[SRPG Studio] Omen of Apsides (SIGURD Entry Demo)

[chromaji]

Download: Omen of Apsides by Dragonicsdev

SIGURD Version Download (currently the same as the itch version): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZfBIg_wmxbe4NWqJdzkc5Zw3xWhK5n8w/view?usp=drive_link

The current version is a submission for the one map SIGURD contest! This is the start of a bigger project!

Summary:
Within the Apsides Archipelago, there lies the Apsis Isle. It is a small place known for its connection to the stars above. Those born or granted with powers from the stars, known as Starblessed, tend to find themselves here. Whether that’s a good thing or not, well… Who knows?

Luneres Crescentia is a Starblessed with the power to see glimpses of the future. One night, he’s awoken by a vision of a terrible monster somewhere undersea. Feeling that he must do something about it, he takes a walk to a place where he can get further insight on the matter…

This is (or will be) a seafaring, swashbuckling SRPG adventure blessed by the stars! There’s pirates to fight, pirates to join, dungeons to crawl, islands to explore, and booty! And treasure!

Screenshots

Credits (Also in README file)

Made by Dragonicsdev.

|Title Screen
Kokoro Reflection

|Backgrounds (Cutscenes)
Kokoro Reflection
SapphireSoft

|Character Artwork & Backgrounds (Maps)
Dragonicsdev/Shuruzy

|Charchip/Sprites
Megatiles
SapphireSoft

|Icons:
Dusk_Prods
SapphireSoft

|Plugins
Blindcoco
Cube (QBE256)
Goinza
Iroha_SRPG
magyo_main
MarkyJoe1990
McMagister
namae kakkokari
Penny
Rantaro Games
RogueClaris
RybaNettai992
SapphireSoft
TheRepeat
Wiz (Pflaboratory)
Z-ON

|Sound Effects:
Atelier Magicae
HZSMITH
nbeats
freesoundcommunity
Osabisi
SapphireSoft
Etrian Odyssey

|Music:
Monster Hunter Stories 2 - Wings of Ruin
Trickster Online
Unlimited SaGa
Voice of Cards - The Beasts of Burden
Voice of Cards - The Forsaken Maiden
Witch and Lilies

Feedback is greatly appreciated! Not only cause I always like feedback, but this is my first time making an SRPG.

[Augenis]

I have played this.

Stuff

Love the art! Definitely the best part of the entry and should give a good Presentation score. What I saw of the setting and story seems quite interesting too, a very different vibe from FE of course, but in a good way and I’d be interested to see where you take this next.

Gameplay wise, I’m not sure about the chapter - there’s a fight happening in the map, but because it is rather far away and you’re told to first get rid of the creature attacking the village, you don’t really get the chance to engage with a lot of it before the boss creature appears. Especially as you only have two units. I suppose on a second playthrough I could play around with Epsilon’s warp to get rid of the creature and then pop immediately into the battlefield next to Luneres.

The most problematic part gameplay wise though, which I think you should look into, is that the boss is very easy to cheese. Epsilon has a skill to attack a unit and paralyze them, which has a 100% chance to land on the boss, and it is 2 range while the boss can only attack 1 range. Epsilon also has the ability to poison units seemingly permanently, and while the paralysis attack costs 3 HP, he also heals 3 HP per turn - so, what I did was poison the boss turn 1 and then stand at 2 range paralyzing him every turn and he died in a handful of units without being able to touch anyone. It feels cheesy, yet seems almost intended (Epsilon even says he wants to handle the boss alone, and neither of your two units can really go hand to hand with the boss), so I am not sure how to comment this.

Overall though, I had a good time with the entry.

[chromaji]

Thank you very much for playing & providing feedback!

I’m glad you loved the art! That was definitely the main focus here. Happy to hear the story has your interest too, I hope to do a lot more with it!

