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Announcement
Fee_Nicks
Announcement
Am pretty much done, and also...
First, a steam link Here.
I've finally finished all the dungeons, battles, endings, etc. I need to get done, and am now working on general bugfixing and also some minor additional features that'll probably go live a bit after I release the game for real.
I've also gone and updated the demo that's here to better reflect all the changes I've made to the balancing and general systems of the game in the past year or so.
I feel the game's in a pretty good state as it currently stands, but if you have any bugs or general concerns, please let me know.
Miscellaneous
Some dungeons
False Skies has a lot of dungeons! Perhaps too many!
Here's a few of them:
Letegarme: The ruins of a capital city, overgrown and all but forgotten after its abandonment centuries ago. The interior portions have been sealed away for a good while, and there's artifacts to be found within.
Plateau Cave: Part natural cave, part abandoned and decaying military outpost of last resort: a place for thieves to escape to, and holdouts of forgotten wars to hide away in. The monsters here are of all stripes, so be prepared for a variety of things to come your way.
Tunnel to Mol: The tunnel itself is extremely straightforward. In times of crisis, though, it's locked down, leaving the older, much less direct path through the adjoining caves as one's only option for land travel. It certainly doesn't help that someone's put up additional defenses, too.
Crossroads Mountain: There's a maze of tunnels dug into this former teleportation test site, but a path and a funicular made the trip much more bearable. The path's been blocked off. The funicular's been powered down.
Silver Fens: Without the lighthouse burning a way through the fog here, one will quickly lose their way and get turned around. There's a highway being built through here to bypass all this, but it's going nowhere fast.
Apargi Cavern: A antiquated cavern, used as a place to trap particularly nasty spirits for hundreds of years and as a hidden storeroom for the Emperor of Apargi for merely decades. Learn the trick to navigating through this place, and your life shall be far easier.
Under Garm Palace: Garm is riddled with underground passages, and underneath its core is no exception. It's a long, long climb up, though - surely there isn't a way to circumvent a lot of it?
Here's a few of them:
Letegarme: The ruins of a capital city, overgrown and all but forgotten after its abandonment centuries ago. The interior portions have been sealed away for a good while, and there's artifacts to be found within.
Plateau Cave: Part natural cave, part abandoned and decaying military outpost of last resort: a place for thieves to escape to, and holdouts of forgotten wars to hide away in. The monsters here are of all stripes, so be prepared for a variety of things to come your way.
Tunnel to Mol: The tunnel itself is extremely straightforward. In times of crisis, though, it's locked down, leaving the older, much less direct path through the adjoining caves as one's only option for land travel. It certainly doesn't help that someone's put up additional defenses, too.
Crossroads Mountain: There's a maze of tunnels dug into this former teleportation test site, but a path and a funicular made the trip much more bearable. The path's been blocked off. The funicular's been powered down.
Silver Fens: Without the lighthouse burning a way through the fog here, one will quickly lose their way and get turned around. There's a highway being built through here to bypass all this, but it's going nowhere fast.
Apargi Cavern: A antiquated cavern, used as a place to trap particularly nasty spirits for hundreds of years and as a hidden storeroom for the Emperor of Apargi for merely decades. Learn the trick to navigating through this place, and your life shall be far easier.
Under Garm Palace: Garm is riddled with underground passages, and underneath its core is no exception. It's a long, long climb up, though - surely there isn't a way to circumvent a lot of it?
Game Design
The Tier 2 classes
It's been a bit, so let's talk about the next tier of classes.
False Skies operates under rules vaguely similar to that of D&D when it comes to its class changes - that is, you keep all the skills and stats you've gained beforehand, but things like equipment proficiency get changed up instead.
Higher-tier classes generally have better statistical growth than lower-tier ones, but sometimes there's skills you want to learn through a lower-tier class that are worth sticking around for. You get an item to check various things about the classes you can potentially change into, so use that well!
But enough dithering: here's the classes.
_________
gifs have been edited for clarity
Pugilist
Special: Doubles the user's ATK until next turn.
Of the three physical-oriented tier 2 classes, pugilists are the more technically-oriented of the three. Many of their skills have extra effects or quirks to them; Rising Hit raises the user's ATK if they don't have any ATK buffs, Airpunch pierces through the defenses of particularly low HP enemies, and Upper has the chance to stun an enemy for a bit.
