Welcome to Steam Chronicle #2, a devlog where we’ll keep you up to date on progress for Shrine’s Legacy! Unfortunately, life's been pretty tough on me this past month, I lost a close family member to cancer and I've been mentally recovering from it. There's been a lot of death in my family the past several years so it's hit a little extra hard. That said, I'm slowly getting back into action. And there is still some cool stuff to show off and talk about right at this moment. So enough depressing stuff, keep reading for cool stuff!
Basic Cutscene Progress
Despite things moving a bit slowly we still got a fair amount done. Firstly, we got some more basic cutscenes into the game, now up to just before the penultimate main dungeon. However in addition to the two main remaining dungeons there's still a lot of side content to put in scenes for. I wasn't able to finish these scenes for this month's update like I wanted to, so hopefully I can make up for it next time around.
Siltens is Alive
Secondly, we got a new environment commission finished, and a couple more started! We showed off a WIP of Siltens last time around, but now that art is properly in the game! Take a look:
We've also gotten started on the capital of Ardemia, called Galadine. There's a castle surrounded by a large town, a wall, and a moat. It can be seen in the distance in our key art. It's still a bit too early to show it off for now, but look forward to seeing more of it soon!
Galadine is the castle you see far out in the horizon in this key art :)
Elemental Spells Progress
Thirdly, we've figured out a good chunk of what we want to do with the remaining elemental puzzles. It's not programmed into the game yet, but the ideas we've come up with so far are pretty exciting. And... I'd prefer to not spoil them yet until we can show them off in a visual form. I'll be programming them in once we finish setting up the basic cutscenes so I'll try to prepare some cool animated gifs once we reach that point! I will say though that so far, our idea for Wind could be my favorite of the new element/puzzle ideas.
Closing
That's it for the second official Steam Chronicle! Again, I apologize there's not more to show this month. We'll try to remedy that for next month. Thank you all for being understanding and supportive during this endeavor. 💓
Shrine’s Legacy Publisher Announcement
Hello everyone! We are proud to announce that Shrine’s Legacy is now being published by Freedom Games (https://freedom.gg). We didn't make this decision lightly. As a few of you may know, Alan and I have been vocal about our goals of staying as independent as possible while developing Shrine's Legacy. And that hasn't changed; with Freedom Games, true to their name, we maintain complete creative and development freedom. Freedom will be helping us by taking care of a lot of the business and marketing side of releasing Shrine's Legacy. That includes managing our store pages, marketing and advertising the game, helping showcase the game at both digital and live events, PR, and a lot more. And in return, we can spend more time actually building an awesome game for you all to enjoy.
You may also be concerned about horror stories of publishers ruining the vision of a game or forcing arbitrary restrictions on the dev team. Know that we were very careful when considering whether to go with a publisher or not, and selected Freedom because they are committed to our vision of the game and making the game and its launch the best it can be.
With the big announcement done, it's time to get into the dev progress updates! That’s right, we’ve decided to start updating Steam with a devlog each month, which will share a bit of the progress and behind-the-scenes of working on the game as we go along.
Story Cutscene Progress
As of writing this, I've managed to build basic scenes in the game up to when you obtain the 6th gemstone. So, good progress has been made! With some diligence, the full game worth of scenes should be finished by next month's Steam Chronicle! 💪 It'll be immensely satisfying to have the full story text play out in the game, even if it is in a simple state.
Siltens
Here's a work-in-progress of a new area! It's called Siltens, and it's a town located in a large canyon. The views are spectacular and so it's rather effective at pulling in tourists. Since it's still a WIP expect some adjustments and changes for the final game.
We can’t wait for you all to get to see and play more of the game. Thank you for all of the support you've given us. If you want to keep up with our development progress a bit closer, make sure to follow us on Twitter or join our Discord. While you’re here on Steam, make sure to wishlist the game as well!
Official Steam Demo release and Demo v1.6 Patch Notes
Shrine's Legacy Demo v1.6 is now out
In addition, you can now play the demo on Steam without joining the mailing list now! Just download the demo from the official Steam page: Shrine's Legacy on Steam
Important Notes for those who have played the Mailing List Demo:
Unfortunately, owning the mailing list demo may cause issues with downloading the new demo. Because of this, we will be disabling the Steam keys for the Mailing list version of the demo shortly, but the DRM-free version from our mailing list should continue to work if you wish to keep playing the older version in the future. Once we disable the Mailing List demo keys, you should no longer have any issues downloading the new version of the demo directly from Steam via the above link.
Additionally, if you played the demo via our mailing list before this, please note that the new version of the demo uses a new folder for storing config and save files, which means by default your save data and config settings will be gone when you start up the game again.
However, It is possible to copy the contents from the old folder to the new folder and they should work. Both folders should be in appdata for most windows machines. The old folder is called "Project_Shrine" and the new folder is called "Shrines_Legacy".
If you copy the files over you should be able to continue where you left off. The new save files will not be backwards compatible though due to changes in how Game Maker handles save files in its newest version, so keep this in mind.
Shrine's Legacy Demo v1.6 Patch Notes:
Major Changes:
Updated Shrine's Legacy to the newest version of GameMaker Studio 2.
It's now possible to switch characters and play co-op as soon as Reima joins the party.
Uses a new folder to save and load config and save file data from.
Somewhat major co-op changes, listed next.
Co-op Changes:
When Player 2 triggers a cutscene by walking into a trigger, they will now be in control of that conversation (before, it was always P1).
When the party changes, players will get to keep control of their respective characters they had BEFORE the party change.
It's now possible for P2 to control P1 if there's currently no second character. You can switch between the two players at any time by pressing any major button or start button on the respective player's controller or keyboard.
Bug Fixes:
Using a HP or MP increasing potion on a character that's not in the party no longer causes a potion to fly across space and time.
Footstep sounds now properly play when important characters in scenes are running.
Fixed a bug where you could potentially cause issues in a couple of different scenes in co-op mode when P1 was down at the end of a battle event.
Fixed a mistake in the intro where the sprite of the character didn't quite match up when their eyes blink.
Fixed a oversight where the game could think that a character is outside of a building when they are really inside the building.
Fixed an exploit where Reima could get free EXP every time the player saves/loads at a specific moment in the game.
Fixed a crash that could happen when loading the game with a specific jewel equipped to a specific character.
Other:
Removed links to website and other places now that this is an official release of the demo. Also adjusted post-credits text a bit.
Made an adjustment to a room in the first dungeon to make the way to progress easier to understand.
Updated the art on the Postcat Office.
Oh... also, we never actually posted patch notes for the v1.5 of the demo (and there were a lot!), so I'll include those here too:
Shrine's Legacy Demo v1.5 Patch Notes:
Major Changes:
World Map added! You now get a map at the beginning of the game and can see the layout of the world of Ardemia!
Many adjustments to combat and enemies to make both hitting and getting hit feel more impactful.
We have a new Logo for the game now! It's implemented both on the Title Screen and in-game.
A special surprise if you find and talk to the goats in the pen at the beginning.
Adjustments:
Slight rebalancing of most enemies and bosses.
Knockback has been increased all around the board, both for players and enemies. Many enemies have had their hp has been slightly decreased to account for this.
Enemies have slightly more damage on average.
Dash attacks have slightly increased i-frames. You'll still take damage if dash attacking recklessly though.
There is now hitstun when getting hit/ hitting enemies.
When taking damage, you can't act instantly like before: there is now a short stun period where you can't do anything.
Critical hits (i.e. exploiting weaknesses) now have new cool effects to show that you're dealing extra damage.
You can now speak to npcs and examine objects from further away.
Opening a treasure with a jewel in it now gives you a description of what that jewel does.
Changed the wording and order of the options when speaking to Delane in Marize to make more sense and be clearer.
The dummy juice is now slightly more effective. ;)
If you are dashing but not holding the dash button, you'll now do a normal attack instead of a dash attack when attacking.
Adjusted credits at end to be up-to-date.
Lodestone jewel now pulls in pickups with less delay.
Lots of small cutscene adjustments.
Aesthetics:
Getting hit has much more effects now. Hitstun added, which makes it look more impactful when damage is dealt or taken. Players now flash red when hit as well.
Adjusted the minions in the opening with the cloaked figure and added a new big minion.
Player UI, boss health bars, enemy healthbars, revivebars and more have all been greatly improved visually.
There are visual effects for stepping in certain terrain now, such as leaves in the grass, and footsteps in the sand on the beach.
Wind-blown leaves now flow in the forest.
Adjusted the shadow of the Froogah enemy and the hitbox of the friendly Froogah NPC.
Adjusted Aklor's shadow positioning.
Bug Fixes:
Fixed a bug where your animation would reset every time you turned while dashing.
Fixed an input bug where letting go of a button for exactly one frame, then repressing it would still count as you not pressing the button.
If you are controlling Reima during the beginning of the mask fight, you will now automatically switch to Rio at the start of the fight.
Fixed a small camera bug at the beginning of the final scene of the demo.
The light orbs the mask boss could shoot had health and could be hit, but wouldn't be destroyed even at 0 hp. Now they are destroyed at 0 hp.