Now for gameplay. For some reason, I was set on having this map not last a long time out of fear of the first map feeling, idk, too long? But you’re right that it doesn’t feel like you get to do much before the boss. Even in my playtests, I was wondering if I should shrink the map. I’ll test pushing back the boss warning + appearance a few turns & see how it feels.

As for the boss cheese… I don’t mind if the first boss is able to be cheesed, but damn. I hadn’t considered that level of cheese lol. I plan for certain techniques to cost a different, more strict resource in the future, but decided to keep the cost as HP for this demo. For now I’ll increase the HP cost of Epsilon’s paralysis and reduce the chance to 80%. Still a strong technique, but not 100% spammable.

As for the poison, that’s strange. Or very lucky. Epsilon should only have a 25% chance to poison enemies. Poison lasts 2 turns though, so its possible you were lucky enough to keep applying it. I’ll do some testing to see if that’s some bug or some incredible luck.

[Augenis]

I definitely recall the poison lasting more than 2 turns. Either that, or some other effect I wasn’t aware of was draining the boss of HP every turn, because I don’t think I could have drained all of that 51 HP so fairly quickly?

I think increasing the cost of the paralysis would be a good start, because right now with it costing 3 HP and him recovering 3 HP every turn, there isn’t really anything stopping you from constantly applying it (as long as you keep him away from any other units, but at that point there were only a handful of units on the map). If it costs more than you naturally heal, that would make it a temporary solution only.

[chromaji]

I wasn’t able to recreate the long lasting poison… though I wonder what the situation was, since you said he died in a handful of units. Were some of the Apsis Guardians helping defeat the boss? The Apsis Starseers deal pretty good damage to the boss, so even one Starseer could’ve been affecting how short it took to defeat it.

I’ve uploaded the small update patch! Main things are the boss warning and appearance has been pushed back by 2 turns, and Epsilon’s Numb Pierce technique costs more HP and the chance to inflict paralyze has been reduced.

[Augenis]

I will give the game another playthrough later with the same strategy and see if I can figure out what happened. I could be blind, it happens

[Frog]

Just played this as well!

Feedback

The art is really epic here! Loved the style, and all the different expressions everyone had, gave it a ton of personality. The world-building was awesome too, felt very unique & interesting. I got the ending with Luneres childhood photo, and that was hilarious

The gameplay did feel more like an extended cinematic - which might be intentional, since it’s not really the focus here? There’s very little you can even do, with the large amount of NPCs yet only two playable units. It works well enough for the prologue of a longer game - like the FE7/8 prologues - but as a standalone chapter it did feel overly simplistic.

Still, the boss was a cool twist. I actually tried cheesing it like Augenis at first, but it didn’t work due to the changed paralysis chance. Funnily enough, I thought there was a mechanic where you can’t stun the same character twice in a row and didn’t realize it was percentage based - which I think could maybe be a better anti-cheese measure, since even a relatively high chance like 80% could make this ability a tad too unreliable outside of cheese strategies (and one could still cheese if they got lucky enough anyway). This did mean I actually used the Clairvoyant Staff, which helped a ton against the boss and that felt pretty great.

Nevertheless, I do appreciate that the chapter wasn’t too long/tedious, as the highlight was definitely the story & graphics here - which were both awesome!

[chromaji]

Thank you! I’m real happy to hear you were a fan of the art & worldbuilding! I’m excited to show more of the setting here, so I hope you & anyone else who played look forward to future versions with more to see. And glad you liked the photo lol. It was a last minute addition for this 1 map version, after realizing the player had no actual reward in it.

Yeah in the scope of a 1 map contest, it definitely could’ve been more tight-knit in gameplay. I wanted to go for a shorter chapter given you only have 2 characters, so its good to know you appreciated the short length, and that the boss wasn’t as easy to cheese with the patch.

Plus, thanks for telling me you got the Clairvoyant Staff, I was wondering if anyone went for it and used it!

[chromaji]

Howdy🎉 The SIGURD contest has officially ended, with results coming in the other day. I’ve been waiting til then to post an update here!
First! Omen of Apsides got 10th place in that contest, which all things considered is not bad imo!

