Thank you for waiting, Fuchian Chronicles is now out of Early Access! Here’s a list of changes from the old public version and the new one (many of these changes were already available in the playtest beta):
- Menu, battle, and dialogue UI has been overhauled - Databank is now complete and expanded with new entries - New character portraits for Fitz, Arlette, and Ferdi - New weapon: Heavy Incinerator - New equipment mods, including mods to make mid-game heavy weapons more effective in the endgame - Trophies now have pictures - Heavy weapons re-balanced a little
As mentioned in the beta release announcement, this new update requires a new save due to some additional functionality. Saves made in the beta playtest build will still work, but some equipment (specifically helmets, trauma kits, and heavy weapons) might lack the proper mod slots, but you can buy new equipment at the supply vendor to replace them. Saves from the previous default build (the one with the old UI) will not work. If you’d like to play on the old build to finish a run, you can enter the beta code “oldschoolfox” to go back to it so you can continue where you left off.
So what’s next? Aside from fixing any bugs that might have fallen between the cracks, I’ll be taking a short break from dev work. After that, I’d like to continue with game development, though what form that takes is currently unclear. I do have plans for more games set in the Fuchian Chronicles universe, but first I’d like to learn to use a different game engine and make smaller games to help with that. I’ll make another announcement once I’ve decided on what I’ll do next.
In the meantime, thank you all for your support thus far. I hope you enjoy the full release of Fuchian Chronicles!
Sincerely, ShenTzu
Minor update to Playtest Beta
I was thinking back a little and thought that the finale of Chapter 4 was a bit lackluster, so I went back to rework it a little. It's not MASSIVELY different, but I think the new boss fight is more interesting than before.
Other than that, a new weapon has been added to the game: the Heavy Incinerator! You will be given it when you pick up new gear in Chapter 4, and can purchase it from the supply vendor afterwards.
Please note that this update only affects the opt-in playtest beta, which can be accessed by entering the code "foxesgokonkon" in the betas section of the game's properties in your Steam library. If you get the chance, please check it out!
Playtest Beta Now Available!
Hey everyone, hope you’re doing well! Turns out the previous announcement isn’t the last one before full release, but there’s a good reason for it! A playtest version of the final build of Fuchian Chronicles is now available for anyone who’d like to help me playtest one more time and catch any bugs that I’ve missed (or if you just want to play the final build early, that’s fine too!). It includes all the previously shown UI/walking animation updates, a brand new logo/main menu, expanded Databank, new portraits, and a few tweaked/expanded scenes. Aside from bug fixes and perhaps one or two more tweaks, this should be the final version of Fuchian Chronicles. I hope you like it!
To access it, right click Fuchian Chronicles in your Steam Library, click “Properties”, click “Betas” on the left, and enter the code “foxesgokonkon”. That will unlock the “devtestbuild” with the playtest version of the final build and you’ll be able to play it. The main reason I went with an opt-in build instead of updating the main one is because the final release build requires you to start a new game due to some new functionality. If you’re in the middle of a run, feel free to finish that first if you don’t want to lose your progress. As always, please let me know about any bugs or issues you run into in the Steam Discussion thread, or email me at shentzugames@yahoo.com, which leads me to the last thing for this update.
Your feedback and help with playtesting has been a great help to me while Fuchian Chronicles is in Early Access. As such, I’d like to put everyone who has posted in the bug report and suggestions threads, and those who have sent me emails, in the game’s credits as playtesters for the final, final release. I don’t want to assume that everyone’s okay with it though, so this will be an opt-in thing. If you’d like to be added to the credits, please either reply to this announcement or email me at the address above.
That’s it for this update! With the bulk of development done, I’ll be working on updating the store page and marketing material such as screenshots and trailers from now till final release. Thank you once again for all your support thus far, and I hope you enjoy the final version of Fuchian Chronicles, whether you decide to play it now or at release on April 19th!
Sincerely, - ShenTzu
Pre-Release Update 3
Hello everyone, and welcome to what should be the final update prior to Fuchian Chronicle’s full release! This will be a text heavy one so please bear with me here.
I’ve fixed all the issues I mentioned in the previous updates, and addressed another one of the major complaints that I got:
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New walking animations! This was an issue that was first brought up near the start of development, and I thought I had fixed it with a sprite update. The feedback I got however, made it clear that the lackluster animation hadn’t been adequately addressed. I hope that this new update goes further towards fixing that issue.
