved, but I am glad you enjoyed the game overall!

 

[Kokoro Hane]

This looks like it will be a lot of fun to play, downloading now~

 

[watermark]

@Kokoro Hane Thank you! Please remember to vote for us if you like the game. Hope you enjoy it!

 

[Kokoro Hane]

@Kokoro Hane Thank you! Please remember to vote for us if you like the game. Hope you enjoy it!

Alrighty! Hopefully I can get passed the door, I am kinda confused at that part, but I will look at the walkthrough~

 

[watermark]

@Kokoro Hane Do you mean the beginning room? You need to pull out the sword in the middle of the room first.

 

[Kokoro Hane]

@Kokoro Hane Do you mean the beginning room? You need to pull out the sword in the middle of the room first.

That did it!~ I have no idea why I didn't see it at first xD

 

[watermark]

Well IGMC has been quiet these days. I am sure traffic will pick up again come announcement time.

Yay! A new review for the game! Special thanks to Albert for reviewing the game.

You can read Albert's review of the game here:

http://www.albertfox.cat/reviews/blacksword-chronicles/

 

[JeffPAWA]

Sorry for the delay but as promised:




It's the first part and i've made 3 so if you want to see them all click the annotation a the end of the movie to get to the next one!

and as usual here's my written review!

So if Blacksword = Dark sword

and Dark sword = Dark soul

and Dark Soul = Me dying a lot

then

Blacksword Chronicles = me dying a lot!

boy it's tough! BUT O SO FUN!

yes i did die quite a bit and got frustrated by part 3 but please don't take it personally I was somewhat tired and had the hardest of time understanding the mechanic correctly. It's so unique and well made i've only got compliments for it.

I did mention that it was counter-intuitive but only because, in my mind, i was working with the opposites so i thought: if left then right, if top then it's bottom, get the picture. It's fine the way it is don't worry, I'm just a sore loser .

Since I did not progress that much it's hard for me to talk about the plot but I do enjoyed the 2 explorer characters they're funny and I liked doing their voices

Music wise you picked nicely it fits the ambiance and the moments of tensions are ... well tensiony i guess

This is a very good IGMC entry and I look forward to completing it!

Good job! this, is, amazing!