We have a progress update regarding CotH’s next demo as it nears completion. We’re currently working on Chapter 11’s script as well as implementing the new units recruited in that chapter. However, what we really want to show you are these:
The first annual SRPG Studio Game Awards were held earlier today, and we walked away with Community Choice awards for Game of the Year, Demo of the Year, and Best Presentation based on votes from the larger SRPG Studio community. We would not have achieved this milestone without your support, and we wish to thank you once again for it.
If you thought our first demo was impressive, get excited for this next one as it showcases new story developments and further improvements in presentation and gameplay. We continue looking forward to your enjoyment and feedback.
With Chapter 12 completed, Demo 2 of Cycle of the Heavens has now entered its final stretch of testing and polishing. In the meantime, we’d like to give a small taste of the visual improvements you can look forward to, for those of you who haven’t joined our Discord server yet.
Since Demo 1 released last year, new AI tools (particularly Google AI Studio) have become available to us. Simply speaking, these tools are capable of taking images as input and redrawing specific portions to suit our needs. These, combined with Adarya’s usual Photoshop wizardry, have enabled us to put out much nicer-looking portraits than was possible a year ago, with more consistent detailing and fewer errors.
Below are some examples, with the old Demo 1 portraits on the left and the new Demo 2 portraits on the right.
Finally, fan favorite Sirius has had the extraneous hood on his cape removed, received nicer looking star decorations (including the same brooch as his sister), and consistently-colored sleeves.
Be on the lookout for more sneak peeks in the coming days as Demo 2 comes closer to completion!
As for major NPCs, Samson and Gabrielle have been completely redesigned. I’m especially happy with Gabrielle’s new mask, which is far closer to how I’d originally envisioned the character.
Paul’s shirt, pauldrons, and armbands have been redrawn to look more sensible. The front of his shirt has also been opened up to show more of his chest and play up his sex appeal.
The ugly leather flaps on the sides of Barbi’s sleeves have been removed. Her belt and tie have also been redrawn, and she now wears a quiver of arrows on her back like any good archer should.
Finally, Asami’s hair is no longer cropped, and her outfit has been redrawn with new sleeves and a flower print on the front in reference to her late daughter Sakura.
Demo 2 of Cycle of the Heavens is now officially released!
This new version has been in the works for a year and a half and includes many notable changes, including dramatically improved backgrounds as well as improved portraits for most of the playable cast. Not to mention bugfixes and balancing tweaks throughout the pre-existing chapters.
Changelog
General
A new Con system for offsetting weapon weight has been implemented; the formula is Con = (max HP - 15) / 5.
The player can now move back and forth between Bases and playable maps like in Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn.
An Inventory option has been added to the Manage menu, which functions similarly to the Convoy option, but includes weapons and items held by other units.
The Manage menu now displays characters in 3 columns instead of two.
A Help Log has been added to the map commands, which contains info about in-depth game mechanics not explained through in-game tutorials.
Several songs now loop properly.
Certain menu commands have been reordered more intuitively.
The BEXP formula has been changed so that BEXP costs per 1 point of real EXP are rounded down to maintain consistent costs regardless of whether the player gives a unit BEXP in multiple increments or all at once.
BEXP Level Ups now give 4 parameter points apiece instead of 3 points.
All scenes of characters whispering are now rendered in gray text instead of being marked with visible whispering onomatopoeia.
The game now confirms whether the player wants to exit the game if they press the Escape key.
Classes
The class type system has been overhauled to properly split class types into movement type and class property.
All classes have had their HP caps raised by 20 to match SRPG Studio Heroes.
All classes capable of wielding fire, thunder, or wind magic can now wield all three at once like in Thracia 776 and Path of Radiance.
Mounted classes no longer receive Hit penalties when wielding throwing or Heavy weapons, but can now only use half their leftover Mov after performing an action.
The Mage and Dark Priest classes have had their portraits completely replaced.
Refer to the class spreadsheet for new info about class stats.
Characters
Most characters have received an updated and/or expanded selection of halfbody portraits.