Now I’m back to adding new content to the game and playtesting to make sure everything is in order. I’ve already showed most of the new stuff I’m adding in the previous updates, but there is one thing I’m taking out: selectable battlemodes. The main reason for this is that the Action Time Battle (ATB) mode simply looks too unpolished, especially with how barebones the enemy ATB gauges looks and how it doesn’t line up with the enemy when the camera moves. If there’s one takeaway I got from all the feedback I got, it’s that looking unpolished is a big red flag. I’m fully aware that there are other parts of Fuchian Chronicles that look unpolished, but many of those cannot be feasibly fixed at this point. I can improve polish by removing ATB mode though, and so I’m doing that, and setting Conditional Turn Based (CTB) mode as the only battle mode. I don’t know how much being able to change battle modes affects your enjoyment of Fuchian Chronicles, but I hope you can see my reasoning and thank you for understanding.
The Steam store page is in need of serious overhaul as well. All the screenshots and trailers need replacing, I’ll need to rewrite the introduction blurb and some of the descriptions, and I’m even looking into getting a brand new logo for Fuchian Chronicles. I am taking new screenshots and recording clips as I playtest (and I’m sharing them on my Twitter/X @ShenTzuGames), but I’m in the slightly awkward position where Fuchian Chronicles is purchasable and playable while the new screenshots aren’t reflective of the current published version of the game. Because of this, I’ve decided to hold off on publishing any changes to the store page until final release so anyone who buys the game now will get what was advertised. As stated before, the price will not increase upon final release, but as a matter of disclosure, Fuchian Chronicles is part of the Steam Spring Sale, which will likely have a larger discount than the launch discount. If you’d like to hold off on buying/playing Fuchian Chronicles until final release, I’d completely understand and even encourage you to do so if you’re not satisfied with what you’ve seen in my updates.
So when is final release? Barring any major set-back or unforeseen circumstances, Fuchian Chronicles will come out of Early Access on April 19th, 2024! It’s been a long road, longer than I anticipated (but that’s how things are sometimes), and I thank you for your support thus far. I’m looking forward to finishing Fuchian Chronicles, and hope you will enjoy the game!
- ShenTzu
Pre-Release Update 2
Early update announcement this time for a few reasons. First, more art!
Getting art for all party members was one of my priorities in this final phase of development, and with Ferdi and Arlette’s portraits completed, that’s that part finished! Some of their dialogues have also been updated, namely their introductions. A handful of other recurring characters may get more art later, but there are more pressing matters at the moment.
If you’ve been following my social media (@ShenTzuGames on X/Twitter), you’ll know that I recently got a lot of feedback for Fuchian Chronicles. I’m extremely grateful for this, especially since they pointed out several major issues I had not considered. Unfortunately some of them simply can’t be feasibly fixed at this stage given my limited resources, but I am committed to improving what I can, starting with updating the UI.
I will readily admit that I put too much focus on looking “unique” and overlooked player readability, and I hope you will agree that the updated UI is much cleaner than before. Additional fixes are in the works, and more feedback is always welcome! That said, these fixes likely won’t be implemented until final release, so I won’t be updating the screenshots and trailers on the Steam page at this point as to not give the wrong impression. Please follow my X/Twitter if you’d like to see the updates as they come.
Finally and perhaps most importantly, the price of Fuchian Chronicle has been permanently reduced to $7.99 USD as of this announcement. I was under the impression that a cheap game would be seen as not worth considering, and overcorrected when I gave it a price tag of over $10 USD, especially considering the other amazing games you can get at that price. Just to be clear, $7.99 USD will be the final base price at release. If you previously bought Fuchian Chronicles at a higher price, I thank you for the support! I understand if you wish to refund the game though, and hope you’ll buy it again at the reduced price if you do. Fuchian Chronicles will also be part of the upcoming RPG Maker Franchise Sale and Steam Spring Sales (I can’t say when, but really soon!), so look forward to that!
That’s it for this time. I need to travel for two weeks starting next week, and combined with the need to fix the aforementioned issues, I’m currently predicting a final release date of sometime between early to mid-April. I’ll announce a concrete release date when I know one. As always, thank you for the continued support, and I hope you enjoy Fuchian Chronicles!
- ShenTzu
Pre-Release Update 1
First update after Fuchian Chronicles’ story officially concluded! If you follow my social media (@ShenTzuGames on X/Twitter, u/ShenTzuGames on Reddit), you’ll see that I’ve been much more active in posting stuff from the game. Now that development of the game proper is winding down, I have more time for these things and making more promotional material, so look forward to those!
That’s not to say there aren’t changes to the game in the works. For starters:
Character profiles! They’re mostly done now and I will be/have been sharing them over time on my X/Twitter. Not every named character will have one, but I did make one for most recurring characters, as well as a few of the important ones. That said… you may have noticed who the profile is of: Fitz!
I originally didn’t have much planned for Fitz, and even planned to kill him off in Chapter 2 (hint: he can still die there depending on your actions!). But he got a bigger role as a development went on, and even became a temporary party member in certain points. With that in mind, I decided it was time he finally got his own portraits for all his appearances. I’ll also be expanding his introduction in Chapter 1 where he was basically another no-face NPC, and may expand his appearances in other chapters too.