You can no longer faintly see the cloud fog over the credits screen now.
Fixed a bug where the light orbs surrounding the trap monsters could survive when finishing off the trap with an ice spell.
Fixed a bug that would show text when rapidly exitting or entering Carolyn's basement via the door after speaking with the save point outside.
Fixed a bug where Reima sometimes wouldn't move to the doorway properly for the scene when first entering Carolyn's house.
Normally when attacking the slime boss, it will create it's next set of slimes quicker for each hit you land. This wasn't working for the second phase of the battle, but has now been fixed.
Fixed three uncommon bugs related to 2 player mode and roofs appearing/disappearing at the wrong time in Marize.
If you decide to play for the first time, hope you you enjoy the demo! And if you a returning player, we hope you enjoy the updates!
We also have a public Discord where we love to hear player feedback and ideas or even just chat! Check it out if you are interested: https://www.discord.gg/KxnRukD
At any rate, that's all for now,
Until next time!
Shrine's Legacy Demo V1.4b
This update adds features which will be helpful for our upcoming speedrun contest (stay tuned for more info on that!), along with some bonus features including a buff to Reima's attack range and MP gained when attacking enemies!
-Full Patch Notes:
Reima buffs! -Range on normal attack is moderately larger. -Gains more MP when hitting enemies than Rio. Used to gain 1.25x MP compared to Rio, now gains 1.5x compared to Rio. This equates to her regaining 1 MP per every 2 attacks, compared to Rio's 1 MP per every 3 attacks.
Speedrun friendly stuff: -Can now mash by alternating with action, cancel, or dash to mash through dialog quicker and more comfortably. -Text now moves much faster than before when mashing through dialog. -There is now a speedrun timer which can be toggled on and off. (Shortcut F1) -Copy File is now an option on the file select. Use this to make backup points wherever you'd like to play or practice again!
Config updates: -"Visuals" and "Sound" now have their own menu in the config instead being collectively known as "Other". -Speedrun timer option added to config. -UI font can be set between Retro and Modern, where modern is a smaller font. -Music can be set between Retro and Modern (it's another way to switch between chiptune and orchestral music which already existed). (Shortcut F5)
Tweaks/Bug fixes: -Fixed a bug where the game might pause for a split second when casting spells on enemies. -Fixed the hitboxes for the trees on Groonis Island, so that they get in the way less often. -Fixed a bug where certain jewel descriptions would go slightly out of the box when viewing jewels in the status menu. -Adjusted the selection box when choosing an option in a dialog box so that it's properly centered. -If you lose in a boss fight and retry, the in-game timer will keep ticking from where you left off, instead of reverting back to the old time. This also applies for when you quit the game normally. Whatever your current in-game time is when you quit is what time will be saved on your file.
Join our Discord community to chat with us or share feedback (have any cool ideas for speedrun friendly features? We'd love to hear about it!): https://www.discord.gg/KxnRukD
Shrine's Legacy Demo V1.4
New update! This time around we've got lots of visual updates, including a full overhaul of all the portraits in the game! There's also improved UI, font, and textboxes, and shadows and decoration throughout the world. There's also some minor gameplay improvements!
Please check out our new trailer we made for this new version!
Gameplay: -Made the last two bosses in the demo a little bit easier to hit. Gave the last boss a bit more health to compensate. -Can now freeze and burn bushes in the Overworld. -Game now remembers your fullscreen setting when closed and reopened. -When striking pushable objects, they no longer stop being pushed when colliding with your CPU ally. -Reprogrammed how some draw calls were being done. Hopefully will help the frame rate with certain systems which slowed down on the title screen. -Game will now tell you your completion time during the credits.
Aesthetics: -New Textbox and font for cleaner color and a more pixel perfect look. -Every portrait has been updated! -Updated art assets for MANY objects, including houses, cliffs, certain trees, and much more! -Added shadows everywhere to add more depth to the world. -More decorations like moss on cliffs and tall animating grass. -Added proper shadows to the last two bosses in the demo. -Added a few new sounds to the game. -Added a "controller is recommended" screen to the game startup. -EXP bar shows current EXP with more precision now.
Bug fixes: -EXP bug where Reima gets the incorrect amount of EXP upon joining your party is fixed. -Bug where pausing the game during scenes could cause occasional minor bugs has been fixed. -Fixed a bug where controllers weren't being detected properly sometimes, however there could still be some issues. If you run into any controller issues, please let us know. -Fixed a bug where certain sound effects would play at 100% volume regardless of your sound volume setting. -Lots of smaller minor bug fixes and stuff we've forgotten about.