But you may be wondering what’s next for Apsides. I’ve basically stated all over that this is the start of a bigger project.
So here’s the details:

Before the contest, but especially since the contest submission period ended, I’ve been hard at work getting the full plot’s first draft written out on a document. A lot of it’s only in my head rn. But the document is also 57 pages as of writing this (tbf I also do some dialogue drafting in there). It’s been a slow and steady type of process. I’ve also got different docs & sheets for database stuff like lists of weapons, items, character sheets, and more. That’s been nice to sort out.

Since this game also has stuff like dungeons, and Acts don’t have a rigid stage and dungeon count, its difficult to give some exact chapter count. But also cause not everything’s set in stone story & gameplay-wise. Especially in the later parts of the story. The Prologue Act and Act 1 have their first full outline/drafts set, which is why I’m ready to start getting the Prologue in a playable state. Everything else is not written out nearly that much. But there is an act that takes place almost entirely in an arena. I fw tournament arcs okay🧍

With all that said, I hope to have the Prologue Act, which is 5 battles (one is an optional tutorial) and 1 dungeon, done and released by the end of the year! If I don’t make it, then I don’t make it. I won’t be… too hard on myself. I’m one guy who’s also got other stuff going on, mainly other stuff that needs art made for it, so we’ll see what happens. I don’t wanna overwork myself on the art front, you know? BUT, I will try :]

So quick summary: I’m hoping to have the Prologue Act (1 optional tutorial, 4 chapters, and one Gaiden/SoV styled dungeon and town, in FE terms) released by the end of the year. And that’s about it for the update! Thanks, and hope you’ll be around for the future of this story!

[chromaji]

Apsides Archipelago Monthly: June 2025
“The Apsides Archipelago may be small, but all sorts of things happen here!”

Howdy! I’ve decided to try my hand at a monthly devlog, starting each month by going over the things I’d done the previous month. So let’s get started!

General Notes:

Things went slower in the art department last month, as I’d expected. There were (and probably still are, honestly) other art related things that I prioritized, so I did what I could for Omen of Apsides outside of the art! The Prologue’s looking clean in my story document, all the scenes are pretty much final. I did change one future stage in the prologue entirely since last time, and it worked out better for the story!

I also changed the name of the Astral Observatory from the current demo to Planetarium. Since it’s an actual planetarium now, that’s changed the building’s structure, fleshing it and the Apsis Isle out a bit more. Just letting yall know the name change early on.

Floor Plans

Something I decided to do after the demo was start, well, really planning out what each area will look like. For the demo, my map-making process went “Rough sketch with the SRPG Studio default assets, then make the full map”. That worked! But I could make the process a little smoother. Now I’ve added a Floor Plan phase before the SRPG Rough Sketch, which has been helping my brain out a lot. Here’s the floor plans for the interior of the Planetarium and the exterior of the first dungeon. The latter also serves as a battle stage, but maybe not when you expect it…

(The icons used in these images are from game-icons :])

Character Concepts

Lastly, I’m considering dropping off some concept art or reference sheet art for at least 1 character each update! Starting with Luneres!

He’s become much more shark-like over time! He wasn’t even planned to be part Shark Seikyr in the first place. I can’t remember what made me go for it, but I’m happy I did! It’s added a lot of specific things to him as a person, like how he lives being only part sharkperson, including things like breathing and foods. Though as we’ll learn later in the story, that’s certainly not the only thing that had a major impact on Luneres growing up…

…
…

Anyway completely unrelated, here’s some ROUGH doodles of another character! Arnam, Luneres’ (shark) dad. He’s actually one of the first characters who’ll show up in the game, so before the year’s over… I do need to get his design in line.

Thanks for reading! It may be a few months before I’m ready to start showing in-game screenshots, but I hope this update was nice enough !

[chromaji]

Apsides Archipelago Monthly: July 2025
Howdy! It’s looking barren in the update department! Expectedly so, but still😔.
This month in particular I had multiple things come up and other projects to work on… and get distracted by.