Their other quirk is that they get an ATK boost based on their level if they're unarmed. It's not relevant if you prefer to use normal attacks, but if you're willing to spend the SP...
Light Infantry
Special: A slash that gets attack priority.
Light Infantry are the high-risk, high-reward one of the lot, capable of dealing tremendous amounts of damage but with many of their skills dealing recoil damage. Twin Edge takes off a percentage of the user's max HP after its use, while Lash has both an upfront HP cost and recoil damage after the fact. To take advantage of this inherent HP loss, they also get Revenge, an attack that deals damage based on the amount of HP lost.
Dancer
Special: A chance to stun one enemy.
Do you like skills that randomly target? How about skills that hit multiple times? If so, a Dancer's for you. They get two flavors of randomly-targeting skills; Random Dagger hits a random enemy for a hefty amount of damage, while their Step skills attack random foes 2 to 5 times, usually with elemental damage attached. Keep at it beyond where you need to, though, and eventually they'll learn Roulette, an attack that will target either friend or foe and reduce their HP to critical levels!
Evoker
Special: Lowers a target's SDF, or deals a bit of ether damage to them if it's already lowered.
Operating slightly differently from your usual flavor of summoner, Evokers have to equip a Pact to access specific summons - if they don't, they get a relatively weak nonelemental spirit to bring out instead. Summons also go by FF3 Evoker rules, not-quite-arbitrarily choosing a supportive or offensive skill to use. Their other, more reliable, skills are also changed alongside this change of Pact, though - and unlike almost every other skill in the game, they can be used even when the user is fogged up!
Hexer
Special: Poisons an enemy, doing a bit of damage beforehand as well.
The dedicated debuffer of the tier 2 classes, Hexers are all about making sure your foes can neither dish out nor take damage. In addition, Nulmirror makes very short work of any buffs an enemy's applied to themselves, and they also get an elemental spell with a debuffing side-effect to deal damage with. Stick long enough with the class, and eventually their single-target debuffs will change into multi-target ones!
Infiltrator
Special: A dark-element attack that mostly avoids defenses.
Evasion buffs of any sort are kinda hard to come by, and that's because this guy's hoarding all of them. They gain 1% evasion a class level , and can further boost it with Hide. Shadefang largely ignores enemy defenses, Heavy Survey deals damage while also attempting to 'survey' an item, and Shank, when used against an enemy unfortunate enough to have no evasion whatsoever, may strike with one of the biggest ATK multipliers in the game!
Librarian
Special: Tells you an enemy's weakness, as well as nullifies their evasion.
Librarians take advantage of the various types enemies have, with most of their skills being nonelemental ether attacks that deal double damage against specific enemy types. The upgraded versions of these attacks go a step further - they're twice as powerful, but completely whiff when used against enemies they're not effective against. Read up on your enemies beforehand!
Medic
Special: Restores 30 HP to all allies, or 10% of their max HP if that's over 200.
Medics are more-or-less a straight upgrade to their lower-tier counterpart, unless you're really in need of autotargeting healing. They're not completely white-bread, though - they're also capable of bonking an enemy on the head with Caduceus in an attempt to stun them.
False Skies operates under rules vaguely similar to that of D&D when it comes to its class changes - that is, you keep all the skills and stats you've gained beforehand, but things like equipment proficiency get changed up instead.
Higher-tier classes generally have better statistical growth than lower-tier ones, but sometimes there's skills you want to learn through a lower-tier class that are worth sticking around for. You get an item to check various things about the classes you can potentially change into, so use that well!
But enough dithering: here's the classes.
_________
gifs have been edited for clarity
Pugilist
Special: Doubles the user's ATK until next turn.
Of the three physical-oriented tier 2 classes, pugilists are the more technically-oriented of the three. Many of their skills have extra effects or quirks to them; Rising Hit raises the user's ATK if they don't have any ATK buffs, Airpunch pierces through the defenses of particularly low HP enemies, and Upper has the chance to stun an enemy for a bit.
Their other quirk is that they get an ATK boost based on their level if they're unarmed. It's not relevant if you prefer to use normal attacks, but if you're willing to spend the SP...
