10/14/2023 Current Version: Version 0.03 Changelog can be found in Downloads page

Primal Essence: Thacktrian Sphere (Formerly known as Crashocalypse II) is an RPGmaker 2003 game, made with the old version of 2k3 and many tools such as Cherry's RPG2009, DynRPG, and several patches.

Slight foreword content warning: The Episode 0 demo is fairly light on graphic elements, mostly just some blood splurts in some animations. The S-rank bonus and the Main game however will feature more graphic content than what was shown in the demo. Also, there's some swearing and occasional crass humor.


Justice Tower, a massive housing complex located far to the north of the Nirbay Peninsula, a backwater territory of the Thacktrian Republic. It has a rather storied history, having changed hands throughout its days through extraordinary circumstances, but today it is the place many call home; a place to stay, work, and etch out a living.

4 years have passed since the dreadful events of the Peninsula War, where a paramilitary organization known by the shorthand of the 'RUC' took control of the tower, and began their conquest of the Nirbay Peninsula, slaughtering innocents by the thousands along their way. After their defeat, many of the very people who had taken up arms against them have moved into the tower to rebuild it and make the place their home. Early on it was tough, many of the tower's functionalities took forever to restore, so much had to be cleaned up, and a tight budget meant that wages were low. Despite all of this, the sense of community was enough to keep everyone going.

The story follows The Survivors, a group of Justice Tower residents from a range of different backgrounds, who had originally come to the tower to etch out a living of their own. They first came together as members of a protest community of evictees outside the tower before the RUC's path of conquest began. The Survivors were, as the name suggests, the survivors from the RUC's massacre of said community, known henceforth as the "Justice Tower Massacre." They escaped and joined various Resistance cells to fight back against the RUC's encroachment, and to take revenge for the massacre. Like many others, they had also taken up residence in the tower after the RUC's defeat, finally able earn that living that they were originally denied.

But strange movements have been brewing in the Thacktrian mainland, and the residents of Justice Tower may soon come face-to-face with another conflict that will expose them to matters far beyond the scope their own little world.



A battle system that emphasizes the decision-making aspect of turn-based RPGs. Action Points are everything when it comes to battles. Action Points work like how you would expect: almost every single action in battle costs action points, mostly attacking and skills. You only have a limited pool to work with, but after a certain amount of turns have passed (represented by your Timer), you'll refresh your AP back to full.


Of course, taking actions isn't the only thing AP is used for. They are used defensively as well, for Reactions to the enemy's attacks.

Evasion
Evasion allows you to completely avoid and negate an incoming attack. The AP cost will vary depending on the Hit Rate of the attack, as well as the Speed difference between the attacker and target.




Guard
Guard always costs 1 AP, and will halve the amount of damage taken, as well as the Severity of any status effects and AP damage (known as Stagger) the attack may have.




Nothing
Or you can just grit your teeth and power through the attack. If it's an attack that does not deal any Stagger, delay ATB, or delay your Timer, you'll conserve AP and advance your own Timer in the process, helping you get closer to refreshing your AP and making your own move.




In addition, the enemies follow the same rules as the player. When faced with an attack, they will also have to decide to respond in one of the above three ways. It's possible for enemies to exhaust themselves and end up all the more vulnerable to your next attack!

How the enemy responds and acts in battle is dependent on their personality. Some may be more inclined towards aggression, while others are more evasive. In many cases, their behavior may even change depending on the state of the battle. Learning these behaviors and exploiting them is another key to victory.

Why avoid low AP?

Every action involves exposing yourself just a little. You will have to avoid expending too much of your AP, otherwise you won't have enough to defend yourself when the enemy moves to attack. And when AP is dangerously low, you run the risk of getting struck by a Critical Hit.

Critical Hits
Critical Hits are determined by the Crit Rate of an attack. If a target's current AP is lower than the Crit Rate of an attack, that attack will become a Critical Hit, ignoring the ability to respond at all and dealing double damage. The Crit Rate of most attacks is 1, meaning they can only crit when the target has 0 AP. Attacks that have a higher crit rate are those that are better at taking advantage of a target's vulnerable state.

Oh, and don't let your AP drop to 0, otherwise your Timer's getting delayed, giving the enemy more time to strike you down.




A selection of different weapon types to use

Each character has a set of compatible weapons they can equip. Whatever skills they learn for each weapon is unique to that character.
For example, both Character A and B can use swords. But both use them in very different ways.



No weapons are a straight upgrade from another (or at least that's my intent). Every weapon, even within the same type, has different stats and sometimes unique traits that may be more palatable depending on what you're going for. This goes for Trinkets as well, which exist in the place of traditional armor slots.

Other stuff to expect:

• A wide array of cool battle animations (at least I hope you think so)

• Some flexibility in how the player can proceed through the game and complete their task, This goes for sidequests as well.

• Find the right tools to overcome an obstacle... or find another way to bypass it.

• Some skills you learn may be helpful in situations outside of battle, but I'm not telling you which ones!

• Customizable difficulty settings to fine-tune and cultivate the best... or worst experience for yourself.

• Cooking. It does what you expect.

• Brought the wrong equipment into battle (especially weapon)? No worries, you can change in the middle of a fight through the Item menu. While you'll still use up a turn, your ATB will start halfway filled.

• Is a fight not going your way? Want to restart it without hitting F12? Use the White Flag item to end the fight in your loss so you can try again in a jiffy.

• 99% custom graphics (I think)

The Episode 0 Demo
For now, the current demo available is known as the Episode 0 Demo. Episode 0 is a completely self-contained story taking place in a self-contained setting that has little to no relation to the actual plot of the game. The intent is to act as a warmup and a testing ground for many of the game's experimental mechanics before work on the main story begins in earnest.
The basic plot of Episode 0: AB and Steve have arrived in a town called Demotown in search of their friends.
That's pretty much it.
For the time being, every screenshot of the game is from the Episode 0 Demo.

The Episode 0 Demo will feature a single area with many sub-areas to explore, items to find, sidequests, four minibosses and a single chapter boss.
The first four characters will be playable, with half of their skill trees available for this demo.



Just some general advice for those playing: This is not a game where you can spam your strongest attack to victory (I mean you probably can but you'll probably get hurt a lot in the process). The higher the power, the higher the AP cost and therefore the higher the risk. It's best you get a feel for when would be a good time to attack, and when would be a good time to use Rest to regain your footing, rather than just going all out all the time.


The game folder also contains a readme file with a manual that explains some of the game mechanics in a bit more detail, since at the moment they aren't explained very well in-game.

Known/potential issues:
Enemies that are defeated will have their HP displayed as 1. This is kind of necessary, because setting it to 0 will cause them to disappear on the spot.
Potential for bugs when an enemy takes their turn at the same time as a player character.
Balance may be a little wonky.
I did not keep track of what recipes I already put in for the player to discover. So there may be duplicates or missing recipes.
There is a bug where after certain events all non-quest NPCs in town disappear and don't reappear like they're supposed to. Let me know if you encounter this issue.
The robber quest was pretty convoluted and may be prone to bugs. Hopefully the worst thing that happens is some dialogue weirdness.
Navigating the item menu might be a bit of a slog.

Also, in case the text in your game looks distorted or difficult to read, please install the following fonts
https://www.mediafire.com/file/dbt4qq8gjyrv799/2k3fonts.rar/file

Episode 0 Release Trailer: