Chronicles of the Crystal Wars (Demo)

[Gui 61]

Chronicles of the Crystal Wars

 
 

Screenshots and trailer

 

 

 

 

The official trailer is available on Youtube and on Dailymotion

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Genre: Fantasy

Average Demo Time: around 2 hours
 

Story

 

Centuries ago, a magical plague known as the miasma appeared, which began to devour the surface of the world. Unable to restrain this scourge, the inhabitants of the surface used another form of magic to extract from the ground a giant island the size of a continent in order to dwell in the sky, where the miasma would never be able to reach them. But this celestial island wasn't big enough for everyone, and thousands were abandoned to the miasma...

Time passed. Through the fires of wars, a kingdom appeared on the flying continent, whose citizens had long forgotten the tragedy of the forced emigration of their ancestors but also the other one, even worse, of the people who stayed behind and had to face the miasma. And everyone lives as happily as possible in a human society.

But it is several years now that the flying continent seems to slowly sink into the Sea of Clouds upon which it is yet supposed to fly. And the nightmare of the miasma surfaces again in the collective memory...

Now, a hero has to go back to the surface below to find a way to revive the apparatus which allows the flying continent to remain above the clouds.
 

Characters

 

- King Cirrus: the ruler of the kingdom of Arcadia and a quiet man who seems unable to choose any course of action to save his people, so his citizens begin to question his authority and the social order slowly but surely begins to crumble.

- Honorius: the previous commander of the royal guard, recently retired, who kept many friends in the army like if he wants to secure his rear; some say the King kept him closer to him than his own friends, like a monarch is supposed to do with his enemies...

- Alasran: the junior son of Honorius, he's ready to anything to prove his worth to his father; he'll volunteer to scout the surface and, unvoluntarily, will trigger the events which will plunge the flying continent into chaos...

- Sirius: childhood friend of Alasran, he knows well Honorius' family; good-spirited, he's not naive for all that...

- Joseph: a soldier of the Arcadia army who makes up for his lack of experience with determination and strength.

- Annalys: member of the resistance against the Vulcania regime, this young warrior girl hides a dark secret.

- Evan: another resistant, who doesn't talk much and tends to impose silence with his sole, massive presence.

- Lyvi: although friendly and talkative, this young resistant is above all a skilled thief and assassin.
 

Credits

 

Enterbrain
Yanfly (Parallax Lock script, Event Chase Player script, Ace Battle Engine script, Command Autobattle script)
Yami (Overlay Mapping script)
Vlue / V. M. of D. T. (Basic Autosave script)
Soulpour777 (Gameover Commands script)
Galv (Region Effects script)
Modern algebra (Website Launch from Title script)
PandaMaru (sitting cat sprite + wolves battlers)
Matseb2611 (Death theme B-E.png tilesheet)
Tasharene (stormy sky photo)
SoundJay.com (footsteps sound effects)
FreeSound.org (pump sound effect)
D. C. Kairi Sawler (Yawning Sunlight & A Time Forgotten music tracks)
Aaron Spencer (Seeking Loot music track)
Incompetech.com (Take a Chance music track)
all other ressources used are by me and only me
 
 

Recruitment

 

I could use some help, so if you think you can provide any of the following services, feel free to contact me; for this project being commercial, I will share any income.

– Character Designer: you’ll be in charge of giving an aspect to every character which appears in the game, even briefly; although I use simple portraits in the demo, I’d like for the characters pics to be busts, and preferably with different facial expressions and body posings to match different circumstances and emotions.

– Proof Reader/Grammar Nazi: although I do my best to provide a satisfying english, this language is not my native one and there’s very probably far much more faults in the various dialogs than it should, so any help will be immensely appreciated.

– PR Guy: you know, the guy who will be keeping the followers in touch, in here but also on FB and Twitter as well as on IndieDB, and RMN too…
 
 

Features

 
- custom backgrounds, parallaxes and battle backs made with 3DS Max (see attached screenshots).
- magical or steampunk mechas  ^^
- heavily story driven game: for this RPG being essentially narrative, do not expect an open-world experience with plenty of side-quests like in Skyrim or a dungeon-crawler game such as Diablo. If you don’t like games where you have to follow some tracks, then –by all means– do NOT play it because it is not for you –you’ve been warned.
 