Light Infantry
Special: A slash that gets attack priority.
Light Infantry are the high-risk, high-reward one of the lot, capable of dealing tremendous amounts of damage but with many of their skills dealing recoil damage. Twin Edge takes off a percentage of the user's max HP after its use, while Lash has both an upfront HP cost and recoil damage after the fact. To take advantage of this inherent HP loss, they also get Revenge, an attack that deals damage based on the amount of HP lost.
Dancer
Special: A chance to stun one enemy.
Do you like skills that randomly target? How about skills that hit multiple times? If so, a Dancer's for you. They get two flavors of randomly-targeting skills; Random Dagger hits a random enemy for a hefty amount of damage, while their Step skills attack random foes 2 to 5 times, usually with elemental damage attached. Keep at it beyond where you need to, though, and eventually they'll learn Roulette, an attack that will target either friend or foe and reduce their HP to critical levels!
Evoker
Special: Lowers a target's SDF, or deals a bit of ether damage to them if it's already lowered.
Operating slightly differently from your usual flavor of summoner, Evokers have to equip a Pact to access specific summons - if they don't, they get a relatively weak nonelemental spirit to bring out instead. Summons also go by FF3 Evoker rules, not-quite-arbitrarily choosing a supportive or offensive skill to use. Their other, more reliable, skills are also changed alongside this change of Pact, though - and unlike almost every other skill in the game, they can be used even when the user is fogged up!
Hexer
Special: Poisons an enemy, doing a bit of damage beforehand as well.
The dedicated debuffer of the tier 2 classes, Hexers are all about making sure your foes can neither dish out nor take damage. In addition, Nulmirror makes very short work of any buffs an enemy's applied to themselves, and they also get an elemental spell with a debuffing side-effect to deal damage with. Stick long enough with the class, and eventually their single-target debuffs will change into multi-target ones!
Infiltrator
Special: A dark-element attack that mostly avoids defenses.
Evasion buffs of any sort are kinda hard to come by, and that's because this guy's hoarding all of them. They gain 1% evasion a class level , and can further boost it with Hide. Shadefang largely ignores enemy defenses, Heavy Survey deals damage while also attempting to 'survey' an item, and Shank, when used against an enemy unfortunate enough to have no evasion whatsoever, may strike with one of the biggest ATK multipliers in the game!
Librarian
Special: Tells you an enemy's weakness, as well as nullifies their evasion.
Librarians take advantage of the various types enemies have, with most of their skills being nonelemental ether attacks that deal double damage against specific enemy types. The upgraded versions of these attacks go a step further - they're twice as powerful, but completely whiff when used against enemies they're not effective against. Read up on your enemies beforehand!
Medic
Special: Restores 30 HP to all allies, or 10% of their max HP if that's over 200.
Medics are more-or-less a straight upgrade to their lower-tier counterpart, unless you're really in need of autotargeting healing. They're not completely white-bread, though - they're also capable of bonking an enemy on the head with Caduceus in an attempt to stun them.
Progress Report
The Tower of Flags, and the arena
I finished up some important lategame areas, and this time it didn't take two months to do so!
____________
The Tower of Flags is a relatively short, somewhat puzzle-focused dungeon meant as a refresher before the endgame starts for real. That doesn't mean it's not worth talking about, though:
The tower is composed of several exterior and interior portions, but the main puzzle element of it are its elevators, most of which have a switch changing which upper area they go to. It's still a refresher dungeon, mind you, so these aren't too trying, but they should work as a reprieve from the more straightforward dungeon crawling of earlier on.
The Tower of Flags kiiinda gets away from the simpler look of much of the other dungeons in the game, sure, but as it's effectively the second-to-last dungeon in the game I think I'm allowed to break away from that look for a bit.
_______
Also opening up at the tail end of the game is the Rotary Arena:
The arena has a three-round tournament structure, weighted such that harder encounters are more likely to show up in the second and third rounds. There's still some element of randomness to it, though; will you cruise through and get easy opponents, or will you get put against an encounter that will quickly rip apart your team? You also won't be able to heal or change equipment between fights, so go in well-prepared!
