(15+) Sanctaea Chronicles (SRPG Studio, Fully Playable)

>preview a hack

>hack

This is technically an SRPG Studio game and not a hack, but I’m not sure what else to categorize this as.

Hey, Vesly, thanks for giving my game a try. Some thoughts from me:

  • Apparently SRPG Studio games are more sensitive to button mashing than GBAFE hacks, which might explain the large number of text skips you encountered. I strongly recommend playing with a mouse next time, as it makes the experience feel a lot more fluid. If you press Up or scroll upwards with the mouse wheel during dialogue scenes, it’ll bring up a text log that will help you catch up on anything you missed.
  • The Unit Menu tutorial erroneously states that Critical Hits inflict triple damage when in reality they only inflict double damage. My mistake there.
  • I don’t know if you noticed, but all Bows in this game actually have 2-3-Range and not just 2-Range. This makes Bertus very useful for chip damage against enemies, even when he’s getting his Atk halved.
  • In general I’d recommend checking the Unit Menu more often so you can get a better look at units’ Skills and growth rates.
  • I would avoid giving Ferrum too many kills in the future for …reasons. Derrick is pretty worth it, though.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask.

Right you are.

Tried setting up my controller for the SRPG Studio game but couldn’t get it to work so used keyboard. I pressed those keys as lightly as I could! :frowning:

You’re right, I would face less danger that way. I have more fun just winging it, though. I am very surprised that so far in Preview a Hack none of my units have died. (I can’t remember any dying, anyhow.)

Series should be renamed to Preview a Jeigan Massacre Everything.

One of the manliest portraits ever.

I’m a whole month late but there’s just so many things to keep up with on FEU :weary:

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Geez. How long ago has it been? A few months, huh? Well, I guess with FEE3 going on, now would be a good time for a progress report.

I’m not going to be showing Sanctaea Chronicles off at FEE3 this year because I don’t really have anything new to present that isn’t uncomfortably close to endgame. If you’re following the showcase, then please check out Scratchy and Robinco’s projects when they get shown off. Chances are they’ll end up more compelling than my own anyway.

Also, ever since the whole Mangs debacle I’ve been feeling increasingly alienated from the larger Fire Emblem community in addition to the English SRPG Studio community. Simply put, I feel like I’m running out of things to meaningfully contribute besides my own main project. Of course, I still intend to complete it so I can proudly say it didn’t die prematurely and give the SRPG Studio community some more ammo against the engine’s naysayers.

Which brings me to where it is now. As of writing this I’ve finished writing all of the story material save for Aetius’s Support conversations and completed the maps for the Tirna branch of the route split. Hopefully the full story will be playable within this year or next provided school and work don’t prove too much of a burden. Furan, for his part, should be resuming work on the halfbody portraits sometime this month after a major work-related meeting. So look forward to those.

Let’s be honest, his halfbodies are probably the only reason anyone here on FEU gives a damn about this game anyway.

So yeah. Just something to let you guys know I’m not dead. With that, I wish you a good day/night and safe travels.

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Minor update for FEU. The recommended player age for the game has been added in light of the recent content policy updates. There’s not really any content in this game that I would consider objectionable for a younger player to see aside from some occasional coarse language, but nevertheless I thought this would be a good idea to add.

Of course, if any of the powers that be disagree, I’ll gladly update the recommended age if needed.

As for progress on the game itself, all the maps and story stuff are finished, and all it needs now is some additional playtesting and other miscellaneous stuff before I can finally call it fully playable. So get hyped for that.

EDIT: After giving the matter some more thought, I’ve decided to bump the recommended age from 13+ to 15+, just to be safe. There is some content that, while not explicit, might still be at least mildly unsettling to certain players. Overall I’d approximate it being somewhere between GBAFE and Jugdral in terms of the intended age group.

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The Pegasus Riders are finished:



I’ve also finished writing up a new instruction manual for the game. With that done, all I need to do is insert these new halfbodies and complete one last full test run and the game will be fully playable, though fully implementing the halfbody system will have to wait for another release.

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Hey, everyone. I’m proud to announce that v4.0 of Sanctaea Chronicles has finally been released. With this release, the game is now fully playable from beginning to end.

Now, before you get too excited, I still need to make it clear that the game’s presentation is still being worked on, and will continue to be that way for some time. Future releases will gradually phase in the halfbody portrait system I’ve been teasing for a while now, among other things, until they’re all fully implemented. But for those of you who’d rather not wait any longer to experience the full story, you don’t have to anymore.

I hope you enjoy the game. Also, don’t forget to check out the new instruction manual and revamped character popularity poll, which now allows you to select multiple characters at once and leave more detailed comments.