August, I should be able to get back on a reasonable track :]

Overall Stuff Done

Late into the month, I was reminded I should actually write down what I’d done each month. Without trying to recall it all from memory like last month. Also as a good motivator, you know? Like “hey, I DID do that. let’s go”. Anyway cause of that, there’s definitely stuff I forgot I did by the time I started this. And “worked on the story outline” is a given basically every month. Still, I’ll be a lil more specific about it.

I’m hoping next month I’ll have the SRPG Studio “rough sketches” of each Prologue Act map done. Most of them already have their floor plans, with the town (multiple maps) & tutorial map being what’s left there.

Character Concepts

I wasn’t able to complete the reference page for our next character, Epsilon Azure this month. BUT of course, I do have some concepts of him.

The thing about Azure… is that he has two designs! One for combat, and one outside of combat.

Here’s a concept of his non-combat form:

Things have changed since this image, such as making areas less spiky. That’ll emphasize the non-combat nature of this appearance, and juxtapose his combat form better.

And his battle form’s concept:

This is the more updated version of what is seen in the SIGURD demo, as that version was… pretty slapped together, honestly. It worked! But it definitely wasn’t the vision I had for him. Anyway, this version is taller and bulkier than non-combat Azure. His floating arms can stretch out very far, and even turn into giant fists. But this design isn’t final either. In August, I’ll hopefully have BOTH his designs final! I guess it’s fair I take 2 months on Azure since he’s got 2 designs

…And one last thing for the road. I did this for fun a month or so back.

It’s not often I actually have SIX characters who I can directly say inspired one. I actually could’ve put Emerl from Sonic Battle instead of “space itself”, so he does have a full six in there! Anyway that’s it this month! Next month, I’ll be reporting back feeling more accomplished!

Thanks for reading!

[chromaji]

Apsides Archipelago Monthly: August 2025

Howdy! Remember when I said August should be chill and back on track?

It was not…

I had to nurse my wrists for over half the month. My wrists were feeling a little something even when writing last month’s AAM, but it got worse from there, so I had to stop basically everything for a while. They’re healed n basically back to normal by now, so I had been doing a little devving over the past week.

Let’s get to it!

Overall Stuff Done

Started rough sketching the 2nd battle stage (3rd if counting the tutorial) in SRPG Studio. This takes place after the stage featured in the SIGURD Contest Demo! Seems like the Deep Claws and Jellyfish are back… but there’s two very new sea monsters! Wonder what they can do…

Plus, there’s those two odd structures with orbs on them near the entrance🤔

This is also a map you can walk around, so I tried to make it a good size for both walking and battling.

Otherwise, I mainly worked on the cutscenes before and after this stage! Here’s some bits of that.

Who exactly is “Nashi”? In gameplay terms, she’s the next party member and a powerful mage! In story and design terms… we’ll get to that another day.

Character Concepts

Azure’s non-combat form is complete!

The wishing star who gave himself a humanoid form… it’s AE-07 (Astroid Epsilon, 7th Edition), aka Azure babyyyy! This form was subconsciously fashioned after a character from a storybook Luneres admired. Now why would Azure’s brain make a form like that? Oh well!

And with that, I do have some general development news. Prologue Act’s release date’s gotta be pushed back to 2026! I was hoping to have gotten more done the previous months, but that combined with what happened this month has led me to push it back. I’ve also still got a bit to learn when it comes to SRPG Studio lol. Gamedevving is a hobby for me, so unfortunately it can’t be too high on my list of priorities. Still, I’m gonna keep working at it. Development may be slow, but it’ll get there :]

Thanks for reading!

[chromaji]

Apsides Archipelago Monthly: September 2025

Hey! I’ve started one of these without a howdy.

Let’s get right into what I did this month!

Overall Stuff Done

Wrote 1st in-game drafts for Prologue Ch2 post-battle, Prologue Ch3’s pre/mid-battle.

