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Thanks for the report! I looked into it and this is happening because Hati is adjacent to Femi. If you attack that enemy with Hati from a different position everything should be fine. I’ll release a new patch later this week that will fix this bug among others. For now, just avoid having Hati fight next to Femi, sorry about that!
Round two. This time I played on Normal mode.
Gameplay
As far as I can tell significant changes have been made since the previous version/ time I played. There are more charging enemies in each map, which makes the maps more enjoyable to play: not only do you not have the pleasure of baiting enemies, but also regardless of who you bring with you to each map, every unit contributes in some way. The lack of charging enemies was something I criticized in the earlier version, so it was nice seeing it being addressed.
I did not use the kitchen all that much mostly until the later chapters. I learned on the Discord server that you can cook ingredients on their own; I assumed I always needed 2 ingredients to make a meal, and as a result made several Mistakes instead. With that said, I like how you can’t quite literally feed stat boosts to a unit: each unit can eat only one meal. Even so, the kitchen is far from useless, but at the same time not centralizing to the point where you actively hinder yourself by not cooking. I’d say food buffs are in a good place at the moment. When it comes to the kitchen, it might be a good idea to make some basic recipes available to the player.
I was surprised to find out there was no additional cost to forging weapons aside from the material(s). While obtaining rare weapons is currently locked exclusively to forging, you get a decent amount of materials throughout the game, especially for Master weapons. What I like about the forging system is that it allows players to further customize units they like using. Maybe you have several lance-users in your team, so you’re more inclined to craft Master Lances, or perhaps you crafted the Darkarrow for your Sniper specifically (like I did). Given how good these weapons are, forging currently feels almost too easy. Maybe in addition to the materials you’d also need some of the weapons the market sells? So instead of material = a new weapon, it’d be material + (basic) weapon and/or an additional cost = a new weapon.
Chapters
I don’t remember if the boss in Prologue used to have his defense buffed in the previous version, but this time around it was much more noticeable for me personally at least. Cesar is the only unit at the time who can actually deal any damage on the boss, and even then it’s measly 2. Needless to say, this makes defeating the boss unnecessarily bothersome.
I liked the new chapter 4. While the green units can hold their ground, you can’t just turtle and expect them to do all the heavy lifting. I think it’s a good idea to have enemies with effective / advantageous weapons, such as the Lancereaver guy attacking Sanite. The Master Bow guy is a bit sneaky though, but definitely works as means to make the player hurry up. The boss moves, which is a huge plus.
For me the new Pierre chapter was a difficulty bump, but I don’t know if that’s because I always managed to overlook an enemy somewhere or if the enemies actually got much scarier. Either way, I feel like the new layout and starting positions worked for the better for this map. There was practically no empty turns between capturing the buildings and defeating the boss. There also was a warning for the strong reinforcements, which I appreciate. I also noticed that this time around in chapter 8 I was warned of the mages too.
Is Francois not supposed to move in chapter 9? I remember him moving in the previous version. I’d be fine with this change, were it not for the fact that he can’t attack in 1 range, and he is accompanied by two Bow Paladins who also do not move. The problem here is that all three of them are sitting ducks. Even if Francois wouldn’t be able to attack in 1 range, there should be some enemies nearby that can. Last time I played this map I remember the water getting drained, but this time around I got locked in to the lower part of the map with the ground turning to cinders. I like how instead of your typical fire traps there are now terrain penalties instead that apply to both your and enemy units. Also, why is the path from the boat to Hildegard blocked?
I already mentioned this on the Discord server, but having a minimug box where stats, including the debuffs, are visible would’ve been really handy for 9x. I did not like this map much at all. Relying on debuffs means you have to constantly calculate enemy stats, so having a quick and easy way to view them would make that aspect much more tolerable. Even with debuffs, there were times my units got quadrupled and/or one-shot. The Mani also gets its damage increased by debuffs, so having an easy way to calculate what debuffs I need to inflict for Strega to get the kill would’ve been appreciated. I don’t know if it was alluded anywhere (and maybe it’s obvious), but it took me a moment to realize the reinforcements won’t stop until the boss is defeated. This means your best course of action is to rush the boss asap, at which point the map might as well be Defeat Boss map.