Other parts of the game are slated for tweaking as well, one of them being increasing the number of autosave/quicksave slots from 1 to 3. That’s already finished, but I haven’t uploaded the change yet because IT WILL RENDER THE FIRST FOUR (4) SLOTS INACCESSIBLE. This means that if you have any manual saves in slots 1-4, THEY WILL BE OVERWRITTEN. So if you’re in the middle of the game, please make a manual save in one of the later save slots (slot 10 or higher to be safe). The plan is to publish this change when Fuchian Chronicles comes out of Early Access, but if you guys would like, I can publish this change earlier along with what I have finished. Let me know if that’s something you’d like, and I’ll make a small post warning you guys if I push the update early.
That’s it for this update! As always, please let me know if you encounter any bugs and I’ll fix them asap. I would also like to ask for another favour: please consider writing a review for Fuchian Chronicles! It would really help with the algorithm, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on the game, both positive and negative. Thank you once again for all your support, and I hope you like my game!
- ShenTzu
Chapter 7 hotfix
Fixed a bug where a certain encounter could automatically fail.
Please do let me know if you encounter any other bugs!
Chapter 7 now available!
Thank you for waiting, Chapter 7, the finale of Fuchian Chronicles, is finally here!
After the events of Chapter 6, the future of the Empire is shrouded in uncertainty, but now a new operation is planned to end the war once and for all. Will it succeed? If so, at what cost? And what will it mean for Kimi and her crew?
In addition the new chapter, several things have been changed/balanced and a few bugs have been fixed. The demo has also been updated with these changes where appropriate. They are as follows:
- The map in the ending scene of Chapter 5 has been redone for consistency - Healing items and skills now show approximately how much they restore in their description - The “Transfer Energy” ship skill now transfers 50 energy instead of 100. - Enemies are slightly harder to stun. - Fixed enemies dropping the wrong weapons when killed. - Settings for autosave interval and combat mode have been moved to the Options menu. The settings have been reset to the default (5 mins autosave interval and ATB combat), so please check the settings before you load your game! - Added “Quit Game” button to main menu (finally) - Added difficulty selector at the start of the game. You can still change it at any time in the settings! - Added a new joke game over to Chapter 1 with its own achievement
With the release of Chapter 7, Fuchian Chronicles is now story complete! However, that doesn’t mean the game is ready to come out of Early Access just yet. I would like to take some more time to give the game a once over, polishing up a few things and adding some extra content. Here are some of things I want to do in this phase:
- Additional character portraits, such as for Fitz - Character profile entries in the encyclopaedia - Proper unlocking of encyclopaedia entries like in the demo - More CG
There are others, but these are the main things I’ll be working on. I will also be doing more work promoting the game during this time, so I may not get to all of them so I don’t want to overpromise and under deliver. Life as a solo developer isn’t easy after all. Either way, I’m planning on finishing and fully releasing Fuchian Chronicles in Q1 2024, and updates will come monthly as usual.
That’s it for this time, I hope you like the new chapter! As always, if you encounter any bugs please post them in the Steam Community thread or email me at shentzugames@yahoo.com. There’s no price increase this time (mainly so I can participate in sales), but there will be one final price increase when Fuchian Chronicles comes out of Early Access, so this is the best time to get the game with an Early Access discount! Thank you again for playing my game, and happy holidays!
- ShenTzu
Chapter 7 Update 3
There’s a lot that still needs to be done, so only a quick update this time.
I took a break from script writing to add in what I already wrote and tested the events up to what I have finished. Here’s a sneak peek at what’s in store: The bunnoid homeworld Moki!
All that's left are the final cutscenes and the post-game area and the dialogues related to those, which have already been planned out. There’s still a lot there to wrap up, so I expect there’d be a lot more writing ahead for me.
That’s it for this time. Barring any major event, I plan on releasing Chapter 7 mid-December at the latest, so look forward to that!
Cheers, ShenTzu
Chapter 7 Update 2
Time for another update! Sorry this one’s a bit late, I was caught up in writing and it completely slipped my mind.
Speaking of which... I’d say the script is about 2/3s done? I’ve written about 14k words so far, and I’m honestly not sure how much more there will be. Chapter 7 is the finale so there’s a lot to wrap up, including all the variations based on your actions throughout the game as well as the different endings. The main thing I want to ensure is that the endings are satisfying, and I will be working towards that. It just might take a while.
In the meantime, new characters!
The bunnoids aren’t the only one improving their weapons/armour tech, the GFE has some new toys too! Though depending on how things go... they might not be only pointed at the bunnoids.
That’s it for this update! I will try and finish the chapter by mid-late November, but will take the extra time for a satisfying ending if I feel the need to. Either way, look forward to another announcement then!
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