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So apparently some minor issues like the Thief in Chapter 1 not being able to ransack Rosa’s house and a typo in Fatima’s unit description managed to slip through the cracks. I’ll probably do a small bugfix release or something once I hear back from people I already know are playing the game.

In the meantime, I’ve seen fit to add a “planned additions” section to the OP to further clarify that while the game is fully playable, my work on it still isn’t quite finished.

New title screen by Fenreir:

I’d rather not stick with this one as the final title screen, but nevertheless it’s still a major improvement over the bland purple title screen I’ve been using for some time. It’ll do for now until Furan or I can come up with a better or more original concept. Expect to see it in the next release.

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Is there any way to change the controls and window size? it’s like playing a puzzle game but for ants.

Edit: Nvm the mouse has perfect controls. Still curious about window size.

If you go into game.ini, you can change various settings including controls and fullscreen.
Please refer to the instruction manual in the OP for more details.

Ah okay, thank you

My only small gripe so far is that you can’t save or suspend in the middle of the chapters. Otherwise, I’m really enjoying it so far. I’m on the survive/defeat boss chapter (Don’t remember the number)

That would be Chapter 6. Introducing limited mid-chapter saving is something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, but I haven’t been able to get it to work the way I want. However, MarkyJoe recently made me a new plugin that may allow me to implement it properly.

Okay, some updates to the release plans.

My original idea was to release v4.1 with both the planned bugfixes and some new game refinements such as a new soundtrack, improved enemy AI, and changes to Chapters 22-28. However, someone else on Discord reported encountering the custom.rankSkills crash, meaning that I can no longer in good conscience put the bugfixes off much longer.

For those of you on here who likely haven’t encountered it yet, basically what sometimes happens is that the game inexplicably starts crashing on a line of the Weapon Ranks plugin for a feature (Rank Skills) that I’m not even using. It’s very frustrating and near-impossible for me to replicate reliably, so the only solution I can think of for now is getting ahold of a new version of the Weapon Ranks plugins that removes the related code entirely.

So expect a v4.0.1 with just the planned bugfixes and new title screen, and a v4.1 with the game refinements later.

The Shamans’ artwork is done:

Playtesting of v4.0.1 is still in progress, though going slower than I’d like due to numerous school-related obligations.

Also, positions for new map and battle sprite artists are still open for anyone able and willing to take them. More details can be found here:

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v4.0.1 is now available! It fixes several bugs of varying severity found in v4.0 and makes a couple of other minor gameplay tweaks. Your v4.0 save files should be compatible with it, though your Support Log completion will not carry over (this has been the case for several previous versions, but I’ve only now gotten around to noting it).

And when you finish the game, don’t forget to fill out the v4.0+ popularity poll if you haven’t done so already! Thank you.

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Hey, guys. Sorry I’ve gone so long without updating. I have some difficult news to share with you guys regarding the state of Sanctaea Chronicles.

I’ve gotten back in touch with Furan, and to make a long story short, it’s been decided that he will no longer be doing the full capacity of Fateswakening-style halfbody portraits initially planned for the game. His IRL responsibilities right now are simply too great for him to juggle alongside making full expressions for everyone, but more importantly alongside making portraits for generics and NPCs later on down the line.

To bring proper closure to his time doing art for SC, the remaining playable characters will receive halfbodies with default expressions, and that’s it. They will be retained for viewing in the game’s gallery as a bonus feature, but will not be used in any gameplay capacity. Furan will still be co-credited with me as a primary character designer.

As for how I plan to replace the GBAFE-style portraits currently being used in-game, …I don’t know. I really don’t. What would most likely happen is I’d have to make new in-game portraits for everyone myself after getting back in practice with drawing. But that will probably take a very long period of time to accomplish, time that I’ll be having difficulty setting aside when I also have stuff like school and then, when that’s done, adulting to deal with. In addition, my motivation to work on the game in general has basically gone down the crapper now that the only major additions remaining to be made are related to graphics and music, things I have a hard time caring about on my own in comparison to game design and writing.

I guess that’s all I have to say at the moment. I’m sorry if any of you are disappointed by this news, and I understand if you are. Hopefully I’ve still been able to entertain you with my work, which is perhaps the most important thing at the end of the day.

v4.1 of Sanctaea Chronicles is now available! This release introduces weapon/item merging, improved enemy marking, an extra inventory slot for units, and other quality of life enhancements. Your previous v4 save files should be compatible with it, though your Support Log completion will not carry over.

When you finish playing the game, also please fill out the v4.0+ popularity poll if you haven’t done so already.

This will probably be the last release for a while as I continue sorting out the graphics and audio situation and deal with other IRL business. Thank you, and I hope you enjoy.

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