Lastly, Delilah’s ice spell that freezes the enemy is a tad bit misleading. The description says it stops enemies from moving for 2 turns. However, enemies are stopped for 2 Player phases but only 1 Enemy phase. What this means is that on your second turn, enemies are displayed as if they’re stationary, but on the second Enemy phase they now regain their ability to move (and they will move!) so on top of calcing debuffs you now have to manually count enemy movement and attack ranges for a turn as well - if you didn’t, you’re basically forced to restart. How would you have known the enemy gets to move on their second turn?
Chapter 11 (the one with the wagons) was also among the more challenging chapters for me, but like with Chapter 5, it was for the right reasons - well, aside from a one small thing, anyway. While there are several status staves on the enemy side, the player is given several tools for combating them: Persephone’s personal skill, Restore staff, as well as Mitzi’s Guts skill. You can also attack the troubadours from 2-3 range depending on your position. The wagons also move in a fairly predictable manner, so keeping them safe is much more dependent on the player than RNG or luck.
Now, what I did find to be a bit under-handed was the boss teleporting to the escape area. Is it reasonable to expect the player to see that coming? I think it’d be better if the boss started moving, so on the front you’d have enemies coming from the forts, and behind you would be enemies coming from the forts on the right hand side, as well as the boss. This way instead of the player getting screwed over by something they couldn’t have known, they’d have to quickly react before getting trapped by a pincer attack. What’s more, I engaged the boss in combat the previous turn before they teleported, but after that trick the boss was back on full HP. If it wasn’t for a critical hit one-shot kill from Lakshmi, I probably would have had to reset the map so close to clearing it.
Aside from the boss shenanigans, this map was very enjoyable. Reinforcements keep you on your toes, but at the same time you have to keep steady pace or the wagons might enter the attack range of other enemies.
Now chapter 12 I found interesting not just for its gameplay, but also for its objective. The fact that the promoted enemies each have different drops means the player has to make decisions based on what they want: skills scrolls for more strategical variety, gems for funds or maybe a bit of both? Or maybe you just kill them as you reach them. I didn’t kill the boss, but I’d imagine there is a way with the Barrier and Physic staves. If you succeed, you get a really rare weapon, so there is an incentive to try beyond “if you really want to”. This chapter is top-notch gameplay-wise, and has an interesting objective that even leaves space for replayability, what more can you ask?
Reaching and defeating the boss in chapter 14 wasn’t the challenge, for me it was killing the berserker with Parity scroll within the turn limit. He wields a Killer Axe, so I didn’t want to take any unnecessary risks so far in the map. Also the way I split my army might have something to do with it. I think the enemy wagons are not too hard to stop from reaching the dam. If anything, it’s not really a thing aside from the few first ones in my experience, and even those can be killed in time. Maybe the lower party should have their starting positions split in two, each on one side of the river, and the wagon spawn locations changed so that you’d have to actively chase them instead of them appearing right next to you? The idea here is that there would be wagons on both sides reaching the dam simultaneously.
The Squad
These were the units I used this time around. There are some others I used but eventually benched, like Ramon and Eduardo.
I used a Dracoshield on Valentina, so in conjunction with Heavy Blade (I think it was callled?) she’d get charges for Solar Flare pretty much each turn.
I considered promoting Dayo, but the man is a beast as is, so in the end I decided he really didn’t need to promote - and I was right.
Evelia is surprisingly fast, she doubles some enemies even with Halberd. After promotion, her combat is solid from the get-go, at times she has a bit shaky hit rates, however.
Idowu just tagged along every now and then as another healer. There’s not much to it, but he’s good at what he does.
Instead of Dayo, I promoted Lakshmi. The extra attack range allowed me to snipe some enemies from a distance, so that was fun. Promotion also added much needed extra oomph to her combat, meaning she could now one-round non-flying enemies and even one-shot at times, especially with the Darkarrow. I think that worked well in tandem with her increased attack range.
Mitzi was really fun to use. It didn’t take long for her to kill enemies with a single hit or in one round. I gave her a Master Axe as well as Mackenzie’s Steel Poleaxe.
I have newfound appreciation for Gabriel. As long as he didn’t get doubled, he’s surprisingly bulky. Like some of the other units I used, Gabriel too landed the occasional one hit kill without the effective damage, like against Mages or Spies.
