It has been a long while since an update was posted and I must sincerely apologize for keeping the people who follow the project in the dark.
After lots of behind the scenes drama a number of glaring issues made it clear that we needed to rework the game from the ground up or it would never have a proper chance to evolve into something we could be proud of or confident in the quality of. To this end, we have updated the game to the RPG Maker MV engine and have been hard at work making the mechanics and gameplay better than it ever was before.
Footage of the game prior to public demo release
Here is a list of things we have improved on thanks to this engine update:
- Class Gameplay Overhaul: Classes have much better gameplay flow and are more engaging to play. Each requires a certain approach to make full use of the character's potential.
- Skill Point System: Characters now only gain the majority of their skills through seeking a trainer and gaining skill points to buy new skills from them. A greater variety of skills become available to the Player, allowing them to tailor their characters to a specific style of play that suits them. This system grants far greater sense of progression and rewards doing quests more.
- Death Curse Overhaul: The main gameplay concern of the game, the Death Curse was always flawed in the old XP game. Talking to NPCs felt impossible due to time constraints and limited people from freely exploring. Listening to feedback, we made several major changes:
- More Sanctuary Areas: Besides Hanaru, more areas are considered 'safe' from the Death Curse and allow the Player to relax. Unlocking these areas also allows quick travel to these points, making future trips to their respective areas quicker.
- Pause Button: While the Main Menu works this way too, it was observed that people wouldn't think about this when they needed to go afk or were distracted, so a Pause Button [P] Key was added that pauses all game functions and lets the Player have more agency.
- Start/Pause/Stop Functionality: Conversations with NPCs will now pause or even reset the Death Curse depending on their importance level or length. The timer will always reset when dialogue leads into a battle. This functionality was also used to make the Pause Button possible.
- Future Plans: There are ideas to create skills that increase the timer in battle, among other similar ideas to boost the Timer. These ideas are still early stage and will eventually be tested.
- Improved Jumping/Sprinting: These features existed but posed aggravating problems in cutscenes. These have been largely fixed.
- Story Telling Improvements: The overhaul lets us take a second look at the story and find new ways to tell it, lots of new and fundamentally better stories have arisen thanks to this engine.
We've made great progress but we still need feedback and an extra set of eyes to continue improving. The Tech Demo offers a temporary story and a sizable amount of game time, but we're looking to start showing a glimpse of the story proper and even more refined gameplay. Work on the Story Demo is ongoing, but any help you can provide in the form of feedback is greatly appreciated.
Here are some of the new areas coming in future updates and the Story Demo itself, as well as character concept art and enemies you will face even in the present version of the game.
If you would like to try the game out yourself, the present version is live on IndieDB, and we have embedded it in this article for quick access. We hope you all have a great day and hope you enjoy the renovated SR:MT!
