[LT] Heiress of the Eclipse (DEMO v0.32) (9/~18 chapters)

[Kyogokudo]

Welcome to my little FE fangame!
This is the second project I’ve attempted, starting in 2024, and the only one publicly released. It is a primarily gameplay focused game, altough over time I’ve tried to flesh out the story and especially the two protagonists a bit more. The difficulty is intended to be a bit easier than most fangames out there, with hopefully a good amount of tools to experiment with. I am not an artist at all and have only recently tried to learn splicing, so most assets are from the repo for the time being.

Download Link (v0.32)

Tier Maker

Screenshots

Features

• Guide Tia and her growing army of monsters and misfits through 9 (planned ~18) chapters. Monsters range from common Sacred Stones enemies like mogalls and baels to more unique ones like krakens and harpies. There are also small free roam interludes to talk to your party.

• Death is not the end! Revive fallen units with per-chapter uses skills. Some units can activate powerful effects on their death.

• Each classline has a distinct identity, with up to 5 skills learned by leveling up. This includes enemies too, so beware! No proc skills.

• Mix two consumable items together to create a new item with Ceridwen’s Brew skill. Failed experiments will not remove the items.

• Most weapons and staves have infinite durabilities, with the rest having per-chapter uses. There are also no shops or money in the game.

Gameplay Details

• Everything mentionned here is also in a guide in-game.

• Some monsters, as well as Tia, use unconventional weapon types listed under multi-items. These cannot be found elsewhere; instead, new ones are learned by leveling up.

• Healing staves work only on non-monster units, while most of Tia’s Demonic Staves only target monster units.

• Units heal 10% of their max HP whenever they defeat an enemy.

• Promotion occurs automatically upon reaching Lvl 21, with Tia and Ceridwen being exceptions.

• Every chapter contains at least one hidden item that can be found by using the Search command on specific tiles. These are only small rewards and never necessary for progression.

• Non mounted/flying units all have Shove.

Plot

Long ago, the Demon King Balor and his legions were defeated by the Brave and cast back into a crumbling demon realm. In response, the Church erected the Seals, powerful barriers sustained by human sacrifice, to sever all ties between the two worlds.

In the present day, a rogue faction known as the Riftcallers shatters one of these Seals, unleashing monsters upon the land. Seizing this opportunity, Tia, daughter of Balor, leads a demonic army into the human realm. Aiming to carry out her father’s ambition of conquering it, she draws the attention of a new Brave, Lugos, who rises to oppose her.

As Tia advances from Temple to Temple and destroys the Seals, she gathers allies among the remnants of the Riftcallers and other outcasts. Along the way, she encounters Ceridwen, a persecuted witch who will change her path and shape the fate of both realms.

Art

Commissioned art by RoiPix.

Changelog

v0.32:

• Ch9: Fixed the outro cutscene not playing through the end.
• Ch9: Moved the switch to the upper center of the map, gave it a terrain type and highlighted it in the intro.
• Ch8: Made the magebane paladin and the first warden reinforcements.
• CH6: Made Upessga appear at the bottom center of the map.
• Ch4: Fixed the win condition when defeating the boss before retrieving all the items.
• Ch1: Added a small tutorial about searchable items.
• Made most self-buffing items and skills free actions lasting one more turn.
• Gave Carmonen promotion bonuses.
• Made Fearful Impact actually apply after combat instead of after hit.
• Small buffs to Eteravnn and Ratghebs.
• Other small visual fixes.

Known Issues

Reused map and battle animations for some classes, which result in a weird promotion animation.
Missing battle animations for Kraken/Leviathan.
Tremor’s battle animation does not appear at the proper position when fighting at range.
Multi-description texts do not work properly for weapons inside multi-items.

Credits

More detailed credits can be found in-game. Let me know if I missed something!

• Lex Talionis
  rainlash, mag, KD, Sigmaraven, MFHadOuken, Lord Tweed, Eretein, TheeBill, beccarte, aorlnn, ZessDynamite, Nemid, Meinerieve, Greentwip, Klokinator, Sealvester, fh720, OmegaX128, GigaExcalibur, JaidynReiman, Kinetic1000, Mustacho’d Capitalist, Lord Jike, Xepher, Hillgarm, Dung, Rasta, Ciro Miranda de Freitas, Joytis, Squid1003

• Portraits
  RedBean, Plant Academy, CapibaraInSpace, An odd Dutch Introvert, L95, Cynon, Alice, Cygnus, Mel, SSHX, Goldblitzx, Alusq, flasuban, LaurentLacroix, Raymond, Alexsplode, Eden, AmBrosiac, Armory, Ash3wl, Beccarte, Yang Kai, Glaceo, Toa, Sphealnuke, Garytop, YellowToad, Cravat, Levin64, Fatman, Tom776, GabrielKnight

