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Last updated: July 12, 2015
NOTE: This is Version 2.8. This is THE last one, I swear this time! I just figured if I was adding the ability to toggle sprint, I might as well make a few last tweaks!
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The first main game in the "Shackles of Varn" universe.

Illusions of Loyalty is a short RPG game with a dark story about loyalty and the risks of blind trust, combined with a challenging battle system.

General information:
Illusions of loyalty is about 3-6 hours long to play through, depending on the difficulty level you choose and how much trouble the bosses give you. While the difficulty of the game leans on the "hard" side of the spectrum, there are easier difficulty settings for those who are less hardcore.

Story:
War rages on between the Kingdom of Styx and the Gaius Republic. Worse still, Styx is on the brink of civil war due to the actions of a growing rebel movement. When a particularly violent attack implicates the brother of Captain Julius Logan, his loyalties are called into question.

To prove his dedication to Queen and Country, Logan will have to do the impossible. Take three fellow soldiers into the neutral Eutorian Empire, assassinate their Queen, and pin the blame on Gaius in hopes of swaying the neutral Empire into joining their desperate war.

Taking his kingdom's fate in his hands, Logan sets out with his three comrades, unaware of just how dire his situation is about to become...

Gameplay:
The combat in Illusions of loyalty is based around managing Aggression. Do you spend your Aggression on a powerful attack now, or do you hold back in case the boss might prepare to launch a devastating attack next turn?

Do you go full offense and risk being punished severely, or do you put up your defenses and risk missing a window of opportunity? These are the decisions you will be faced with regularly, especially in the boss fights. And yet, for every impossible situation, there is a solution.

Boss fights are designed around identifying the boss's specific patterns and weaknesses, and then using your skills intelligently to turn the tide of battle in your favor. These bosses will test your skills, patience and drive at every turn. Master your skills, and you may just stand a chance.



Features:

No random encounters!
- All normal battles are on-field sprites that can be avoided if you want!

Quick to pick up, deeper than you think!
- Each character has 6 unique skills, each one with their own uses and advantages. What might seem like dead weight at first glance might prove to be a saving grace in the right situation!

Six challenging boss battles!
- Three story bosses, 3 optional, all incredibly devious. Conquer them!

Play smart, grind less!
- Intelligent use of your skills, and proper understanding of the bosses can allow you to beat them at surprising levels. My personal record is finishing the game at level 7 on |Legend|. Can you beat that?
(Note: The current record is held by NeverSilent who beat the game at levels 4-4-5-4, and who skipped all the normal combat encounters. I'm still in shock)


Save as you please!
- Do you want to save at will? You can do that. Would you rather go retro and be at the mercy of Save Points? You can do that too! You decide!

Accessorize!
- Enemies will sometimes drop accessories that let you tweak your characters. From first-turn advantages to regenerating HP over time, there's many to choose from!

3 difficulty modes
|Legend| - AKA, the hardcore mode
- No mercy. Adapt on the fly, or die trying!

|Knight| - AKA, the Standard mode
- Disables or weakens the 3 most "unfair" boss moves.
- Allows the purchase of level-up manuals from shops.
- Hints for dealing with bosses can be found by speaking with the townsfolk or other events.

|Soldier| - AKA, the easy mode
- Not hardcore? No problem! All the benefits from |Knight| mode apply, plus more!
- Start with four headgears that double EXP rate, gold drop rate, item drop rate, and boost attack and defense by an additional 50%.

--
Version 2.8 - Updated December 12, 2015

Hopefully the final one ever.

- At last! Sprint is now on a toggle! You only need to hit the shift key once and you're running! If you need precision, then just tap it and it's off! No more finger cramps! Huzzah!

- slightly improved telegraphing of Boss #2's attacks, so now you know more which is doing what! Was going to give all enemies a "casting" animation in line with Heresies of Discord, but that would make knowing what enemies to silence a little too easy.

- Enemy Regular attacks now have an animation! No more awkward "pittypat *DAMAGE*" thing! More clarity! And it looks cooler!

- True Ending made a bit more clear/explicit via a few extra animations, and something integrated into the gameplay. I think that latter bit is done quite clever, actually!

- A few loot drop values changed, and a few of the more "meh" accessories were made a tiny bit more effective.

--
Version 2.7 - updated July 12, 2015

This is probably going to be the last one. Unless I become completely insane and want to remove the last few traces of the tricks I had to use to make it work all the way back in the Lite Version. >_>

- Cleaned up a few last bugs.
- Added in a few minor lines of text here and there (mostly relating to Magic), to make it feel a bit more in line with Heresies of Discord.
- Will-O-Wisps now look 10% cooler, with the same sprite they had in Heresies of Discord. :D
- The Luck stat no longer affects status effects, meaning your 100% chance status effect skills (like Silencer) will no longer randomly not happen 0.001% of the time.
- Tweaked the Third Optional Boss to be a bit more fair. You now get more fair warning when he's warming up his gimmick, and you get one more free turn to wail on him.
- A lot of people sent me messages asking me how some things in the True Ending were even possible. Hopefully the implication is a bit more clear now.

--
Version 2.6 - updated March 12, 2014
- Since I made a few minor tweaks for the Steam workshop version, I figured I might as well just port that version over to RMN.net. Because why the heck not?
- Most of the music has been replaced with stuff that's not copyrighted. Yay for royalty free music!
- One last typo (that only showed up on Soldier mode) fixed.
- One boss move's description altered because it made you think you could Silence it, when you couldn't.
- Ambush Orders Accessory made more useful.
--
Version 2.5 - updated March 9, 2014
- Improved combat UI that looks a lot nicer
- Enemies now sometimes drop accessories that can be used to tweak your characters
- Dialogue cleaned up and improved, and a few more NPCs added
- World map music replaced with something much more fitting.
- some skills tweaked and re-labelled. (Baroque's Counter skill is a bit less broken now)
------
Version 2.0:
- No more random encounters. All encounters are on-map sprites that can be avoided.
- 3 more optional bosses, for a total of 6 bosses.
- Wilder's skills rebalanced to be harder to use, but more powerful when used well.
- Expanded towns, and many many more events. Be sure to check out everything! :)
- Difficulty modes expanded on and rebalanced. Boss hints can now be found in the world on everything but the hardest mode.
- New story scenes, improved dialogue, and clarified battle mechanics.

Latest Blog

New game in this setting!

I probably should have posted this weeks ago, but hey.

If you subscribed to this game, you may enjoy the next game in this setting, Glories of the hunt!

It uses the same Aggression Combat System, now with ATB (turn gauges) and a "Party-wide limit break system" called Glory.

If you enjoyed Illusions of Loyalty for the complex combat and bosses, you'll have a great time. :)
  • Completed
  • Aegix_Drakan
  • RPG Maker VX Ace
  • RPG
  • 02/15/2013 03:09 AM
  • 02/28/2023 11:44 PM
  • 06/26/2013
  • 110332
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:D Finally, the update is done! Enjoy!

Update features:
- No more random encounters. All encounters are on-map sprites that can be avoided.
- 3 more optional bosses, for a total of 6 bosses.
- Wilder's skills rebalanced to be harder to use, but more powerful when used well.
- Expanded towns, and many many more events. Be sure to check out everything! :)
- Difficulty modes expanded on and rebalanced. Boss hints can now be found in the world on everything but the hardest mode.
- New story scenes, improved dialogue, and clarified battle mechanics.
Ok... First of all, great game. If I knew how to write a review worth shit, I'd write one. But you'll have to settle for a comment. =P

Let's start with the story. At first you're like "Heh; typical stuff" But since political plots are still a step up form the more common "Warriors of light, defeat the Evil Lord" they're a welcome change of pace. All in all I really liked the story, the personalities and motivation of the characters, and the plot twists at the end; But what really took the prize for me were the endings. Very emotional stuff, all of them... That one last battle against the Golems should have been more epic, though. (Or you should remove it entirely)

The mapping/dungeon design is perhaps the lowest point of the game. Towns are pretty much useless. Not only the maps feel pretty restrictive, like you're limited to a part of the town. But also, you'll never need an inn, and stores could have been easily replaced by monster drops. Some of the npc's dialogues are fun but that's it... The dungeons. Well, at least they're not gigantic and there seem to be some thought to them. But they're still pretty much an excuse for the player to struggle their way out of them.