Lotta organizing. From file names to database entries… Putting everything together for the SIGURD contest left stuff very disorganized in the aftermath, & I finally sorted that out.

Made some breakthroughs for the later parts of the plot last night, which was very nice n motivating.

Rough sketch of the Apsides Archipelago, Apsis Isle, and Apsis Village.

The archipelago is incomplete of course, but i wanted to at least get the rough shape for Apsis Isle, and some general positioning for the earlier locations.

Speaking of Apsis Isle… Did you know? The sun only shines in Apsis Isle for about 4 hours a day! Between 12pm - 4pm. Many first-time visitors get disoriented by that fact, but now you know! Thanks to the Apsides Isle Tour Guide: Apsides Archipelago Monthly! Also, due to the lack of sunlight, Apsis Isle needs to import certain goods that are common elsewhere, but the place has its own exclusive produce like Midnight Melons.

Lastly… the tutorial stage! Yesterday I finally started working on the tutorial stage, and completing all things needed for that stage will be my main goal in October. From dialogue, to map design, to character halfbodies. So hopefully nothing becomes an obstacle for me this month.

Character Concepts

Concept art of Nashira, mentioned in last month’s Devlog! Similar to Commander Farren, her class will be Starblessed… but she’s a Starblessed who was granted the ability to harness multiple elements, like fire and thunder.

If you’re wondering what her Personal Skill does… here you go!

Lastly, since the tutorial stage will be my main priority for the next devlog, let me show off some bonus character concepts!

These two will be part of the tutorial along with one other character. Who are these mysterious three? Will we see them again? Well they’re certainly not in the current SIGURD demo, huh?

Raze, though… haven’t I shown that name somewhere?

Good month in my opinion, and I’m hoping next devlog will be even better :]

Here’s a list of things I plan to do next.

• Tutorial stage work.

• Down the line mechanic/gameplay sorting like promotions, levels, max stats, and character skill sets.

• Mage and Healer designs.

Tutorial is the big one, as that includes a lot of smaller things. So maybe I’ll just have time for that. But it’s more likely I’ll do a mix of tutorial & smaller scale mechanic sorting. We’ll see.

[chromaji]

Hey! This devlog’s gonna be different.

Long story short, I’m changing the engine Omen Of Apsides will be made in! Transferring stuff will take time, so don’t anticipate any devlogs being made for the rest of the year. I’ll still keep the game tagged as SRPG Studio until the next demo is released.

…That’s it! If you want the longer story though, keep reading.

Longer Story

To start, I wasn’t actually able to do much for about the first half of October. Unfortunate… but in that time, I ended up stumbling across SRPG Gear MZ, an SRPG Plugin set for RPG Maker MZ. If you follow me on itch or somewhere you’ll know this, but all of the games I’ve published so far have been made in RPG Maker (MV specifically). I’d bought MZ earlier this year, and learning about this plugin was kinda huge.

I’ve seen a number of SRPG plugins for various RPG Makers over the years, but either I wasn’t interested in making an SRPG at the time, or they didn’t seem to have the depth or certain mechanics I’d want. But this one… seemed like it had it all! So I downloaded it and experimented for a few weeks, and yep, seems like every essential I wanted was there.

Some have already noticed in the single chapter that’s been released, but Omen of Apsides isn’t much of a traditional 90s Fire Emblem, which is what SRPG Studio’s specialty is. Certain things were taking extra steps or workarounds that were like a “death by 1000 cuts” feeling for me, from the database navigation to certain in-engine things. Many of the extra things I’m looking for are either already in MZ by default, or very easy to find. Plus I’ve got over a decade of experience in RPG Maker, so I have a much easier time working around its quirks😅.

Changing engines is big news for me🎉 I’m not sure how the rest of y’all feel, cause this does mean progress will technically be halted. I’ll have to transfer everything I’ve done in SRPG Studio into a new engine, and the only way to really do that is a bunch of copying and pasting or remaking it. It’ll be tedious, but it’ll be worth it for me and the future of Omen of Apsides.