 

Download (333 Mb)

 

- from RMN

- from Mega
 

 

Following

 

Official Devblog

Facebook

Twitter

IndieDB

Steam Greenlight

[shadowblack 103]

Overall a nice and very promising game. I have just a few complaints (that will hopefully get fixed in the future versions):

1) In the mountains the random encounters are a little too frequent, so with enough bad luck you can end up with three poisoned characters and no way to cure poison

2) Currently the game is a little too grindy - I made it to the Earth Spirit when my characters were level 4 and had to grind for a while before I could hope to win against the boss

3) The boss has 2000 HP but NO MP. This makes two of the boss' skills useless because they cost MP and leaves only the other two to be used

4) As a result of the above the boss fight is too luck-based. Regular attacks and double attacks are equally likely, so it's up to luck which will be chosen. Getting attacked just once instead of twice per turn makes a huge difference, especially since the only healing you have available at the time is potions that restore a measly 100 HP each

[+ TBWCS 951]

Is that a custom tileset?

[Gui 61]

Nope: all paralaxes are done in 3D 

[+ TBWCS 951]

That looks amazing. Google Sketch Up, Blender or 3DS Max?

[Nazo (Tasky) 2]

Nice. Sounds amazing.

[Gui 61]

That looks amazing. Google Sketch Up, Blender or 3DS Max?

Thanks!

 

It's all done in Max, with some pre-processing work made with Photoshop and/or Corel 

[+ TBWCS 951]

It is amazing. Although as someone who really is picky in art balance, I advice you to do some processing for the sprites too. The contrast of the tileset is a bit bland and bright than the pixel art that the sprites offer.

[Nazo (Tasky) 2]

also Gui can you help me with a project im working on? I kinda need sprites of Xehanort, Ansem and Xenmas. Thx.

[Tsarmina 2,611]

This isn't the right place for a request like this  I'd suggest PM or posting in Resource Request.

[Gui 61]

It is amazing. Although as someone who really is picky in art balance, I advice you to do some processing for the sprites too. The contrast of the tileset is a bit bland and bright than the pixel art that the sprites offer.

Thanks again 

 

The contrast between the paralaxes and the pixel art is indeed of concern to me, but 1) It's my understanding that I don't have the right to modify the original art provided with the maker (especially because I plan to go commercial with this release), and 2) I suck big hairy balls at character design, so basically I don't really have any other choice than letting it be for now...

 

Of course, if I can find someone willing to lend a hand, for art assets creation and/or scripting of something which could alter the look of the sprites (for example in reducing the darkness of the black borders of the sprites through some sort of filter... – dunno it it's possible, I'm not a coder), well, it would be an entirely different story of course.

 

On the other hand, I tend to get used to this contrast: on some ways it helps to give personnality to these visuals, so maybe it is not as much of a problem in the end. 

 

also Gui can you help me with a project im working on? I kinda need sprites of Xehanort, Ansem and Xenmas. Thx.

Sorry, man: no can do. My own project takes all my time and my energy for now and, like I said previously, I'm not the best choice for character designs to begin with... But thanks for your interest: much appreciated 

 

---

 

All of you take care!

[KayakoChan 318]

Well then, I did give it a try, and I must say that the idea so far is interesting, and the 3D graphics seem to work pretty well indeed.

As far as changing the RTP stuff goes, I couldn't find anything saying it was forbidden as long as full credits went to Enterbrain.

 

There's something I did notice though was a bit.. weird, especially in the first map, to which I wonder, do you perhaps still have the original render?

I found the collision of the tree to be a little weird, the canopy of the leafs blocking you, you might want to put the foreground trees on a separate layer

so you can walk behind them, which will make that part feel a lot more natural!

 

Other than that, the 3D rendered battlebacks and maps were very nice indeed.

 

Gameplay wise it's clear it's only a prototype, I did notice quite some grinding being required, which makes me think the boss might be pre-scaled for after

the dragon's lair section?

 

The grinding itself wouldn't be as much of a problem if it offered more variety, don't be afraid to mix and match the party a little and compose it of different classes.

Even having one character in the group that uses a different weapon and has a different special attack would add a lot to the feel! Even if it's just an assassin

which has a special that does less damage but has a chance to stun, or a knight that can taunt to make himself more likely to be attacked but has more defense would

spice it up a lot!

 

Still, it's a good start, and it will be interesting to see where this game is going, try to look at the advice people give and see which suits your taste, and keep up the good work!

Edited September 30, 2014 by KayakoChan

[Gui 61]

Thanks again to everyone for your very valuable feedback: much appreciated 

 

I've just updated the prototype with several modifications and tweaks which should address most of the points mentioned: in particular, I've added the second part of the dungeon in the mountains which present very different troops/enemies but I also added several classes for the various characters – all of this makes the game far less grindy and more enjoyable IMO.