Salvador has high Speed, but his low Con can get in the way, not to mention his damage output can be lacking at times. Without his Lunatic mode boosts, he is less dominating. The same would apply to Ramon.
Ojala is incredibly good. She doubles pretty much anything, and with Technician(?) boost her damage output is insane. Hunter’s Volley is a nice skill to have, but in my experience it’s best used for killing bosses.
I managed to recruit Reese this time, but her low Strength did her no favors and she started to fall off pretty quickly because of it. Alchemist Blade somewhat remedied the issue, but there were times where even that wasn’t enough.
Typos
Here are some typos I came across while playing the game.
It should be “mien”.
“her sobbing”, maybe?
It feels like there are some words missing here.
In conclusion
Engaging gameplay, the variety of map objectives and the customization aspects like managing skills and forging weapons makes this game my favorite project thus far. While there are things I don’t like, disagree with or think that need to be revised, there is so much to be liked about this project, and at least in my experience it is evident that you take note of suggestions and critique alike.
I eagerly wait for what’s to come.
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Thanks for playing through the game again, Zarg! I’m glad you enjoyed it so much.
Chapter Stuff
Did you start playing with the initial release? There was an issue in that version where the Holy Dagger wasn’t droppable, so you couldn’t use it to remove the defense buff on the boss. It might be worth calling attention to the unit carrying it via an extra line of dialogue somewhere regardless, since trying to beat the boss without removing the buff is definitely a slog.
The way chapter 9 works is that depending on how you split your units, 2 things can happen. If you send more units towards the top of the map to take Francois, you’ll get the fire trap. If you send more units towards the bottom to fight Hildegard, the water will drain and Francois and his paladin allies will charge at you. I could look into either having Francois charge no matter what or having some other units be near his starting position that can cover for his lack of 1 range.
Do you mean the plank from Hildegard’s platform to the boat? Because that shouldn’t be blocked. Or do you mean why the path across the boat is blocked by barrels and the masts? In that case, it’s like that so that the Brigands target their intended houses. If those barrels weren’t there, both brigands might go for the same house.
The reinforcements actually stop spawning on turn 7, and on turn 10 the boss and his two adjacent allies will begin to move. I will definitely look into adding visible stats and debuffs on the minimug box, and I agree that Delilah’s ice spell is misleading. The way it works right now is a quirk of how LT handles timed statuses, I’ll have to think of a way to make it work smoother. I was unsure about how 9x would be received, so I really appreciate the feedback on it!
Fair. I honestly should have thought of that before. The rationale behind her teleportation was that the player would probably be far enough away from her new position for it not to matter, but I can see now that only fits with the way I was playing the chapter in playtesting. I think your idea to have her start moving instead of teleporting is the most elegant solution.
I agree the wagons in chapter 14 aren’t much of a threat; I think a different map layout would definitely alleviate the issue. I planned to resize chapter 14 anyway for whenever the next batch of new chapters comes out (I feel it’s much too big as is), so it’ll be easy to try out a new layout while I’m at it.
Chapter 13 will also be resized and redone somewhat, since it’s very big as well and as Chaz pointed out it’s pretty dull at the moment.
Thanks for the detailed feedback, it’s much appreciated! Always nice to see someone using Dayo.
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Hey guys, version 0.2.14.3 is live. It’s mostly a bug and typo fix update, but it does come with one spicy new feature:
Updated UI elements! It’s nothing fancy really, but it gives the game a unique look. The minimug box got overhauled completely. It now shows you the whole inventory of the unit, their attack, attackspeed, defense, and resistance, and also the current amount each of those stats is raised/lowered by (like from knife debuffs, food buffs, etc.) More examples above in the OP! Additionally, a unit’s crit is now viewable on the equipment screen, replacing range.
Unit Balance Changes
Zahir
- Lone Wolf now only gives 20 avoid instead of 30.
- Weight of the close call skill has been raised to 15 so Zahir can no longer equip it.
Dayo
- Personal now requires >= 95% HP instead of full HP. This was done so that Dayo getting HP during a level up wouldn’t actively hurt him.
Cecile
- Personal skill is now Dive Bomb. If the foe’s HP is full at the start of combat, Cecile can double before the foe can counterattack, and also grants ATK/SPD +4 for the entirety of combat (this is different from skills like Dayo’s personal, which will deactivate mid-combat if the condition is no longer filled).
