Fuchian Chronicles
Hotfix for Ch3
- Fixed a sprite bug in Chapter 3
- Fixed an issue where BGM does not play after a certain event in Chapter 3 (this issue is more tricky and MIGHT be dependent on your hardware, please let me know if you still encounter this bug!)
- Emotes no longer need to finish playing before text shows up in conversations between two NPCs (if I missed any, please let me know!)
Thanks again to Derumania for pointing these out!
Chapter 3 of Fuchian Chronicles released!
In addition to new story content, many new gameplay features have been added! See below for details.
- New Feature: In Game Encyclopedia. An in-game encyclopedia has been added to the game, documenting all the enemies, items, equipment, skills, and states. You can find it by using the Journal item (or pressing “J” in the field) and selecting “Open Databank”, or simply pressing “E” in the field. Lore such as the history of the Empire (which has been expanded) has been moved into the encyclopedia as well, along with new lore entries describing the ships of the Empire. Likewise the tutorials can now be found in the encyclopedia. These entries can be unlocked via gameplay/exploration.
Due to the evolving nature of the game, it may be necessary to reset encyclopedia progress as new enemies, items, lore, etc are added to the game. As such, I’ve added a new debug menu in the Journal, and included an option there to unlock all encyclopedia entries for those who would like to use it. This function will be removed once the game is finished. - New Feature: Item Disassembly. For an item called the “Reassembler”, not being able to break down un-needed items into raw materials didn’t really make sense. But that changes now! To disassemble items, go into the item menu and select the item (like you were going to use it), and select “disassemble” where you can see what materials you can get from it. Most items can be disassembled, but keep in mind you won’t get more materials than it costs to make them (the ones that can be crafted at least). More equipment disassembly will likely be added later.
- New Feature: Weapon Proficiency. Characters will now become more proficient with specific weapon types (rifles, pistols, melee weapons, etc) the more they use it. Proficiency experience is gained every time they attack with the weapon, and each level in proficiency increases their accuracy and critical hit rate with the weapon type a little.
- New Feature: Equipment Modification. Most pieces of equipment can now be customized using various pieces of augments. These range from changing the equipment’s stats to adding status effects, to adding new skills. Basic augments can be crafted the same way you craft supplies and bought from the store starting in Ch2, while some special augments can be earned by helping people and occasionally dropped by enemies. Generally, the further in the story you are, the more augments you can craft/buy, and more will be added in future chapters.
- Updated Crafting Menu. Instead of the jury-rigged crafting menu that’s been in use so far, there is now a proper crafting menu! You can now make multiple items at once, and you won’t be kicked out of the menu after making something. Use the Reassembler item to enter the crafting menu, or press the R key in the field, just as before.
- Updated drop table. After rewatching an old Extra Credits video, I realized that only getting crafting materials from combat is not exactly satisfying. As such, enemy drops have been tweaked a bit to include additional drops, especially the bosses. You can now get supplies and even some equipment from enemies, and of course, unwanted items can be disassembled into crafting materials.
- Updated how portraits appear. Multiple portraits can now show up at the same time and can also move to make cutscenes more dynamic.
As mentioned in my previous news update, some of these features are unfortunately incompatible with existing saves, so you will need to start a new game. Thank you for understanding. To make up for this, I’ve added an item to help you get back to where you left off more easily: the OP Grenade of OPness. It is a lore breaking grenade that will kill all enemies on screen, including bosses, and completely trivializes all fights. You will still get item and equipment drops as normal, but you will lose out on weapon proficiency gains by doing so. To get this item, go to the debug menu in the Journal and select “OP Grenade”. Doing so will also grant you the item for use in space battles, aside from a certain one in Chapter 2. The grenade will be taken away once you start Chapter 3.
A few more quality of life changes have also been added, along with a few other balances, tweaks, and fixes. Details are as follows:
- More hotkeys added. Pressing “I” now opens the inventory, “K” opens the Skills menu, “E” opens the Databank, and “M” now toggles the amount of materials you have (if you have a Reassembler).
- Added a visual indicator when characters gain experience so you can see how far you are to the next “Level up”.
- Some ships have been renamed to better fit with the rest of the GFE’s naming conventions. The Maho Tahu is now the Arctos, the Atsuage is now the Savini, and the Agedashi is now the Vinae.
- Gameover screen now allows you to load a save directly instead of needing to return to the main menu first.
- Prices of various items have been rebalanced to better fit with their crafting material cost/material gains from disassembling them. In general, it will not cost you more to buy an item than it does to buy the crafting materials required to craft the same item. At the same time, the value of materials you can get from disassembling the item will not be more than if you were to sell the item directly.
- Some enemies, equipment, and characters have been rebalanced, including the specialist in Chapter 1 and the dropship in Chapter 2.
- Full screen now functions properly. Press F4 to toggle full screen.
As before, please let me know if you find any bugs, or if you have any suggestions! The price of the game has also been increased to reflect the new content available. Once again, thank you for playing my game, and I hope you enjoy Chapter 3!