Characters now have different expressions when they Level Up depending on how many stat points they gain.
All unrecruitable boss enemies have received custom palettes.
Refer to the character spreadsheet for new info about character stats.
Weapons & Items
All weapons have been rebalanced around the new Con system in some capacity.
Slim weapons have been expanded into a larger family of Light Weapons including Smallswords, Hasta, Splitters, and Shortbows, each with their own Iron, Steel, and Silver variants. Non-Dagger Knives have also been placed in this weapon category.
Heavy Weapons (Blades, Greatlances, Labryes) no longer force the user to attack last in battle and can now follow up.
Merciful weapons are now known as Pressure weapons and reduce the target’s HP by fixed percentages.
Anti-Dragon weapons (Wyrmslayer, Dragonpike, Dragon Axe) have been added to the game; they use the graphics originally used by anti-Beast weapons.
Blessed weapons have received new graphics.
The Zanbato has received new graphics.
The Regal Sword has been added to the game as a personal weapon for Selenea.
The Ridersbane has been renamed the Beast Killer and received new graphics.
The Butcher Axe has been renamed the Poleax and uses the graphics originally used by the Swordreaver, which has received new graphics.
The Hatchet has been renamed the Wolf Beil.
The Athame Dagger has been renamed the Occult Dagger.
The Cupid’s Bow has been renamed the Shining Bow and its damage animations have had the sparkle effect placed closer to the ground.
Imbued weapons (Gale Sword, Flame Lance, Bolt Axe, Occult Dagger, Shining Bow) have had their Mt lowered and cast weaker spells, but now give Mag +5 when equipped.
To compensate for the increased accessibility of anima magic, its Reaver tomes have been removed from the game and the high-Critical Razor tome has been replaced by the one-way Freeze tome.
Door & Chest Keys are now available for purchase from all Vendors.
Skills
The Guard class Skill used by Armored classes can now be used by enemy and ally NPCs.
Refer to the character spreadsheet for new info about characters’ personal Skills.
Refer to the Skill spreadsheet for new info about all other Skills.
Chapters
In general, most enemies have had their weapons changed to balance them around the new Con system.
Most of the backgrounds including all battle backgrounds have been updated.
Tutorial cards and other hints have been placed throughout the game to help inexperienced players learn how to play.
Fades to black at the end of every chapter have been updated to be more consistent.
Shop inventories have been updated for more consistent availability of weapons belonging to the same family (i.e. Anti-Cavalry, Killer, etc.)
Prologue
Selenea, Sirius, Frances, and James have all been removed from the internal starting party to prevent their Support data from displaying too early.
Samson does not become an enemy unit until Ally Phase, meaning he will never ambush the player. His Explosion tome has been replaced with a Lightning tome, and his Seal Resistance Skill has been replaced with Immune Status and Armsthrift+.
A bug that caused Stella to spawn on top of Sirius upon reloading a save file has been fixed.
Cursor focus noises have been added where they were originally missing.
Selenea now gives Stella a Heal staff before the twins fight Samson.
The BEXP turn limit has been extended by 3 turns.
Chapter 1
The enemy Outlaws have been replaced with Hunters.
Gabrielle is now a Shadow wielding a Blessed Knife and a Death tome. She has also had her Level and stats reduced, as well as Lethality and Knifefaire replaced with Critical Avoid +10 and Seal Luck.
The ally Cavaliers and Heavy Cavaliers who show up to intercept Gabrielle are now Great Knights.
Odette now flies closer to the bottom of the mountain where the player is expected to be after emerging from Celes Castle.
Attempting to have a unit escape while carrying another unit will cause the former to drop the latter before exiting the map. This also applies to Chapter 7.
Chapter 2
The map has been extended down two rows.
An oversight that caused the Houses to not properly change graphics when visited has been fixed. This also applies to Chapter 4.
The player receives 5000 more G at the end.
Chapter 3
Asami’s involvement in Trixie’s kidnapping has been rewritten to make a little more narrative sense.