Battles and difficulty... Ok, battles are certainly not the kind that you win by just pressing *Enter-Enter-Enter*, which is good. You made a good selection of skills that are useful at some point throughout the game. But I was a bit disappointed that you never learn new ones, so the novelty of the battles eventually wears off-- That being said, the game is not really difficult. Boss battles are challenging, yes, and that's good; but random battles are a chore. They leave you very little exp and money, they don't drop items (or at least I never got any) and the encounter rate is kind of high. The good thing is that they're easy to escape from, but they're still annoying.

So, what I'm trying to say is here is, that a more straight-forward approach would have improved this game: Story->Boss battle->Story->Boss battle... Just the fun parts. Towns, Dungeons and random battles kind of hold it down a bit.

Ah, the music, sound effects and animations were also good. But who cares about that? ;P
author=alterego
Ok... First of all, great game. If I knew how to write a review worth shit, I'd write one. But you'll have to settle for a comment. =P


;) I'll take it. And don't sell yourself short, this was good feedback. Thanks.

Let's start with the story. At first you're like "Heh; typical stuff" But since political plots are still a step up form the more common "Warriors of light, defeat the Evil Lord" they're a welcome change of pace. All in all I really liked the story, the personalities and motivation of the characters, and the plot twists at the end; But what really took the prize for me were the endings. Very emotional stuff, all of them... That one last battle against the Golems should have been more epic, though. (Or you should remove it entirely)


*grin* Glad you enjoyed. That's probably what I poured the most soul into. Given more time and the full version of VXAce, I would have had more character development along the way. Glad the endings blew your mind. Took me a while to get them all just right. :)

The mapping/dungeon design is perhaps the lowest point of the game. Towns are pretty much useless. Not only the maps feel pretty restrictive, like you're limited to a part of the town. But also, you'll never need an inn, and stores could have been easily replaced by monster drops. Some of the npc's dialogues are fun but that's it... The dungeons. Well, at least they're not gigantic and there seem to be some thought to them. But they're still pretty much an excuse for the player to struggle their way out of them.


Eh...Yeah. Mapping was never my forte (although VX makes it so much easier than XP).

Sorry about the snipped towns. I would have made them full size, but since lite can only have 10 events...it was either small, semi-bustling towns, or large empty ones... In terms of inns and shops, noted.

And dungeons...Well...I wanted my game to be more than just story-boss-story-boss-story-ENDING. It would have been way too short, and given you less time to master the skills you'd need for the endgame.

Battles and difficulty... Ok, battles are certainly not the kind that you win by just pressing *Enter-Enter-Enter*, which is good. You made a good selection of skills that are useful at some point throughout the game. But I was a bit disappointed that you never learn new ones, so the novelty of the battles eventually wears off-- That being said, the game is not really difficult. Boss battles are challenging, yes, and that's good; but random battles are a chore. They leave you very little exp and money, they don't drop items (or at least I never got any) and the encounter rate is kind of high. The good thing is that they're easy to escape from, but they're still annoying.


Yeah, the high encounter rate, and low reward rate was a complaint I got from my friends as well. I'll see what I can do once the contest is over. I think I'll reduce the enemy HP a bit as well, another complaint I got is that the random battles tend to last way too long.

As for not learning any new skills...Well, I wanted players to master the ones given and not penalize people who went for low level runs. That, and I honestly could not think of any more useful skills that would play nice with the existing ones, and not be OP or pointless. :( Sorry about that.

So, what I'm trying to say is here is, that a more straight-forward approach would have improved this game: Story->Boss battle->Story->Boss battle... Just the fun parts. Towns, Dungeons and random battles kind of hold it down a bit.


Noted. I think I'll just reduce the encounter rates, increase rewards, and try to add some more story along the way. I do agree that with the high encounter rate, the good bits were a little bit too far apart. My best buddy told me that as well. By the end, he'd almost forgotten what the mission was... >_<

Ah, the music, sound effects and animations were also good. But who cares about that? ;P


:P Apparently you do, given that you liked them. XD

--

Thanks a lot for the feedback. I'll get around to tweaking, improving, and adding some stuff once the cook off is over. Your concerns have been noted. ;)

And I'm happy to hear you really enjoyed the story. As an aspiring writer of sorts, that makes me really happy. :)
I started playing this and I like it. Deep combat which I like. I had to use my brain when battling. Now I've reached the point where you have control of the full party.
I faced the first boss. I really like the game due to the deep combat although more enemies would make it more enjoyable, but there were limits to the contest. The boss probably took 20 minutes and I'm on standard mode or whatever the highest difficulty is.

