Hello everyone,
I know it's been some time since I've updated anything on the game (other than the recent title change - more on that later), so I decided I'd write up a quick blog to let you know where I'm at with things.

I haven't done much work on the game itself in over a month because I've been pretty busy, but I have been writing the story for the game and jotting down various ideas that I've had and ways that I can expand and enrich the lore of the universe. The new title of the game, Relas: Chaos of the Realms is directly related to the story I'm writing. I won't get too into details, but expect much better writing and pacing than the original game. Although I'm aware that the basic premise for the story (demon invasion!) is quite generic, there are a number of things that I'd like to do with it that I think will be appreciated by a lot of people. Moral themes will tie in heavily to the main plot, and Xavier, the main "villain" of sorts, will be much less mustache-twirling than in the original game. He has very clear motivations for what he is doing this time around, and you as the player might even be able to see where he's coming from.

The story of the game will be mostly nonlinear, as I'm going to reuse that age old trope of "go to these five different places across the continent in any order to win!". Is it generic? A little bit, sure. But in my opinion, plots that provide clear objectives from the outset and that allow for tons of player creativity and freedom are the best kind there is. The first few hours of the game will probably be restricted to Deepmount County, as you saw in the demo, but after that the entire world will open up to you and you'll be able to explore it at your leisure. If you're a powergamer, there's a very real possibility that you could "beat" the game in a couple of hours.

That's about all I'm going to go into for now. I am getting back to working on the actual game again, and you can probably expect a new, significantly expanded demo at the end of the month.

As the title of the blog says, I am currently working on remaking The Chronicles of Engea in RPG Maker VX Ace. This is not going to be as massive of an undertaking as it would seem, because scripts can cover a lot of the mechanics that I would have to implement manually in RPG Maker 2000. I'm also not just going to be doing a straight-up remake; there will be substantial changes to the main story, quests, and the design of the gameworld. Hopefully, the end result will be a much better game. Unlike the original game, I now have a clear vision of what I have planned for the game, so it's unlikely that I'll have to go back and redo past work on this game, as I had to do many times with the RPG Maker 2000 version of TCOE.

The decision behind this was an easy one. I saw that I was putting a ton of work into the game with few results, and I wasn't satisfied with that I was able to do within the engine. So, I bought VX Ace and the High Fantasy Resource Pack, and with the aid of a few scripts, I'm now much closer to what my intended vision for the game would be.

Below I'm going to share a few screenshots; this is what I have done so far just after a few hours of work. Since I have the next week off for Christmas break, I'll be able to make some significant progress.

Hey all,

I've been hard at work on The Chronicles of Engea over the past week, busy fixing a lot of bugs, balance issues, and other things that made it into the last version but shouldn't have.

Balance

One serious issue with the "Fast Learner" character background was that any special attribute buffs/debuffs you could receive didn't apply if you chose the background, and you couldn't become a werewolf, either, along with a ton of other issues. If anyone chose "Fast Learner" and had these issues, I apologize. I can't believe it took me this long to notice the problem (it was very, very obvious).

From my playtesting I also discovered that the "Wealthy Orphan" background was well... kind of useless. The disadvantages to the background far outweighed the one advantage (a bonus of 1000 gold, which, let's face it, isn't very much.) To offset that, I changed the amount of gold you gain at the start from 1000 to 3000. From my playing experience, it makes the background a hell of a lot more useful.

Along with those changes, I've also corrected issues with price and item stat correlation; puzzling stuff like a Leather Helmet costing nearly twice as much as Leather Armor and providing less defense. This is mostly stuff left over from the default database that I didn't get around to correcting until now. Prices and item stats should be a lot more sensible in the upcoming version.

I've also added scrolls into the game. Most of the scrolls available are the very powerful spells that can only be learned at later levels (if at all). They cost a decent amount, but they're more useful than spells in that any party member can use them. I also added your basic utility spells Levitation and Teleport as scrolls; they cost about 1/5 of the regular spell tome and they're more convenient as you can use them even if your spellcaster is knocked out.

Choice & Consequence

As you know, the main description for this game is "An original game with a focus of choice & consequence." I'll be the first to admit that I haven't totally lived up to that promise. There are very few examples of C&C in the last version of the game, and it's something that I've hopefully corrected in the upcoming version.

From simple things like someone later finding out you lied to them, to larger consequences like being exiled from a city for your crimes, I've added quite a few examples of C&C into the upcoming version of The Chronicles of Engea thanks to the wonderful capabilities of common events and the wait function. Most of these consequences will take place after a relatively short amount of game time; others take a bit longer depending on the situation. You can see a few minor examples of C&C in the screenshots I addded today.

Version 0.4b should be up shortly. I can't say that this is another huge update like version 0.3 was; it doesn't add any new maps or expand on the main plot. It does fix a ton of issues that I left on the previous version, though. I promise that the update after this one is going to expand on the main plot and add a ton more things for you to do. In the meantime, though, it's important that I continue to rebalance the game, fix bugs, and add more examples of C&C.

Hello everyone!

Recently, I've made it my goal to redo almost every interior map in The Chronicles of Engea to improve them and make them more realistic in their presentation. I don't have very good mapping skills, though, and I'd much appreciate it if somebody who has a knack for that sort of thing could help me out! Of course, anyone who wants to help me with this gets their name on the developers list, and if you happened to have more ideas/suggestions for the game we could possibly implement them. Anyway, if anyone wants to help me out with this mapping thing, just give me a shout. Thanks!

Mapper found! - Hats off to giaks for all the work he's been doing on the maps.

Hello readers!
I'm currently in the midst of getting a new demo out for The Chronicles of Engea, and I thought I'd make a blog post on some of the changes I'll be implementing.

At the beginning of the game, you can now choose a character background. There are currently nine different character backgrounds to choose from which can give Joel some unique strengths and weaknesses that will follow you throughout the game. Here's a screenshot of some of the character backgrounds:



I will admit, these are almost directly inspired from Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura's character backgrounds, but the bonuses are (obviously) tweaked to fit for the RM2K system. I've set up each background so that you receive bonuses to certain stats, and decreases to others. Each character background should be balanced in terms of strengths and weaknesses, as all the stat increases and decreases balance each other out. There are also some more unique backgrounds, such as one that increases your leveling speed significantly, and another that allows you to start out with an extra 1000 gold.

Party Management

Once you get into Chapter Two of the game, you'll be given total control over who is in your party at any given time. I'm going to be introducing several new companions who can join your party, and different combinations of party members will yield different conversations at any given time. I might run into some technical difficulties with this, though, so there are probably going to be sections where you are required to have a certain party member with you (similar to Neverwinter Nights 2). Here's an early screenshot at what party management might be like:



More info to come on the next update soon. Since I'm participating in NaGaDeMo, the next demo will definitely be out within about two weeks. Stay tuned!