It's been many, MANY, years since I started working on this game. I was just about ready with a Beta version several years back but always sort of felt it could have been much better with a bit more work. I lost a lot of steam when I decided to change the name of the game, many who were originally following it no longer knew where to find it and it made things quite confusing. In all honestly I'd like to change the name again as I'm no longer happy with it, but oh well. I haven't touched this in a long time but made some little polishes today in the hopes of releasing this as a Beta demo. It's got what amounts to probably a few hours of gameplay and enough of a taste that might satisfy those of you craving some oldschool Rpg Maker 2003 goodness. I mean, I hope it's goodness. I'm not expecting any major feedback but if you'd like to tell me your thoughts on it that would be awesome. I know I personally want to tweak the intro sequence, like, a lot. Please remember it's fairly old at this point. Just how old is it? Check out the blog I had for it originally when it was still titled Hero I: http://herothefirst.blogspot.com/ Wow. So if it seems corny or cringy to any extent (hopefully it won't, I tried to up my dialogue ante over the years) please remember it's almost 9 years old, and most of those were my teenage years (note: this doesn't have 9 years worth of work in it, my interest waned and waxed over time but it's definitely got a couple years in there). Enjoy guys.

I've been working for a while, sometimes I just don't feel like blogging about the progress! The game is coming along quite nicely. Technically where the first few beta releases ended was intended to be where the game ends in this release, but I've decided to continue the story further before the next release. The problem is that because the game is essentially a free-roamer in the beginning, the story takes a while to start up if you actually explore everything around you. So now there will actually be a bit more story to go along with the few hours of exploration.

The game's name is still rattling around in my head, I have about three good and simple choices that I like... so eventually there may be some shell shock as I change the name.

Hello everyone, I figured I was due for a blog entry and should explain what comes next and what is being worked on. I've restructured the plot a bit and so I feel like the demo needs to go a bit farther in before it just drops off at a random spot. The player should be more into the story development and characters (and let's face it, depending on how much free-roaming the player does he or she really won't get the real second character for an hour or two in). So cutting the plot soon after that just isn't going to flow. Plus, wouldn't you like to get a third character and get really involved before it all goes down?

-Monsters no longer drop gold AT ALL (Unless there is a reason for them to have a few pieces, a.k.a. a thieving goblin). They only dropped a few pieces before as I figured getting twenty gold from a bear never really made any sense, but I figured I should just transcend the typical nonsense RPGs completely and make it somewhat more realistic. Monster drops have always been in the game, so the player will make plenty of money selling them (As before).

-New areas for the initial country are in the works, (I know there are already a sufficient amount and other continents should be prepped for areas) but as the "water themed" nation I feel like Larcia needs some more water themed places and I have a lot of ideas to elaborate upon (Pirate's cove, anyone? Skeleton pirate monsters? Sounds like fun!).

-The Mountain trail, a previously unfinished area, has been completely mapped out and its puzzle is essentially done. Now to just add monsters and plot events!

-I'm converting most of the battle character sets to animations. Most of Ephren's and Match's already were animations, but not all of them (Which caused an occasional little graphics glitch whenever it switched from animation to character set). They are just so much more pretty when you're not restricted to three frames of repeating animation. I've already redone a new character's idle position and just for fun she now pounds her fists every now and again. + character depth?

-As I said in a previous post, MUCH of the Npc dialogue has been double checked and fixed up. A bunch of it is a lot more relevant and just plain better than what was there.

-Cyria's done again, but I think slower computers MAY STILL have a problem with it occasionally (It probably doesn't help that there are still ~1500 events per both maps). I should probably just convert the water events to a common event that checks terrain and so on as per what Dragonheartman recommended. Will do.

-I was being stupid before not realizing that half of my battle pages could be within one! I went from 20 pages to 9. Not too shabby.

Thanks for taking the time to read, and thanks for following this project!

...because I am close to the next release! Plus, the first beta release was aging quite a bit and I feel like all of the revisions I have done have improved it significantly.

Sorry for the inconvenience (If you really MUST play the game, let me know and I'll link you to it). Otherwise hold on a bit longer and get ready for something much better!

I was messing around with the laggy footprint system the other night and with a little help from dragonheartman I was able to fix it up quite nicely. It seems the biggest roadblock thus far is now gone! Yes, I am still working, but slowly. Real life has taken me hostage (Like it should most of the time). It's quite possible once I make some decent progress I could release the full BETA...