The boss battle felt really good due to the patterns and I had to learn them all while still surviving to learn the patterns. It was more of a me trying to survive than the boss taking punishment.

The game doesn't punch you in the face with story. Like some games I've played that have no combat but 8+ minutes of dialog before you get to wander around and fight something. I feel RPGs are fun because of combat and you have that nailed down.

In the second town there's some good dialog. Stuff about the dragon, talk of the plate mail and even the weapons shop dealer :-)

Looks like I've been playing 2 hours. Healthy game.

So far I'm leaning toward 4 - 4.5 stars for this game. Unfortunately the lack of fresh graphics hold it back.
Glad you're enjoying it. :)

Once the contest is over, I'll patch up the last few bugs and add in one or two more small story segments along the way to develop the characters more.

And then I'll use the full version (just bought it) to re-balance the game. Mostly tweaking encounter rate and rewards and adding in a few optional bosses. :P

And a 4/5? You're too kind. :)
Does the current download need the patch?

Edit: Never mind, got the patch anyway.
author=wildwes
Does the current download need the patch?

Edit: Never mind, got the patch anyway.


Yeah, at the moment, the patch is required.

I'll do a proper update once the judging is done so no more patching is needed.
Unnecessary update of what I'm doing on the game:
Restarting it on Simple mode. Easy mode is too... you guessed it easy hard.

I like the storyline! The only "dark" game I've been playing lately is Twilight Princess (which is getting rather dark right now actually).

It's a very nice game, Aegix!
author=wildwes
Unnecessary update of what I'm doing on the game:
Restarting it on Simple mode. Easy mode is too... you guessed it easy hard.


:P How far did you get before you threw in the towel? What boss did it for you? Did you read the Boss FAQ to get unstuck?

I like the storyline! The only "dark" game I've been playing lately is Twilight Princess (which is getting rather dark right now actually).

It's a very nice game, Aegix!


:D Thanks a lot! I'm glad you're liking it!
My interest fell off a cliff after the first 'dungeon.' Every battle is a true battle. There are no easy wins. I kept playing 30+ minutes and that was grinding. Even with new weapons, armor and leveling up, it doesn't seem any easier.

New skills would help keep my interest. Having some sort of kill shot if you get enough AP would greatly improve battles by ending them quicker.

I'm playing on standard mode, the 3rd difficulty level.

I don't think that I'll get the enjoyable payoff by playing through this anymore :-(

Also the battle music needs to be randomized or freshened, since the game is so battle heavy.
:(

Noted. Sorry it turned you off, man...
I haven't played in a while, but today:
I beat the giant spider that tries to spit nasty stuff at you! Hooray!
Yeah, I kinda got stuck on him while playing on Easy...

I'm not good at hard RPGs. I really don't know why I always want to play them...


Yep. I like the game! It's really good! Mapping's pretty nice too.
"Standard" player here, because I'm pro, so I always play the hardest difficulty possible.

Short version: I liked it.
Long version: Train-of-thought comments, sort-of organized.

Characters, Story

Man, I saw the ending a mile away (FOR THE EMPEROR EMPRESS + top secret mission from manipulative leader = ...). But the characters were good; I had a good understanding for the basic personalities and motivations of everybody for the short time I met them. Your NPCs played their parts with a distinct flavor too. And characters are most of what matters, so I'm happy to forgive the plot.

The Spider and Flower bosses didn't really do much for the story, but they were satisfying to beat up.