The first time you're able to win a tournament, you'll get a special reward. Subsequent victories in that tournament get you something slightly less valuable:
As for the level listed on the reward screen, and in the name of the enemy there? Unlike every other enemy in the game, the ones in the arena change their stats based on the enemy level chosen. Indeed, there's a special bestiary just for arena enemies, with their stats displayed a different way than enemies elsewhere. Enemies in higher-leveled tournaments get better skills to use, as well as counterattacks that you'll need to watch out for, but those increased stats will still be something you'll need to watch out for.
____________
There's a bunch of side stuff I'd like to dabble with, as well as one last system I need to implement, before starting on the final dungeon, but hopefully those won't take too long to wrap up.
Game Design
The Tier 1 classes
False Skies is a class-based RPG, so naturally there's a bunch of classes to talk about.
There's various tiers of them you stack onto your party members, but today let's talk about the first ones you get your hands on. They're hardly the flashiest classes, but like a house needs a solid foundation, an adventurer needs a solid skill set to start off with.
Some notes and terms:
Special: Each class gets a special skill they can use for 0 SP. The catch? While their other skills transfer upon changing class, their special skill does not. Sometimes this change isn't a big deal; sometimes it completely changes how you use a party member.
Capstone skill: A lot of classes get a particularly useful skill upon reaching the point at which one could move on from them; 10 levels in T1 classes, 15 levels in T2/T3 ones. Some classes lack these, mostly those that are more about getting variations on a single type of skill.
ATK: Attack
SKL: Skill
_________
screenshots have been edited for clarity
Generalist
Special: A weak self-heal.
A class exclusive to the first character you make, Generalists are the jack-of-all-trades their name implies, able to equip most weapons without penalty and getting a wide range of skills, but not really excelling in any one category.
What they do get that other classes don't is Pike, an ATK buff that can be targeted at any ally.
Fighter
Special: Raises the user's ATK by 30%.
Perhaps the most basic class , Fighters are your standard sword-using heavy damage dealers. Fang, and later White Fang, do pretty respectable amounts of damage, but don't expect any fancy things from these guys, even if you do keep leveling in it past the point where you could change classes.
Mage
Special: A non-elemental SKL-based ether attack.
The ether- and elemental-based counterparts to Fighters, Mages get fire and ice skills to take advantage of. Perhaps more interestingly, they also get Twinshot and SKL Amp , and their capstone skill is Alagni, a multitargeting fire attack.
Recon
Special: Either steal a portion of an enemy's stat, or potentially nab an item.
Thieves by another name, Recons are the only source of accuracy reduction, and the only source of evasion reduction for a while. Their special skill is a bit finicky, changing modes when the target's HP is lowered a bit, but their capstone skill lets them 'survey' items even after their class change!
Healer
Special: Heal an ally for 20 HP or 10% of their max HP, whichever is greater.
A vital part of any class, healers get the bread-and-butter single-and-multitarget heals you expect from the role. More interestingly, they also get Autopana, a heal that automatically targets the ally with the lowest HP.
Defender
Special: Doubles the user's DEF until the end of next turn.
Things like 'aggro' and 'rows' aren't a thing in False Skies, but Defenders do the best they can to shore up squishier allies regardless. They get Fere and Alfere, the single and multitarget versions of the defense buff, as well as DEF Loan, which lets them transfer part of their DEF to an ally. The catch to all this is that they have no ability to buff SDF and their SP growth is tied for worst in the game. Use their shields wisely, though, and enemies may not be able to scratch you.
Backup
Special: Either resets the user's SKL if it's below 100%, or restore 10% of their max SP.
At first glance, Backups look incredibly useful, with high HP growth and access to a multitude of all-party stat buffs in the form of their Wave skills. The catch here, though, is twofold: in addition to being weaker than their more permanent counterparts, these buffs expire after a few rounds of combat. With that said, they're cheap and can stack up, so don't shy away from using them regardless.
Sorcerer
Special: Raises the user's SKL by 30%.
With air and earth-elemental skills instead of a mage's fire and ice ones, sorcerers trade a bit of raw burst damage for longevity. In addition to their elemental skills, they get early access to SDF buffs in the form of Foca, and SP restoration at the cost of their HP in the form of Blood Tonic. In addition to all these differences, they also get a second-tier elemental skill as their capstone skill.