- ShenTzu
Chapter 3 Update 3
The good news is, Chapter 3 is finished! I’m just waiting on some art, and while I’m doing that I’m adding a few more features to the game. Which brings me to the other bit of news.
Thus far I’ve tried my best to add fixes to get around the need to restart the game when new features are added, but unfortunately there’s finally a new feature that I’d like to add that is incompatible with existing saves. That feature is weapon proficiency, making the character more effective using a type of weapon the more they use it. I’ve been trying to find ways to add more incentive to fighting, and think this would be a good way to do so in addition to the other stuff.
As mentioned before, this new feature unfortunately does require a new save. I thank you for understanding, and will try to add something to make it easier for players who have already played before to get back to where they left off. I’ll also try my best to avoid adding features that require restarts, but can’t promise that it won’t happen again, especially if the new feature would significantly improve the game.
On the bright side, you’ll be able to see the changes in the cutscenes that resulted from the new portrait system, so I hope you’ll enjoy that.
And since there will be a restart, I’m taking the opportunity to add additional features. I won’t reveal what those features are just yet, mainly because I’m still testing them. Based on the current state of things, I’m estimating that Chapter 3, along with all the new features, will be released at the end of July. Look forward to it!
Chapter 3 Progress Update 2
The maps and script for Chapter 3 are finished, all that’s left is to add the events in and test things! Before I can do that however, I need rework a lot of the cutscenes and interactions in Chapters 1 and 2. Why? Because I’m making the portraits/busts much more dynamic!
As you can see, portraits can now alongside each other, and can also move to better convey the action taking place. I was debating about whether to implement this now, or focus on releasing Chapter 3 first, but ultimately decided that it was better to do this now since the longer I wait to add this feature, the more I would have to redo. Hopefully this won’t delay Chapter 3’s release too much, but if there are any delays, I thank you for your understanding and hope you will agree that this addition is worth it.
I mentioned in my previous progress update that I was adding/reworking other features as well. In addition to the Databank, another important feature that’s being updated is the crafting menu. You will be able to craft multiple items at once, and will no longer be kicked out of the menu after crafting a single item. More importantly, you will also be able to disassemble items into raw materials!
Considering the item used in crafting is called the “Reassembler”, it didn’t make much sense to not be able to break down unwanted items into more useful materials. But now you can! You will be able to disassemble just about any consumable, and even some trophies, in a pinch.
As always, follow me on Twitter @ShenTzuGames for more frequent updates. If everything goes according to plan, this should be the last progress update before the release of Chapter 3. Either way, I’ll make another post in about a month. See you then!
- ShenTzu
Chapter 3 Progress Update
Thus far the only space based content has been individual battles, but Chapter 3 will introduce the first real space based map! Considering space based exploration is one of the marketed selling points of the game, I’m happy to finally introduce some space exploration. While ground based maps will still be the focus, I plan on having more space maps later on.
Of course, Chapter 3 will still have ground content.
Chapter 3 will also have the first look at a bunnoid locale. It’ll be the first real chance to learn a bit about the bunnoids and their culture, who have so far been more or less a faceless enemy. What are the bunnoids like? Are they really all machines? Do they all eat carrots? You will finally be able to start answering some of these questions, though the answer to the last one is almost certainly yes.
And finally, I’ve been gradually adding new features and improving on some existing features in the game. One of the major new additions to the game is… the Databank!
The journal system I’ve been using, though functional, is rather inelegant and limited. Now there will be a proper in-game encyclopedia, recording enemies, equipment, lore, and more! More encyclopedia entries will be added as the game progresses, and I may add additional categories (such as character profiles) later on. I’m working on other features as well, but I’ll save them for a future blog post.
One last thing: Thank you thus far for the support, including catching bugs I missed and giving suggestions! I posted in the suggestions thread earlier but would like to re-iterate: if you agree with someone else’s suggestion, especially regarding game difficulty, please say so! It would really help me gauge which suggestions would help improve the game the most.
Once again, thank you for playing my game, and I hope you look forward to Chapter 3!
- ShenTzu
Chapter 2 Hotfix
Fixed a bug where Energy Crystals aren't consumed upon use.
Thanks to Derumania for catching these!
Fuchian Chronicles Chapter 2 now available!
If you've played Chapter 1 previously, simply load up your latest save and continue playing from there. And if you'd like a refresher, you can press J in game to open the journal and get a recap of the events and your choices in Chapter 1. You can also review tutorials there to get a refresher of gameplay elements.
Along with the new chapter, many new features have been added to the game. See below for the major changes:
- Autosaving added! By default, autosaves occur every 5 minutes (not including time spent in dialogue/cutscenes/battle), but you can change this in the journal (press J). Autosaves are automatically placed in the first save slot, so please use the remaining slots for manual saves.