Thanks for reading! I should be back for a January devlog!

[Agi]

I hope it all goes well. I’m very excited to see how OoA turns out. Hopefully the freedom from the engine change will help you achieve the things you’ve dreamed of for the game. I really enjoy the things you’ve shown off so far, and I love the oceanic inspirations.

[chromaji]

AGIII Good to see you here, & thank you!

Yeah, there was already one big thing I was dreading to create in SRPG Studio that I know will be a ton easier with RMMZ/SRPG Gear MZ (racing minigame for a character recruitment). And I’ve been able to get configured character animations for the battle scene to work in MZ which was my last big concern. So far, things are going nice :]

[chromaji]

Apsides Archipelago Log: Q4 2025 Technically

Howdyyy! I said the next log would be January, but… Why not do one now, instead? Happy new years eve! Or happy new year if it’s already that time for you.

The past few months have been nice for the game, imo! Though in that time, it finally really hit me that…

This game is very, very early in development. SIGURD contest with a playable chapter be damned, this project IS in its baby stages. Concepts have changed, story has changed (not significantly, but things have been shuffled, added, removed, etc), changes that I thought were final have changed again…

All that to say, I won’t be doing monthly devlogs for the foreseeable future. I won’t promise some specific timing for devlogs either. All I know is that monthly is too frequent for where the game is currently at, and what I’m primarily doing with the game right now isn’t all that loggable.

And looking at the past devlogs, the things I offered in the devlogs WERE fine (especially character concepts, those are fun), and I’m glad I did them, but they do feel a bit empty considering the game is just… technically still in its planning phase.

Anyway, this IS a devlog, and it HAS been a few months since the last! I’ve got some stuff to talk about & show, at least.

• Transferring stuff’s gone well! Cant really compare any changes HERE since the SIGURD demo was a rough prototype that only had one stage, but… source trust me etc etc.

• Mostly been working on the next draft of the story this month, along with drafts of other things that entails, like maps, characters, 300 story spoilers, mechanics, etc. As I said earlier, this isn’t exactly loggable. “Big things happening in the story draft. No I can’t say anything.”

• Prototype of the new tutorial stage:

That’s right, that new tutorial stage I was talking about some months ago! This tutorial takes place in the past, but not so long ago that no one could possibly be alive in the present day.

• Stealing Mechanic:

Here’s a quick video where I tested a stealing plugin in SRPG Gear MZ… It worked! Yes, in case you missed it from the previous log, Omen of Apsides will be made in RPG Maker, now!

[Omen of Apsides] Stealing Mechanic Test

And this does mean I’ve got a gamedevving channel now?? Suddenly? Probably not gonna have much to show for a while, but it’ll be nice to have once I do. And nice to have a place to catalogue the journey of making Apsides. Who knows, maybe I’ll even do some video devlogs in the future.

• Character concepts

Alright, time for some character concepts!

Characters

First, Nashira got an upgrade! Mainly in the color palette, since I already really liked her outfit. I’ve been training in the color palette mountains lately u know

Then the man of the hour, Arnam, finally has a more refined concept.

Lastly for now, Fang and Karo respectively. If you read the description of the Stealing Mechanic video… yep, that’s the little thief over there on the right! They’re a Sea Angel. And Fang’s a Kingfisher bird.

And u know what, one last thing for the road that affected me greatly. I got a note-taking program that’s been really helping me stay organized in other ways, which I desperately needed. fuuuck i really needed that lmao

But alright, that’s it for this devlog! The plan next year’s to have this final draft of the story written and planned out instead of mostly in my head, and get the full prologue act into the engine at least as a prototype!

I hope the future lack of devlogs doesn’t disappoint, or make it seem like I’m not really working on this game. It’s the opposite, actually! A few things have changed that’ve lit a fire under me. Slowly but surely, I’m gonna get Omen of Apsides made!

See you next year!