• Map Sprites
  Alusq, Almirage, Jj09, Hanakko, blood, Aruka, Kenpuhu, serif, Xenith, Stephano, flasuban, Sphealnuke, TyTheBub, UltraFenix, Velvet Kitsune, Der, Mikey_Seregon, WarPath, Pikmin1211

• Combat Animations
  Alusq, Redbean, Greentea, Nuramon, Eldritch, Almirage, TBA, Teraspark, Seal, Pikmin, Aruka, Sphealnuke, Stephano

• Icons
  Beansy, SMITHYGCN, Ereshkigal, Ryan914, Maxim, VelvetKitsune, Cardcafe, EldritchA, Indogutsu Tenbuki, Batima, serebii01, LordGlenn, Zelix, Seal

• Tilesets
  rainlash, WaVe, HyperGammaSpaces, vaibhavacharya_, Dark, Cynon, Atlas

• Class Cards
  Stephano, Der

• Spells
  Norikins

• Info Menu/ Backgrounds
  Jiege, Fenrir

• Playtest
  Nocta, Squid1003, HeroicVileplume

[GoudaGrabber]

I tried the demo and I think the mechanics are a unique premise that can turn into really fun gameplay. But I think it needs some quality of life upgrades. I’ve only played up to chapter 2 so far.

A game where your units are expected to die really ought to have casual mode on. I lost three units in the prologue and expected them to return on Chapter 1, but you have to use Tia, and she can only do it once per map. Will she be able to use it more than once per map as she levels up? I think she definitely needs it to pair well with the repeated death mechanic.

And the phantom has 1 hp. I like the idea that he curses people when he dies, but there really is no point wasting Tia’s only revive on him. I think that he, specifically, should be able to revive himself somehow. Maybe every few turns or something, but really all he’s good for is cursing the first enemy that attacks him and then not thinking about him for the rest of the map.

So now that I’m at chapter 2, I got the skill potion and i think that really opens up the potential for the characters, but I think it’s pretty much guaranteed that every skill potion should go straight to Tia. I will report back to you once I play more.

[Kyogokudo]

Thanks for the feedback!
I have to disagree with adding casual mode however. Revives being limited mean you have to consider how to use them. Keep them in case something goes wrong, go on the offensive with stuff like curses, or even get rare stat boosters with the skeletons. The skeletons reviving at the end of each chapter would incentivize you to just farm the stat boosters every time.

I’m not opposed to adding more raise dead charges though. I even considered adding an easy mode that would increase all skill charges, but that will have to wait for the base game to be done. So far only skill draughts increase charges, but if I get more feedback regarding that I could find a way to add more charges for raise dead specifically as events. Note that you can revive in the interludes too.

I wonder how you lost three units in the first chapter. Was it because you were sure it would be in casual mode and threw them away without thinking? Or is the chapter that difficult? If so, because of what? I didn’t design any chapters to force sacrifices, and the game should be beatable deathless.

Panmoht is a bit weird, but I think he works as it is. Sure, the main gimmick is curses, but he also has really strong offensive stats.You might have to find him enemies that can’t counter at the start, but later on he can dodge pretty reliably. Again I’m not too sure about getting revives for free even for him, but we’ll see later.

[GoudaGrabber]

The chapter is not difficult, i was testing the death mechanics. it is the focus of the game, after all!

When i wrote that, I was under the impression that you’d only get 1 revive per map for the entire game, so the skill potion changed my position on that.

[Kyogokudo]

I have updated the current demo thanks to feedback over on the LT server. Link to the new build.

Changelog

v0.32:

• Ch9: Fixed the outro cutscene not playing through the end.
• Ch9: Moved the switch to the upper center of the map, gave it a terrain type and highlighted it in the intro.
• Ch8: Made the magebane paladin and the first warden reinforcements.
• CH6: Made Upessga appear at the bottom center of the map.
• Ch4: Fixed the win condition when defeating the boss before retrieving all the items.
• Ch1: Added a small tutorial about searchable items.
• Made most self-buffing items and skills free actions lasting one more turn.
• Gave Carmonen promotion bonuses.
• Made Fearful Impact actually apply after combat instead of after hit.
• Small buffs to Eteravnn and Ratghebs.
• Other small visual fixes.

Note: the demo lasts until the end of chapter 9. Interlude 3 is still a work in progress.