Hi, been having fun with your hack. But ran into a problem: I’m at chapter 19 right now, the one with the escape wincon and the merchants everywhere, and whenever I try to move a unit, the game gets stuck there. Any way to fix it?
Hey bluedoom, thanks for playing Illuminated and I’m glad you’ve enjoyed it so far.
I just looked into Chapter 19 and the escape event got really screwed up somehow causing that crash. I’ve fixed this and I’ve updated the OP with a new patch, 3.9.0.2.
For those playing, you will need to update to this patch in order to play and progress past Chapter 19. Sorry for the inconvenience!
Edit: Small update, new patch has been uploaded due to a graphical issue in the prologue that makes Jay’s promotion blow up (not game breaking, just confusing). This has now been fixed in the OP and the up to date patch is 3.9.0.3.
Late response but thank you, I haven’t played the hack in a bit so I forgot the chapter but I’m around the part where Jay can’t fight due to the story and the rest of the party is escaping in a forest. When I play again I’ll look around for it.
Hey everyone, quick devblogish update.
I have finished all of the writing for the final chapter in the beta (a shop chapter) and I’ve updated the OP with the newest patch. The game will now allow you to save after the S-5, the shop chapter, and will give you a notice at the beginning of Chapter 24 that there is no more content available in the current beta.
Development on the remaining chapters is going decently. Now that a large brick of writing is done on the shop chapter, Chapters 24 and 24x will be more gameplay focused and a fair amount of work has gone in already in this regard. Chapter 25 has seen some gameplay work in it but it is still in early stages. I will likely release the next patch when these three chapters are finished, though I do not have a timeline as to when. Still aiming to try and finish Illuminated by FEE3, however.
Lastly, I’ll leave a photo or two because photos are more fun to look at than words. Thanks for reading!
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Super excited about this one. Been following for awhile now and just wanted to say keep up the good work!
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It is a fantastic hack, from what I have seen so far (I’m only in chapter 5).
I like the story and the characters, the map designs, especially the different colors, love the interludes between chapters, the small roster.
And the UI design is top notch! Keep it up, this will be great when finished!
Are there any gaidens in the hack? I don’t want to miss these 
Chapter 4
This enemy soldier, it looks like an axe map sprite, shouldn’t it be sword?
Chapter 5
Small typo?
Hey thanks Cath, I appreciate the kind words! Glad you’re finding the game fun and the story engaging. To answer your question, there is only one gaiden in the game, and while you certainly can miss it, the gaiden is not in the current beta. It will be available in the next beta, so you will hit every possible chapter just by playing naturally.
As for your spoilers, for the Chapter 4 one, brute knights can use both swords and axes and I elected to give them the axe map sprite because it was easier to tell from the sword (in my opinion). Field knights can use both lances and bows. For the Chapter 5 one, good catch on the typo, thanks!
@TheSuzakuSeven Thanks for the encouragement and glad to have you keeping up with Illuminated!
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The more I play this I love the music tracks, and where you put these into the different scenes!
Chapter 7
Small issue with the line break in the description
Chapter 8
It seems that sometimes Lana cannot steal items (this was a vulnerary, i think)
Seeing that it’s a thief, someone that can steal, isn’t able to steal if the enemy’s speed is higher than yours. But of course, I don’t know if the speed on the thief is for sure higher
Ahh, i didn’t think of the speed thing, this could have been the reason…
Tyler is correct. In all likelihood, that thief was faster than Lana and she didn’t have the speed to steal back. For the Light Rune text error, thanks for reporting! I’ll fix that now.
Glad you’re enjoying the music tracks! Definitely have some of my favorite games’ tracks represented in Illuminated!
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Few updates today! One of which I am very, very excited to announce!
First, for the headliner, with some absolutely god-tier hack work from @Vesly, Illuminated now has Timed Hits! Check out some quick gifs below, or if you would be interested in trying it out, click here! Note that this build is not the same as the one found in the OP as it is still an experimental build. Once I have a few confirmations that things are playing properly beyond my own playtesting, I’ll update the OP.
With this system, pressing the A button just before an outgoing attack lands will deal bonus damage. Just as well, pressing the A button just before being struck by an incoming attack will negate some damage. For a table of how this works, consider the following:
Intended Damage → Damage Bonus/Reduction
0-4 → No Damage Bonus/Reduction
5-14 → +/- 1
15-24 → +/- 2
25-34 → +/- 3
35-44 → +/- 4
etc.