Reese
- Base STR increased: 6 -> 7
- Base SPD increased: 14 -> 15
Yewande
- Personal skill is now Small Target. Grants Avoid = (Foe’s CON - Unit’s CON)*5.
- Base SPD increased: 13 -> 15
- Base RES increased: 8 -> 10
- SPD growth increased: 50% -> 60%
Bug fixes and other changes
- Download now comes with a food and recipe guide
- Mend now has an exp cap of 25 per use
- Promo gains for the Sun Sage were increased
- Personal skills now have a gold border to indicate that they are personal skills
- Skill scrolls now describe their skill’s effect in their description
- Supports now grow between units only 2 spaces away instead of 5 spaces (5 spaces was not intentional)
- Kleimann was made harder to cheese
- Fixed a myriad of typos, text box skips, and dialogue artifacts from the previous story draft.
- Attempting to view the Agnes/Zahir C support no longer crashes the game
- Having Hati fight next to Femi no longer crashes the game
- Fixed a bug where units could promote with the wrong promotion item
- Fixed a similar bug where units could eat more than one meal per chapter
- Fixed a game-crashing bug associated with equippable aura skills
- Fixed support chains that required 0 support points to rank up
- Fixed a bug where the player’s turn wouldn’t auto-end if a unit was stunned
- Fixed janky interactions between reaver and gem weapons
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Small dev update since it’s a new year and it’s been a minute!
If you’ve been in the Discord you’ve probably seen all this already, but I thought I should throw it up in the thread as well.
So first up, I’ve finally honed in on the exact number of chapters for the project: 32 (not including gaidens, prologue, etc.). The next major update, whenever it comes out, will contain up to and including chapter 22, which will finish off act 2. I can also say there will be about 42 playable characters in total.
Here's a peek at that:
Speaking of playable characters, one in particular is getting a complete rework.
Instead of being a complete support unit as a bard, Femi will be a Sun Mage with support capabilities. This change should hopefully make him actually viable and significantly more interesting to use.
Some upcoming maps and portraits I've made for the next batch of chapters:
And lastly, I’m still working on the full custom soundtrack. [ – Here’s the latest song I wrote – ]
That’s all for now. You probably won’t hear any dev updates from me here on the thread for a bit, but you can join the discord if you want to see mildly more frequent updates. I’ve updated the OP to contain an invite link. Thank you very much for reading as always!
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Always nice to see the progress on this. Figured I would just say that the battle screen looks nice and I like the bottom town outline and color. Did you make that palette yourself?
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I’m not sure why your images are so small, but it makes them really hard to view.
Thanks! The palette is indeed my own:
If anyone would like to use/edit it feel free. Tileset is N426’s amazing updated village.
I usually post screenshots at 75% zoom because I don’t like to take up too much physical space on the thread. But if people have to strain their eyes to look at them I’d have no problem posting them at 100% zoom.
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100% zoom is ideal for viewing pixel art. 75% will distort the images slightly.
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Yeah, I assumed you did it accidentally. Any added ‘screen real estate’ benefit you get from shrunken screenshots is offset by the added eyestrain of trying to look at them. Defo recommend 100% zoom.
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If the images are too big, Discourse auto sizes them down anyway (and a click expands them), so there really isn’t too much of a benefit to posting less than 100%, IMO.
To actually contribute though, the battle UI really looks good, especially the stone-like look behind the weapons! (Grey, red, and blue just looks so nice as a color combo too…) And, the edited Blade Lord looks nice too - gives me ideas for some edits myself.
I just wish the placement for text, numbers, bars, etc. would get fixed in the LT engine though. As someone that has made mock battles and stat screens for like 15 years, it hurts my soul for things to be incorrect compared to the GBA alignments. 
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This is not a romhack. It’s a game made for PC using a custom engine. Therefore, you cannot play it with an emulator.
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Oh thank you for that how can i play this?
You have to play it on PC. It won’t run on android.
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Thank you I really wanted to play this game
Late reply, but it turns out the developers for the Lex Talionis engine are looking to get android functionality built in. Maybe some months down the line, you could play this project and others on Android. I sure hope so!
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Thats good news I hope lex talionis will be operating on android soon and I mean VERY SOON