Chapter 4
The line in the opening narration implying Giselle to have romantic interests in her brother has been removed.
Jarvis now drops 10000 G when defeated.
Chapter 5
The enemy Thieves have been replaced with Ninjas.
Most of the enemy Dark Mages have been replaced with Dark Priests.
Maurice and Ibrahim no longer use their Herbs as enemies.
Franz has had Seal Movement replaced with a new personal Skill called Conqueror’s Charge.
Sophia has had Counter and Power Heal replaced with a new personal Skill called Disarming Voice.
Miriam has had Darkfaire and Death Blow replaced with a new personal Skill called Envious Lash.
The BEXP turn limit has been extended by 2 turns.
Chapter 6
An oversight that prevented terrain bonus-dependent Skills from recognizing terrain bonuses has been fixed.
The Iron Blade in the bottom-left chest has been replaced with a Master Seal.
The BEXP turn limit has been extended by 1 turn.
Edmond and Isaac no longer use their healing items as enemies.
Chapter 7
The enemy Dark Mage who spawns during the pre-battle cutscene is now a Dark Priest.
One of the enemy Outlaws in Chapter 7 has been moved down a space so that Phillip can more easily Canter out of danger with less Mov left over.
Clyde has had his Bow Rank lowered from S to A and his G drop doubled.
The BEXP turn limit has been extended by 1 turn.
The new download link can be found in the original post. And while you’re at it, don’t forget to…
For all the latest updates on the game’s development!
We hope you enjoy this new demo as much as we enjoyed making it.
Hello again. An emergency bugfix has been released which fixes an issue that prevents players from skipping anything. If you’ve already downloaded the game, hold onto your save files and let us know if you continue to experience issues with skipping.
We apologize deeply for the inconvenience and hope to ensure a great playing experience for everyone.
We’ve released an update to Demo 2 in response to several players struggling with Chapter 1. Here’s the full changelog:
Fullscreen can now be toggled on and off from the Config menu.
The Poison Ailment now inflicts Str/Mag/Dex/Spd/Def/Res -1 while in effect in addition to non-lethal damage every turn, making Venin weapons more useful against enemies.
A second wave of ally reinforcements has been added to Chapter 1 to keep Gabrielle distracted longer, and the turn limit for BEXP has been completely removed.
Dennis, the boss of Chapter 3, has had his Mag and Spd lowered slightly to accommodate changes to the Occult Dagger’s stats.
One of the enemy Ninjas in Chapter 5 now wields a Venin Knife, and a typo in the objective display at the beginning of the map has been fixed.
Two Mage/Sage characters have had their custom palettes updated to reflect the swap of their Fire and Wind proficiencies.
Refer to the updated character and weapon/item data spreadsheets for in-depth changes.
Your existing Demo 2 save files should be compatible with this new bugfix release, though certain changes may not be reflected in your playthrough depending on how far into the game you are.
In any case, we thank you for supporting us, and hope you continue to enjoy the game.
Adarya told me about another new AI image editing tool called Nano Banana that came out recently, and we’ve quickly started to have fun with it. I myself did a little experiment with it to test its capabilities.
This fullbody image of Selenea was genned with Nano Banana after feeding her existing in-game halfbody into the tool and giving it an appropriate prompt. GIMP was used to recolor her boots from red to brown and make the background transparent. Consider this her official fullbody render for now.
(I’d also recolored her thighs black to give her leggings, but Adarya vetoed that.)
From there, the fullbody was fed back into Nano Banana and used to gen these two images of Selenea posing with a rapier, with remarkable consistency and only minor flaws.
So far I’m pretty impressed with this tool and hope to use it as our go-to image generator for things like CGs and other promotional images using the method described above. These fullbodies will also make helpful references for anyone who wants to draw CotH fanart for whatever reason (LOL).
Hello again, everyone. We’ve released another small update to Demo 2. This is a cosmetic update that replaces several playable characters and a few NPCs’ portraits with new and improved ones generated with Gemini 2.5 Flash.