 

Don't hesitate to tell me what you think of this overhaul 

[shadowblack 103]

I had a quick look and noticed no bugs in the new version. It takes a lot less grinding than before, though you are likely to still need to grind for a bit before you can take on the boss.

 

About the enemies in the cave:

- even at level 4 the bats do no damage and are just free experience

- I did not encounter any rats until my characters were level 6, and at that time the rats too were just free experience

- the giant snakes are only slightly more dangerous than the rats

- the scorpions and spiders are a bit too strong for level 4 characters, but even at level 6 or 7 they pose a serious threat due to high attack (and so high damage) and poison

- the rest of the enemies were fine

 

By the way, I think you are confusing "experimented" and "experienced". "Experimented" means either someone who was experimented on or someone who performed an experiment, while "experienced" means "someone with experience".

[KayakoChan 318]

Played for a bit again, and I have to say it is indeed an improvement, notwithstanding the things pointed out by shadowblack before me. The overlay mapping adds a good feeling of depth to the first map which was nice indeed.

 

You might want to lower the thresholds at which the characters get their first skills so you notice the difference earlier and make the transition feel more smooth IE, giving the thief access to "Vanish" at level three and the samurai being able to use "Yoroidoshi" at level 4 so you notice the class difference more easily!

 

I noticed the boss is a bit more challenging now (Likely because she can use her spells now she has mp) which makes her feel more bossy! Though I do wonder why an earth spirit would reside where she does, will any explanation to that be given later?

[Gui 61]

Some in universe explanation will be given later, yes, although it is the sort of explanation which may bring more questions than answers, like it is often the case    No,actually, the main explanation is that for sucking at chara design I just couldn't get my own boss design, or at least a satisfying one, so I dig into the RTP and found that the elemental spirits may be of use: the three others will be met later into the story, once the party is formed, but this is all you'll know for now... 

 

Thanks again to both of you for your very valuable feedback: much appreciated, really, even for grammar/spelling/vocabulary   Don't hesitate to add anything worth of note which may come to your mind, you or anyone else: I'll probably find some use for it.

 

I'll probably not update this thread before a while: the next step for now is to develop a working demo, which will take quite some time...

 

Thanks again, all of you take care!

[Gui 61]

Finally, I decided to release a second prototype to get feedback onto some new features and tweaks.

 

What's new:

- changed the default battle system for Yanfly's Ace Battle System

- added three maps and three scenes (you can know visit the town of Milius at the beginning of the game and see what happens to Alasran after his quest in the Iceland)

- implemented Vlue's Basic Autosave script and Soulpour777's Gameover Commands script

- added some ressources from the RPG Maker Community DLC (by PandaMaru and Matseb2611 precisley)

- fixed a few things such as awkward events positions and spelling errors

- characters now get their skills a bit sooner

- and a few other things that I hope you'll appreciate...

 

Download link is the same but the new file is a bit heavier now (around 250 Mb): thanks in advance for any input 

[shadowblack 103]

Just finished the new version. No bugs seen.

 

So far the story is interesting. Not much else to say since even with the new additions the game is pretty short.

 

By the way, other than missing on some experience, is there any point to not killing the patrols?

[Gui 61]

The point is to add some variety into the gameplay, but also to allow the player to get to Annally's house safely: because magic is forbidden in Vulcania, I can't include into the party a character with healing magic skills and, obviously, bandages and cataplasms cannot restore as much health than magic – so, if a fight occurs with every patrol, this may quickly become a problem, especially after the Elite Warden mini boss...

 

On this point, I envisaged to include a First Aid skill which could be used only once after a fight and only if at least one member of the party is wounded, but it appeared far too much complicated for my skills of beginner. I opened a topic here but couldn't get what I wanted (ie. understandable instructions): if someone knows a way to solve this, it could be of a great help for the next parts of the game – all the more as there will be plenty of action, loot and XP  ^^

 

Anyway, thank a lot for the feedback: much appreciated, really! 

 

(Note for myself: 'should work harder to include more stuff – that'll be my purpose for the new year)

[shadowblack 103]

One thing I forgot: When fighting the Fire Spirit boss it used a spell that did 400+ damage to each of my characters. That's seriously overpowered compared to the rest of the boss' skills that I saw (even after 2 uses of Curse Armor the boss' attacks did around 300 damage per strike).