Also, I want to be very clear about this change: This system is NOT necessary to interact with. Illuminated was already balanced around not having this feature, so to me, this is just a very fun and new way to interact with the game. Bonus/Reduced damage cannot happen with battle animations set to off either, so if you do not feel like using it, don’t bother!
Secondly, I’ve added a bit to the title screen to make it a bit flashier!
Lastly, previously in the hack, there is a notification about how to unlock Mercenary Mode. I’ve gone back and expanded upon this so that now, either at the beginning of Chapter 24 or when starting the prologue, using this button combination will take you to the chapter where NG+ features can be added (including Mercenary Mode). So while the hack is not finished just yet, you can work your way to trying out some of the NG+ features early. I don’t want to hand out the “code” just yet, but if you’re curious to try and don’t want to play through the game to figure it out, feel free to either PM me or visit the discord and I’m happy to oblige. Here is a sneak peak of one such NG+ addition:
With that, development continues! Once again, I can’t sing the praises of Vesly enough for creating such an awesome, awesome feature that I always dreamed about having in Illuminated. Work will now get back to chapter development, hoping to make some good headway on it soon.
Thanks for reading, until next time!
Edit: I have had some playtesting reports that the timing window in the patch above is too tight. I am going to leave this additional patch here which doubles the timing window for timed hits for anyone that is struggling.
Second Edit: I’ve updated the OP so that when going to download any of the three patches (base, TimedHits, Expanded Timed Hits), all three of these patches are available. I’ve updated the links here so that they redirect to this folder as well.
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This all looks super well made. Should I try it now or wait till the next patch?
Hey @TheAtlas , I think now is a good time to jump into Illuminated if you are interested. All of the content up to Chapter 24 is pretty fleshed out and I probably won’t be dropping another patch for a while. Thanks for the compliment and hope it goes well for you!
What a wonderful writing in chapter S-1, top notch! Especially Lana & Clinton. I really like the way how you make her dialect audible as text, that’s so rare, and probably so hard to write, very well done!
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So question, does this mean there will be no written supports in the main game itself outside of mercenary mode?
Correct, there are no plans for supports in the game at the moment. Even for mercenary mode, I wasn’t planning on writing supports for these either. Moreso using them for the stat benefits they give to the mercs (who stat wise are just behind the main cast).
Just wanted to say that Illuminated has some bangers with the music/bgms. I’m still early in the hack but hearing FF13’s Blinded by Light at the end of Ch6 hyped me up.
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Glad you’re liking the music! I think there are 4-5 tracks from FF13 alone… I’m a big fan of the FF series music!
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Hey everyone, happy 4th of July for all the Americans out there!
Today also happens to be patch day. With this patch (4.0.0.0), I’ve added Chapter 24 and 24x in their entirety amidst a slew of other small tweaks to the game. As it was in the past, you will find two patches in the dropbox folder… One containing the game without Timed Hits and one with Timed Hits. Both should be fully operational.
On a personal development note, Chapter 24 was meant to be a bit of a filler chapter between the events preceding it and the final three chapters of the game… Until it wasn’t. The end events in 24 now have a lot of good setup for the events that will be happening soon after. In truth, Illuminated might be better served having an extra chapter in these final few chapters before completion, but due to limited space left in the ROM, I’m just trying to squeeze everything I can into the chapters I have mapped out
24x is a unique chapter and is the only gaiden in the game. It is a gaiden that IS missable and has a few things that are required in order to unlock it. I may make a guide at some point that has all of the various secrets in Illuminated, including unlocking this chapter. But for some mildish spoilers, the chapter is entirely based around one of my favorite battles from one of my favorite games of all time, Super Mario RPG… And just like in that game, you’ll need a certain item to unlock the door.
Here are some screenies from Chapter 24 which incorporates enemies with very powerful poison and berry trees that offer you ways to cure yourself of it:
3 Chapters to go. Still looking a good deal out to release the full version of Illuminated, and in an ideal world, shooting for a rough estimate of November. That would put me at 6 years from the start of development and it’s certainly been a crazy ride.
Happy holidays, thanks for reading!
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