Skills
The Useful
-Usability seems to depend on whether or not I'm fighting a boss. My most common skills...
Logan: Rally Cry, Defense Orders, Brutality, All Out
Sarah: First Aid, One Shot One Kill, Explosive Shell
Wilder: Precision Strike, Call of the Wind
Baroque: Crimson Massacre, Bloody Thorns, Blood from a Rose

Trash
In general, those inflicting status effects since they don't last too long (Smoke Shell) or lack tangible effects (Stickerbrush Barrage, Obfuscate, Crush), and the owning character has better options

Others
-Still not sure how Logan's Cover worked (I thought it would be just like Minotaur where everyone else is safe except status effects and enemies just targets Logan, but I guess not).
-Malevolent Riposte (Worthless in boss battles and Baroque can do better things vs. non-bosses)
-Glory of the Hunt (Wilder is an attacker, this is worthless if it just lasts one turn)
-Swift as the Wind (I think it only works for basic "Attack", so the skill doesn't combo well)
-Medicinal Herbs (Because I have items and Wilder is an attacker)

Everything else not mentioned in either means it saw situational use (usually the negative stat effect attacks)


Battle
Non-Bosses
Standard pattern:
Turn 1:
Logan--R.Cry/Orders/Attack to build AGR
Sarah--First Aid/Attack, Noisemaker Shot against the "stronger" enemy if move is available (maybe)
Wilder--Precision Strike to build AGR
Baroque--Attack to build AGR

Turn 2:
Logan--Orders (Characters are doling out stat changes)
Sarah--First Aid/Explosive Shell against "stronger" enemy/Attack
Wilder--Call of the Wind
Baroque-- Bloody Thorns vs. "weaker" enemy

Turn 3:
Logan: R.Cry
Sarah: Attack/One Shot
Wilder: Precision Strike vs. "stronger" enemy
Baroque: Crimson Massacre

Turn 4, onwards:
Spam R.Cry/Precision Strike/Attack to finish off the "stronger" enemy (with turns spent Defense Orders/First Aid at weaker levels)

Fewer encounters and letting monsters give more experience would be great.

Bossses
Intro and Spider gave me zero problem (Defense Orders+Defend against Grenade during the Intro Boss since I was still learning the skills, Spider seemed easy in my opinion since there's only one of him and four of me).

I feel I was appropriately leveled at bosses without having to grind except for the end (I sort of considered the no random encounters "bug" a perk until I realized that level 6 would not cut it vs Archmage until after three dozen tries and 5h later--so I didn't know the end castle was full of random encounter).

I was also "Boss FAQ? LOLOL pass." The first time I looked was after I beat the game, and then had a good chuckle about how I did the fights the hard way.


Flowers
First time I fought these guys, I never bothered to save since getting to the forest and promptly died after figuring out how to beat its synergy (Green liked massive heals/attacks and bringing back its allies, and Blue liked the damage-negating covers, Red just a nuisance). So I punched through the Forest to get back.

So I took out Green first with Brutalities on Blue (stop the covers), All Outs on Green (break the covers), and everybody else doling out pain between the covers. Defense Orders/First Aid and items as necessary if I was low on health. Once Green was gone, everything else was a breeze.

Archmage
As mentioned above, spent some time here. I actually took down Minotaur at the end of my rope as level 6, but Archmage revived him, and so I said "okay I guess I'll level 2-3 times", fixed the bug, and went back. In general, the underlevels had the main problems: 1. Noisemaker Shot didn't slow down Minotaur sufficiently to give me a chance to interrupt the Charge-up attacks with Brutality, and 2. I was doing under 100 damage max (30 damage average) and forced to heal over a long time, and tanking isn't a viable long-term strategy in this game.

I also realized that the Archmage and Minotaur had a set pattern of attack (at least the opening 5 turns, the pattern may or may not repeat turn 6 and later ), so that helped anticipating the high AGL boss' Charge-ups with Brutality and Silence, but the pattern wasn't set in stone, so that caused problems down the road.

Came back at level 9...
Strategy was to nuke Minotaur with Noisemaker Shots and Explosive Shells to make him manageable as I concentrated on the Archmage. Archmage was still too fast to negate him, so I spent his epic-summon turns defending and healing...but I was able to defend pretty well against Minotaur with well-timed Brutalities, though a few charge-ups still got through since I was out of AGRO at the moment. Baroque spent the game playing damage sponge and healing everyone with items since Sara had other things to be doing.

Fun fact: of the 3x200HP, 6x400HP, 6x1ups item recoveries I entered battle with, I ended with 1x1up and JUST managed to kill the Archmage. Fortunately, Archmage death made Minotaur and Screaming Horror very, very manageable.