Archer
Special: A delayed ranged attack to one enemy.
These guys are the ranged damage equivalent to Fighters, but like Sorcerers trade raw power for more technical skills. Piercing through defenses, poisoning foes, attacking all enemies at once; with all this on hand, the multitude of birds and on-contact counterattacking-having enemies that may otherwise pose a threat will easily fall.
There's various tiers of them you stack onto your party members, but today let's talk about the first ones you get your hands on. They're hardly the flashiest classes, but like a house needs a solid foundation, an adventurer needs a solid skill set to start off with.
Some notes and terms:
Special: Each class gets a special skill they can use for 0 SP. The catch? While their other skills transfer upon changing class, their special skill does not. Sometimes this change isn't a big deal; sometimes it completely changes how you use a party member.
Capstone skill: A lot of classes get a particularly useful skill upon reaching the point at which one could move on from them; 10 levels in T1 classes, 15 levels in T2/T3 ones. Some classes lack these, mostly those that are more about getting variations on a single type of skill.
ATK: Attack
SKL: Skill
_________
screenshots have been edited for clarity
Generalist
Special: A weak self-heal.
A class exclusive to the first character you make, Generalists are the jack-of-all-trades their name implies, able to equip most weapons without penalty and getting a wide range of skills, but not really excelling in any one category.
What they do get that other classes don't is Pike, an ATK buff that can be targeted at any ally.
Fighter
Special: Raises the user's ATK by 30%.
Perhaps the most basic class , Fighters are your standard sword-using heavy damage dealers. Fang, and later White Fang, do pretty respectable amounts of damage, but don't expect any fancy things from these guys, even if you do keep leveling in it past the point where you could change classes.
Mage
Special: A non-elemental SKL-based ether attack.
The ether- and elemental-based counterparts to Fighters, Mages get fire and ice skills to take advantage of. Perhaps more interestingly, they also get Twinshot and SKL Amp , and their capstone skill is Alagni, a multitargeting fire attack.
Recon
Special: Either steal a portion of an enemy's stat, or potentially nab an item.
Thieves by another name, Recons are the only source of accuracy reduction, and the only source of evasion reduction for a while. Their special skill is a bit finicky, changing modes when the target's HP is lowered a bit, but their capstone skill lets them 'survey' items even after their class change!
Healer
Special: Heal an ally for 20 HP or 10% of their max HP, whichever is greater.
A vital part of any class, healers get the bread-and-butter single-and-multitarget heals you expect from the role. More interestingly, they also get Autopana, a heal that automatically targets the ally with the lowest HP.
Defender
Special: Doubles the user's DEF until the end of next turn.
Things like 'aggro' and 'rows' aren't a thing in False Skies, but Defenders do the best they can to shore up squishier allies regardless. They get Fere and Alfere, the single and multitarget versions of the defense buff, as well as DEF Loan, which lets them transfer part of their DEF to an ally. The catch to all this is that they have no ability to buff SDF and their SP growth is tied for worst in the game. Use their shields wisely, though, and enemies may not be able to scratch you.
Backup
Special: Either resets the user's SKL if it's below 100%, or restore 10% of their max SP.
At first glance, Backups look incredibly useful, with high HP growth and access to a multitude of all-party stat buffs in the form of their Wave skills. The catch here, though, is twofold: in addition to being weaker than their more permanent counterparts, these buffs expire after a few rounds of combat. With that said, they're cheap and can stack up, so don't shy away from using them regardless.
Sorcerer
Special: Raises the user's SKL by 30%.
With air and earth-elemental skills instead of a mage's fire and ice ones, sorcerers trade a bit of raw burst damage for longevity. In addition to their elemental skills, they get early access to SDF buffs in the form of Foca, and SP restoration at the cost of their HP in the form of Blood Tonic. In addition to all these differences, they also get a second-tier elemental skill as their capstone skill.
Archer
Special: A delayed ranged attack to one enemy.
These guys are the ranged damage equivalent to Fighters, but like Sorcerers trade raw power for more technical skills. Piercing through defenses, poisoning foes, attacking all enemies at once; with all this on hand, the multitude of birds and on-contact counterattacking-having enemies that may otherwise pose a threat will easily fall.
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