- Mid-battle equipment changing added! Since the skills available to you are based on what you have equipped, this is a feature I wanted to have since the beginning but couldn’t since it broke a few things. But I got it working now! Scroll down the command menu when it’s your turn and you can have the currently active party member change their equipment. You can’t do this consecutively though, so make sure to plan your equipment carefully.
Keep in mind that you can’t change ship equipment mid-battle because that makes no sense. - Armour Piercing Ammo has been reworked! Instead of giving a percent attack bonus, using this item now adds an Armour piercing “element” to gun attacks, which does more damage to armoured enemies. Armoured enemies now have slightly increased defence to compensate, making them more resistant to regular attacks. Which enemies are armoured? Their appearance is a good indicator!
- “Level up” mechanic added! It’s similar to the traditional level up in RPGs in that party members get exp after fighting, and once a threshold is met they gain extra stats. However, the stat gains are minor and meant to reflect Kimi and her fellow soldiers gaining battle experience. Grinding remains optional as promised, and all fights are possible without “leveling up”. I mainly added this mechanic as an extra incentive to fight the optional encounters, and to make story fights a bit easier for those who want it.
- New Achievements! In addition to new achievements relating to Chapter 2, there are now achievements relating to how many NPCs you help around the ship and how many battles you’ve fought in. You don’t need to help all the NPCs to earn the achievement, but you will need to help more NPCs than there are available in Chapter 2.
If you’re loading from the end of Chapter 1, you can talk to Nina (the gray haired cafeteria lady in the Mess Hall) twice after the opening cutscene to update the total number of people you’ve helped. Nina will also let you gain some extra stats to make up for the “level ups” you may have missed when fighting enemies in Chapter 1, and doing so will add 10 to your progress for the “Diligent Cadet” and “Veteran Soldier” achievements. This feature will be removed once the game is complete.
Several minor tweaks and features have been added as well:
- New items/equipment/skills menus for more functionality, primarily to prevent use of incompatible items/skills. This means that you can't accidentally waste ammo items by using them on characters that don't have guns equipped anymore! As a result, ammo items can no longer be used out of battle, but to make up for that, using them in battle no longer uses up your turn. The “Deploy Strikecraft” skill no longer consumes the actor’s turn as well.
- Message backlog feature added. Press “Page Up” during dialogue to see the backlog.
- Updated options menu with more settings such as FPS sync and message speed. If the game suddenly seems to be running in slow motion and/or if your monitor runs at over 60FPS, please turn FPS sync on.
- Save screen updated to show what chapter you’re in. Don’t worry if you see a 0 above your location in the save file, it’ll be updated to show the current chapter upon changing to a new chapter.
- Shift key now toggles between running and walking instead of needing to hold it down when the “Always Run” option is enabled.
- Minor changes to dialogue to make the speech more “foxy” with some new expressions.
As before, I playtested this as much as I could, but may have missed a few things. If you see any bugs/typos/errors/etc please post it the relevant thread in the Community Hub, same with suggestions. I avoid posting in the suggestions thread as to not influence discussion, but rest assured that I do read it!
Finally, the price of the game has been increased as I said it would in the Early Access notes. The price will continue to increase every time a new chapter is released, but you'll get access to all chapters of the game regardless of when you bought it. This means that those who buy the game early in development will effectively get the game at a steep discount. It's my way of thanking people for supporting me during development.
Thank you again for playing my game! I hope you enjoy Chapter 2, and future chapters as well!
- ShenTzu
Chapter 2 Sneak Peek
As you can see, chapter 2 will introduce the future player ship and primarily take place on the ice planet of Eiskrem (pronouned Es-khrem). Things don't look so good for the Empire there, but can you turn the tide?
As for game features, one of the main things I was thinking about is that there isn't much of an incentive for players to fight the optional battles since they only give crafting materials, which are pretty common place as is. I still firmly believe that the player shouldn't be forced to grind exp in order to progress in the story, but perhaps letting the characters gain some bonus stats by fighting could be an option. The logic would be that Kimi and her party gain battle experience as they fight more enemies, and I think it'd be a good way to let players "level up" and make story battles a bit easier if they so choose. What do you guys think?
That's it for this update! I plan on posting blog updates like this every month or so from now on to keep you guys updated, but I also post shorter updates such as new screenshots on my Twitter @ShenTzuGames. Look forward to Chapter 2!
Ships of the Galactic Fuchian Empire Showcase
Not all of the ships featured will play a major role in the game, some might only be mentioned in passing or only be in the background. Even then, I still wanted to do this to better flesh out the world and give more background on the workings of the Empire. Hope you enjoy it!
Hotfix 0.1.2
- Acquired loot now shows a consolidated count instead of multiple entries of the same item
- Slightly improved performance
- Some more minor event changes
Performance issues are honestly the hardest to improve on. I did what I could, but more substantial improvements risk causing other issues such as memory leaks so I opted to not use them for now. I’m aware the title screen still lags a bit at first (though it should be better than before), and I’ll try to fix this later. Since this is a one-time issue and stops lagging after everything loads in however, it’ll be relatively low on the priority list. Thanks for understanding!