The portrait updates in question:
Your previous save files should be compatible with this new version of Demo 2, as no gameplay changes have been made.
We’ve also released a character popularity poll for players who have completed Demo 2, which can be found here. Do bear in mind that it contains major spoilers for the story so far.
That’s about everything for now. Keep your eyes peeled for a new trailer soon, featuring special promotional images of the cast!
Out of curiosity, when this game nears an official full release (presumably on Steam), will you be retaining the AI portraits, or will they be replaced with artist renditions of the characters?
That aside, trailer looks hype, I’m excited to try this project.
As far as I am aware, Adarya is not currently planning on replacing the AI portraits in the foreseeable future. For this reason, a Steam release is not planned. The finished game will be 100% free like any other ROM hack.
Good morning. We have a bit of a progress update for you all.
As of this writing, the story outline for Cycle of the Heavens is now complete, save for the epilogue. Hopefully this should help expedite the creation of the remaining chapters a little more.
The game is currently planned to be 29 chapters long (Prologue + 23 numbered chapters + 4 side chapters + Endgame) with precisely 50 playable characters, putting it slightly below SD&BL and Thracia’s cast sizes. This definitively puts the game at halfway finished, for any of you who may have been unsure about the game’s size.
That’s all for now. We hope you enjoy the holidays.
First things first, the second and final Interlude has been completed, concluding one of the game’s major story arcs and officially putting it past the two-thirds completion milestone. (Just in time for me to start my new job too… )
In addition, Selenea and the twins have received further updates to their designs.
Stella has had the misshapen cuffs on her sleeves removed, and her hair and tiara have been redone. Additionally, her cape has been redesigned to incorporate embroidery of Teleris’s national symbol, the four-star.
Sirius’s redesign is the most drastic of all, with the goal of better fitting the “light & dark” dynamic he has going on with Stella. His haircut is neater and more rounded than it was before, and he too has had a Telerian four-star incorporated into his design, in this case his belt buckle.
Last, but certainly not least, we’ve been gradually transitioning to Nano Banana 2 for producing CG backgrounds and other images for promotional use, including this 4K background which we’re using for our new title screen.
That’s pretty much it for now. If you’re still interested in the project, remember to join our Discord server for exclusive progress updates and character images! Thanks, and have a great day.
Demo 3 of Cycle of the Heavens is now officially released!
This new version expands the playable game to 20 playable chapters and includes more visual and game fixes to pre-existing characters and chapters.
Changelog
General
Save files are now properly partitioned into normal and battle saves, reducing the likelihood of accidental save overwrites.
Volume settings in the Config menu are now adjusted via sliders instead of fixed 25% increments.
The kingdom of Kypra has been removed from both the normal and flashback maps of Avra. Its territory has been merged into Mezel’s.
Halfbody portraits have been updated across the board, from playable characters to minor NPCs and even generics.
A bug that prevented units from properly swapping spaces during Battle Preparations if the player changed their unit selection, saved, and reloaded their save file has been fixed.
A bug that caused enemy range markings to not reset immediately upon reloading a battle prep save file has been fixed.
Shopping can now be done to/from individual unit inventories rather than the Convoy. Purchased items are sent to the Convoy if a unit’s inventory is full.
An issue that prevented a message from displaying when a unit learns a new Skill has been fixed. Note that the Skill learning message will not display if animations are skipped.
The EXP formula has been revised so that unpromoted enemies at Level 15 or higher give more EXP when defeated by promoted units.
Aid growth rates (which are 0% for everyone anyway) are no longer visible on the Unit Menu.
Classes and their Skills
The Elbow Room Skill learned by Cavaliers now works on flier-only terrain.
The female-targeting and male-targeting variants of the Person of Interest Skill learned by Troubadours are now properly distinguished from one another under the names Gentilhomme and Demoiselle, respectively.
Dancers are now a non-promoting special class.
Ballisticians have been added to the game as a non-promoting special class.
The Swordmaster class’s melee Critical Hit animation has been shortened.