Beating that was extremely satisfying, boss fights that made me think are great.


Music
Kind of forgettable, because I forgot the themes already. But they work.
author=the13thsecret
"Standard" player here, because I'm pro, so I always play the hardest difficulty possible.

Short version: I liked it.
Long version: Train-of-thought comments, sort-of organized.


Thanks for the kinds words, the13thsecret!

Also I am astounded. If I'm reading this right you BRUTE FORCED my bosses. How. HOW?! My mind is blown that you managed to beat the final boss at level 9 by BRUTE FORCING THE GUY. I didn't think it was possible. I don't know whether to shake my head in disbelief, or applaud you. XD
Wait a minute... he WHAT?! He... on Standard... um... I'm as astounded as you are, Aegix... 'o'
Update progress: All major gameplay additions (and optional bosses) are done (minus some items I want to change). Now expanding the towns, and adding new NPCs and events. Should be another 2-3 weeks in the worst case before it's done
:D Finally, the update is done! Enjoy!

Update features:
- No more random encounters. All encounters are on-map sprites that can be avoided.
- 3 more optional bosses, for a total of 6 bosses.
- Wilder's skills rebalanced to be harder to use, but more powerful when used well.
- Expanded towns, and many many more events. Be sure to check out everything! :)
- Difficulty modes expanded on and rebalanced. Boss hints can now be found in the world on everything but the hardest mode.
- New story scenes, improved dialogue, and clarified battle mechanics.
So, I had a lot to do so I only beat it today. It was a lot of fun and I have a lot to say, so I'll try to break it down in an organized manner and not forget anything|

First, the difficulty was good, kind of hard, but not very (I played on 'Legend' or whatever the hardest difficulty was). Still a better challenge than most games (even some of my all time favourites are too easy), so I commend you on that! Most bosses I had to fight 2-3 times to beat, which is good. But not nearly as hard as you made it sound, I saved like twice per area.

Second, the story was definitely my kind of story! It ends a little abruptly, but I guess for a three hour game one doesn't need a big ending. I also get that it was done in two weeks! And that not all endings need to have all the answers! Some of my favourite games leave some questions, which is great. The story itself I like because it's political, a little steam-punk, character driven, has some complexity, is dark, isn't glorified, and at the end really makes you worried about the characters that you grew attached to (Sarah Hawke is my favourite, but Erik Wilder is cool too).

I like the battle system and the skills (I don't know how much of it was RPG Maker, as I'm only familiar with 95 and 2000), particularly the dynamic skills which require AGR and SP (MP?) which recharge over time. I love the implementation of lots of buff/de-buff combined with attacks and healing. The boss battles were well planned out to keep the gameplay interesting. Only criticism is that inns are useless. Walk around, recover SP (MP?), First Aid, repeat!

Not much to say about graphics and music, being an RPG Maker game... Nice hearing Final Fantasy IV, Chrono Trigger, and Tales of Symphonia music (got In a Shadowy Woods from Tales of Symphonia on loop, thanks for that file <3), but I really must protest your choice in overworld music! Way too upbeat and adventurous for the story, should have used Terra's Theme (overworld) from Final Fantasy VI or something darker and more calm.

Anyway, I'd love to see a full game from you some day, so be sure to let me know when that comes out. For what it is, I'd give it an 8/10 (if the overworld theme were different). For a short game that is. That says a lot because I don't throw those around. Something like Final Fantasy X, Secret of Mana, or Radiant Historia would be an 8/10. 9/10 is like Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, or Arc Rise Fantasia. I don't think a 10/10 exists right now :P

Anyway, I should be on 8 or 12 somewhere playing SNES on Tuesday from four to eight thirty, so if you wanna talk more JRPG I'll be there! Take care!
I beat it a few minutes ago, and I loved it!

The gameplay's challenging, but not overly rough (I like how it actually requires thought to some degree instead of just coming up with a two-bit strategy and just using the same two or three attacks until the enemy submits), the length is reasonable, and the story is exactly to my liking.

The ending was also really sad. Poor Anne. :c The parallels to the beginning were a nice touch, though.


And the grammar was pretty good for the most part, which is always nice. The only thing really wrong is that the battles got a bit dull at times despite them employing tactics heavily to keep things interesting. Otherwise, great job!
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