 

As for a skill that can heal an wounded character, but only once after combat: I think it would be best to do it with a formula. It will be something like this:

if b.hp==b.maxhp; 0; elseif b.state?(X); 0; else c=[your healing formula here]; b.add_state(X); c;

 

State number X is a new state - let's call it "First Aid" and have it get removed after walking for a certain number of steps. It gets added when you use the First Aid skill to heal a character. The formula first checks if the target's Hp is equal to the target's MaxHP. If it is nothing happens, else the formula checks if the target has the state added. If the state has been added then the character already received first aid and will not be able to receive more until he rests, or until enough time passes. If the state has not been added - calculate the amount to get healed and add the state.

 

Something like that. Ask in this thread for help with the formula - what I wrote is just an example to give you an idea how to do it.

[Gui 61]

Thanks for the help but, unless mistaken, such formula would make the skill usable several times on a same character until the healer walks a few steps or if the said character has less HP than his max; like this, and if the healer remains still and/or if the character lacks HP compared to his max even if such wound didn't happen during the last fight, he could regain all his HP with several consecutive uses. What I want is a skill which could be usable only once and for all until the next HP loss, whatever the cause of this loss of HP is...
 
The idea is to have something which would partially reduce the effect of wounds, like a nurse or a physician would use to reduce bleeding for example, not a skill which some players will find a way to get around to "cheat" – for lack of a better term...
 
Did you check the topic which I gave the URL? Someone had the idea to use a common event attached to a skill which would be available via the menu only and would do something like that:

Conditional Branch: Script: $game_party.members.any? {|actor| actor.hp < actor.mhp}
  ... do healing stuff ...
Else
  Show Text: Nobody needs to be healed
Branch End

It's the [ ... do healing stuff ... ] part that I don't get, and I couldn't obtain more precise info: any help on this point will be greatly appreciated 

 

As for the Flame skill of the Fire Spirit, it is indeed way overpowered, you're not the only one who told me that. I've since reduced its damages. Thanks for the confirmation
 

[shadowblack 103]

The idea I suggested does this:

- first checks to see if Current HP is equal to Max HP. If it is DO NOTHING else go to next part

- next check if the target has a particular state applied. If it does DO NOTHING else go to next part

- next add a particular state and then heal the target

 

Next use of the skill will start from the beginning. So even if you use the skill three times on the same character only the first use will heal him/her, the other two will do nothing. This is like what was suggested about the common event, except it's all done in the skill formula instead of a common event.

 

As for

What I want is a skill which could be usable only once and for all until the next HP loss, whatever the cause of this loss of HP is...

That's a terrible idea, since by default the game does not track when or how the character loses HP. What if the character takes no damage in combat, but loses some HP due to poison? Should it be possible to use the First Aid skill in such cases? What if the skill heals around 100 HP with each use, and the character took just 5 points of damage? Should it be possible to use the skill then? If yes it would allow for cheating - find a weak enemy that does less damage than the skill heals, get wounded, then heal. Repeat until you are fully healed (as a bonus you get experience and possibly items). That's why I suggested doing it with a state that blocks further healing from the skill until the character has walked for 1000 steps (the exact number of steps is just an example).

[Gui 61]

You're right: judging by your example, it seems it wasn't a good idea at all to begin with; I'll probably have to reconsider the whole thing if I want this to work correctly. But I still have a lot of work on the rest of the game, so I'll probably leave this at it for now and will maybe come back to it later – it is not a very important aspect of the game right now...

 

Anyway, thanks again for your involvement: much appreciated, really 

 

And happy new year while I'm at it!

[Gui 61]

OMG, an update!

 

We come closer to the demo with this new release which adds six dungeons (well, one full size and two others split in two and three respectively, for a total of six areas to roam for some loot and XP) and two shops (I thought it was a better idea to let the player choose his items instead of providing them to him) plus a third, secret one.

 

There are also a few cosmetic and musical changes as well as a link included into the menu screen towards a devblog which has still to be opened, so no need to click on it for the moment...  ^^

 

Download link is the same than previously, for a significantly heavier file (280 Mb): thanks for any input on this pre-demo 

[shadowblack 103]

Some comments:

1) Leather Hap - is that supposed to be "cap" or "hat"? The description suggests the latter

2) Around the time I defeated the Ruins Mimic in the desert I was completely out of healing items (and yes, I did loot every skeleton there was). Right before fighting the Mimic I had: Contrepoison x3, Spirit of Hartshorn x6, Medicinal Herb x8 and Tonic x2. My characters were: Alasran (level 9, 485/1089), Annalys (level 8, 1045/1045 healed by my last potion), Evan (level 9, 832/1344) and Lyvi (level 7, 660/836). I suggest increasing the number of healing items available in that part of the game, or slightly decreasing the power and frequency of enemies

 

No bugs seen. Just some typos here and there.