Hello again! You might remember me from my other finished project, AGR. I would’ve shown this at FEE3 too if it were done, but better late than never, right?
This is a one-chapter long SRPG called The Mechanic Thieves. The titular thieves have stolen some game mechanics - Critical, Pursuit, and Counterattack - and it’s up to Nash, the ‘mascot’ of SRPG Studio, to get them back. It’s got a silly plot with dumb jokes; please understand.
I originally submitted this to an SRPG Studio game jam, but I kept polishing it afterward, and decided this might be a good audience for it!
Features:
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Gameplay that evolves as you regain game mechanics (after overcoming the enemies using them against you)
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High-damage, low-defense enemies
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2-3 range bows
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A small, diverse team with unique niches
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High EXP gain and growth rates (and a low level cap of 10 that you’ll most likely hit with everyone)
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The elusive WLv stat
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Strong terrain bonuses
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An accuracy bonus for the initiator
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Enemies all drop gold (unless they’re reinforcements)
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The ability to save every 3 turns
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No ambush spawns
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Dumb jokes
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At LEAST 3 shops
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Houses with useful information
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(…and more dumb jokes)
Screenshots:
Credits
- Goinza and LadyRena for a billion useful plugins, as always <3
- The Japanese SRPG Studio community for a bunch of other useful plugins
- Hawkzombie for being a champ playing the original version during the game jam, bless your heart
- JAPANweb for the beautiful tileset
Less-important behind the scenes stuff if you're interested (spoilers)
C’mon dude, the game’s just one chapter long, just play it first before you read this. Pretty please?
Assuming you’ve played it now:
The biggest inspirations behind this game were Gaiden, Mystery of the Emblem, Thracia, and Souls of the Forest.
Gaiden’s biggest contribution was 4-5 movement for unmounted units, since bodyblocking becomes a big part of strategy when the enemy can’t just walk around you. When you’ve got a small party, I LOVE what this adds to strategy. Gaiden also contributed the utility for magic tomes being a bit more varied than your average GBAFE, like 2-3 range Thunder. Lastly, the Dragon learning new breaths by leveling up uses eventing I lifted straight outta AGR babyyy
FE3 is a really cool game for a lot of reasons that aren’t perfectly captured in the remakes (though I love those too). Stats capping uniformly at 20, the Weapon Level stat, and silver weapons being pretty mundane (really cool in part BECAUSE of the weapon level stat, but that’s a discussion for another time) are all big parts of FE3 that I’m very fond of. (Also, the Freeze spell being effective against dragons is my tribute to it. And HP didn’t HAVE to cap at 52, but…)
Thracia’s sickkk, but a lot of what makes it sick doesn’t translate well to a single-chapter game imo. My main takeaway was staff utility: Warp was a little too broken for this map, but Rescue is perfect and beautiful, and a Sleep staff practically removes any need for Martin to be able to attack. (Also Opal is just Woman Othin lol)
Souls of the Forest was EASILY the biggest inspiration. I LOVE that hack. Chapter 6 is some of the most fun I’ve had playing anything FE-related. Tangent aside, SotF’s main contributions were: high-damage/low-defense enemies, high-growth player units, and diverse unit archetypes. (Maybe even aesthetics, subconsciously???) I think it also convinced me to not have ambush spawns at all, although I don’t think they’re as evil as people think, but that’s an argument for another time. Oh, and I forgot to mention that SotF is the first hack I played with a unit window that detailed (showing so many handy stats onscreen without having to go into units’ menus), and since we didn’t have a plugin for that feature in SRPG Studio yet, I made one specifically for this game! Pretty proud of how it turned out.
In general, I’m pretty pleased with this game, though I’m definitely eager to hear your thoughts about it. Mainly, I think this game sets up a cool sandbox that would be cool for a medium-length game - though whether that’ll ever happen is up in the air.
Thanks for playing!
Find the game here on itch: https://therepeat.itch.io/the-mechanic-thieves
Current version: 1.2
Of course, I’m accepting as much constructive criticism as possible!