The Sol Skill learned by Heroes has had its description adjusted to be more consistent with that of the Nosferatu tome.
All Rally Skills now give the user 5 EXP when used.
The Rogue class has had its Critical bonus replaced with a C Rank in Swords, and an animation error that caused its class’s hair and accessories to freeze in midair while casting magic with magic weapons has been fixed.
The Lethality Skill learned by Merry Men has had its activation rate increased from (Dex / 4)% to (Dex / 2)%.
Weapons and Items
The Bind Ailment and its associated staff (Bind staff) and curative item (Muscle Rub) have been added to the game. Bind functions similarly to Silence, but prevents the afflicted from using physical attacks instead of magic.
Pressure weapons have been removed from the game and replaced with Master weapons (Master Edge, Master Spear, Master Hawk) similar to the ones featured in Thracia 776.
Enemy G drops now properly display as droppable items.
Refer to the Weapon/Item spreadsheet for detailed information about weapons and items.
Playable Characters and their Personal Skills
Paul’s portraits have been updated, and a bug with his personal Skill which causes it to affect adult teammates or female teammates rather than teammates who are both adult and female has been fixed.
Asami now uses an angry expression for her 0-1 point Level Up message, and her and Abdul’s unit descriptions have been changed to remove scrapped characterization elements.
Howard’s portraits have been updated.
An oversight that prevented Michel from receiving Support bonuses from Nichol and Barbi has been fixed.
Gertrude’s Dancer palette has been updated to match her new design.
Emily now uses angry expressions for her 0-1 point and 2-3 point Level Up messages, and her Swordmaster palettes have received some slight color adjustments.
Tatyana’s Barbarian and Warrior palettes have been updated to match her new design.
All of Donna and Nurbanu’s class palettes have been updated to match their new designs.
Refer to the Character spreadsheet for detailed information about unit stats.
Chapters
The reward for clearing Chapter 2 has been increased to 20000 G.
The “bandits” said to have killed Asami’s husband and daughter in Chapter 3 are now pirates.
The bonuses Paul and George receive from their Base conversation in Chapter 5 have been swapped to better distinguish the two as units.
The Wyvern Rider miniboss in Chapter 5 now wields a Steel Greatlance.
The generic Troubadour NPC in Chapter 6’s pre-Base cutscene has been replaced by Yusuf, Mehmed’s vizier.
The left chest in the bottom-left corner room in Chapter 6 now contains a Silver Labrys, and the droppable Chest Key has been moved to an enemy Mage on the path to reach Isaac.
The enemy weapon drop in Chapter 6x has been changed to a Heavy Spear.
The objective display at the beginning of Chapter 7 now correctly reads “Have everyone escape”.
The BEXP rewards in Chapter 8 have been adjusted so that the 20000 G dropped by the boss is counted as treasure and thus part of the rewards.
The droppable Javelin in Chapter 8 has been moved to the correct enemy.
A certain boss who appears partway through Chapter 8 to chase you now uses Beauty is a Mad Mistress as his battle music.
Portrait display errors during Interlude 1’s map narration and Chapter 9’s pre-Base cutscene have been fixed.
Khizr’s G drop in Chapter 9 has been decreased to 25000 G.
With the exception of the Burglar/Looter Thieves, the enemy reinforcements in Chapters 9, 10, and 12 can now be blocked.
A second Base conversation between Paul & Ada has been added to Chapter 10.
An oversight in Chapter 10’s Base that allowed the player to buy infinite Occult Daggers has been fixed.
One of the chests in Chapter 10-1 now contains a Lancereaver.
The Dark Priest miniboss in Chapter 10-1 now wields a Bind staff which she drops when defeated.
The siege tome Sages in Chapter 10-2 have been replaced with Ballisticians, and the dialogue in the chapter has been updated accordingly.
The left chest in the bottom-right corner room in Chapter 12 now contains a Master Spear.
The new download link can be found in the original post. As always, don’t forget to…
For all the latest updates on the game’s development!
We hope you enjoy this new demo as much as we enjoyed making it.
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