Sword Scroll Saga

DEVELOPER'S NOTES:

What kind of RPG is this?

I've been playing and loving RPGs for decades, from the classics like Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, to more niche ones like Fire Emblem, Phantasy Star and Shining Force and then also more bottom of the barrel like Holy Magic Century.

So over the years I've also started to dream about making my own RPG(s). Although I have experience with a bunch of programming languages, I ended up deciding on RPG maker since it saves me the work of coding an RPG engine from scratch and I'm also a big fan of RPG maker games.

My primary goal here is experimenting with actually making an RPG. I had a plan beforehand, but as I started coding, I quickly realized there's quite a lot more details to consider than I expected. Still been learning a lot and also came up with new ideas as I discovered RPG maker's possibilities.

My secondary goal was, well, making an interesting RPG. I have a bunch of RPG ideas and decided to start with a more simple one, an RPG where all the protagonists use swords. However I didn't want things to be too simple, in particular I wanted to try something that felt fresher for combat.

Now looking at all the RPG games I've played, many have also worked to innovate the basic turn-based combat. Combos, chain gauges, staggers, status stacking, elemental systems, you name it. But something that personally bothered me with most of those is that despite adding extra layers, eventually
players would figure out the most optimal sequence of actions that deals more damage and then just repeat it over and over. To avoid this, I decided to add a random element, with characters changing between subclasses at random so you can't just spam the same special skill/combo over and over.

Being a big Fire Emblem fan, I also made resources limited, and in particular even basic attacks cost "Sword Spirit" (aka MP by any other name). Someday I want to try my hand at a full tactical RPG, but not today.

I also wanted to do multiple routes where each route can affect the others depending in which order you do them. My initial plan was 6 routes, but quickly realized coding challenges raised exponentially so settled for 3 routes, which was still quite challenge.

Although I post this in development, there's an actual start, middle and finish. However the game could use a lot more polish. Any feedback is welcome.

SYNOPSIS:

The Sword School where sword students studied the sword saga scrolls was attacked by axes that dare to rebel against the sword society and sword system!

Your homework now is to find the three sacred swords

FEATURES

In-Battle Class Change System (IBCCS for short)

    Every playable main character has 4 different classes and they'll switch between them at random when they use their class abilities (or automatically at the end of turn for secondary characters, more later)
The main characters also have special abilities that allow them to switch to a specific class of their choice at the cost of the turn's action (along a minor buff and guarding).

Dynamic Battles

    I specifically wanted to avoid boring "here's 6 equal enemies that look exactly the same for no reason, kill them all" or "here's a lone boss with 10x more HP than the party, hit it until it disappears".

    I seek to customize each encounter, enemies coming in varied groups, bosses not relying just on being big damage sponges to be challenging.

Multiple Routes

    There's three main areas to explore and you can pick which order to do them. The order in which you do things and specific choices you make do will affect later areas you visit.
    At the most basic level, areas visited later will become harder. Not only enemies will get higher combat numbers, they'll also get new abilities and other surprises.     

Permanent Death

    There's no ressurection magic in Sword Scroll Saga. Dead characters stay dead. You can get randomly generated replacements back at the Sword School, however Enar IX dying means a game over since this is her story.

Limited Resources

    Enemies don't conveniently drop bags treasure upon death, and there's no cheap inns nor magic fountains that'll fully restore you besides basic HP.
    There's still a fair amount of treasure to be looted from chests and whatnot accross the land so you don't need to be super stingy, but you can't afford to buy everything in sight either.

    Dead characters take all their gear to the grave with them.    

Peace Paths

    Stabbing first and asking questions later is not always the answer. You can overcome most challenges through peaceful means and even go through all three areas without ever fighting a battle.

SwordsSwordsSwords

    Sword skills, sword spells, sword skies, sword societies, sword systems, swords and more swords!

Weapon Alignment

    Sword is not everything though, maybe you can try to follow other weapons like Axe...

Hope you enjoy Sword Scroll Saga!

CREDITS:

-ovate for monster faces.

-Aaron Krogh for musics.

-hiddenone for sprites 3_2 and 3_4

-rhino for battler 3_1

-Benji01 for battler 3_3!