Today’s Music Choice

“Remembering the Breeze,” a more gentle tune played during some social and tender moments.

Character Introduction: The Spacefarers

All character designs and artwork by Bianca Augusta.

Today’s introduction is composed of the representatives of the “spacefarers” – that is, people not born on the surface of Cradle. Two hundred years ago, a group of 1000 volunteers blasted off to explore the solar system, leaving the surface dwellers behind as they established their own colonies and civilization in the harsh realm of space. The spacefarers’ technological level advanced rapidly, a necessity in order to survive and thrive in off-world conditions. But the surface dwellers, resentful of the spacefarers and their abandonment of their homeworld, began to regress instead, relying on mundane magic and physical strength while shunning technological advancement.

Now, the spacefarers have returned to Cradle, bringing dire news about the fate of their world.

If the player so chooses, they can begin allied with the spacefarer faction instead of the dwellers, which will open up separate story paths and different available allies from the start. Aside from your commander, these are your starting allies when choosing the spacefarers faction.

Starting on the left:

• Marie Sarazon is a human operative chosen to oversee the Cradle Project alongside the commander. Formerly a soldier of the Inter-Space Operations faction, she is now acting as an independent agent. Disciplined and determined, she nonetheless develops a fondness for the inhabitants of Cradle, and works hard to aid the commander’s efforts in determining the fate of the world. Her starting class is the agent.
• Rami Ransend is next, and works as a medical specialist for the Cradle Project alongside Marie. Despite his serious occupation, he is a cheerful and carefree spirit, and a welcomed counterweight to Marie’s disciplined intensity. His starting class is the medic.
• Tez Kelestral is third. He is a drekoran representative of the Beyond Frontiers Initiative, a spacefaring faction of scientific minds. Tez joins the Cradle Project as the BFI’s ambassador, volunteering so he may sate his own curiosity about life on Cradle and the wonders it may hide. Despite his large imposing build, he is cool-headed and affable, but can be blunt and overly-analytical in his speech. His starting class is the engineer.
• Lani Derra is last in line. A hot-headed carnavin warrior, she volunteers to represent the Inter-Space Operations faction to provide combat support. She also wishes to catch up with Marie, an old friend from their boot camp days. Her starting class is the enforcer.

That does it for starting characters. Whichever starting side the player chooses (dwellers or spacefarers), there will be a little bit of crossover. Reflen and Jess will always join the starting party, as will Marie and Rami. The other characters will either join based on the starting faction, or can potentially be recruited later depending on the story path.

Next time, we’ll look at a few other allies who can join up.

Progress Report

I’ve finished up almost all of the secondary systems, including troop management, saving and loading data, and a pretty basic shell of the “calendar” system. I’ll show off a bit of that now. These are all still works-in-progress, but apart from the odd bug here or there, they’re all fully functional.

The ability setup screen lets you assign abilities to a character, such as their reaction skill (counterattacks and such) and any bonus abilities they have unlocked, which give stat boosts and other little enhancements. When bonus skills are learned from a class, they can be carried over to any other class known by that character, so they are a good way to enhance their abilities and really min-max things. Each character can equip up to 4 bonus skills.

The ability screen also allows spending of mastery (think job points) within a class to unlock new skills. You can see that on the screen at the left. In addition, you can also “rent” a skill on a character to test it out without committing to it. Basically, the skill is unlocked for one battle, letting you get a feel for it without making a permanent commitment. Only “active” skills (direct attacks and such) can be rented, and each can only be rented once, and only one skill may be rented at a time per character.

Next is the class setup screen, which lets you set a character’s primary and secondary classes. Your primary class determines your actions, stats, and equipment restrictions. The secondary class can be assigned and allows you to use any mastered active abilities for that class. So, you can have a mage-type class as your primary class, but a secondary class that uses gun skills, if you really want to.

Classes that are available are shown in white, and you can freely switch to them or set them as a secondary class. Gray classes are “known” – that is, at least one other ally has unlocked the class, but the current character has not. Classes that are unknown are hidden from view, and will be revealed when at least one character has met the skill requirements (technology, magic, etc.) to switch to that class. If your character is wearing invalid gear when switching classes, you’ll receive a notification, and be taken to…

…the equipment screen. Here, you can outfit a character with their starting weapons, a piece of armor, and up to 3 accessories. Weapons can be switched in battle, but it’s generally a good idea to start a character with a loadout relevant to their class and role. You also get a “recommendation” of weapons to use, which is based on the character’s available skills in both their primary and secondary classes. If someone else is wearing a piece of gear, you can quickly pull it off and take it for yourself without too much fussing.

Lastly, the save system works! It’s pretty no-frills, but you get up to ten slots this time around. I intend to have cloud saves supported at launch this time.

This week, I’ll finish up the weapon crafting system first. Actually, I’ll probably finish that today. It’s about 90% done, but I took a break to write this number first. After that, I’ll work on the “battle reward” system – doling out experience, skills, and class mastery for winning a battle. I’ll also spend some time making a simple “test” battle arena, so I can have a loop of preparation, going into battle, getting rewards, and spending points/preparing again, and so on. Once this is bug free, I think I’ll finally begin working on the actual main game content. (Well, after one more surprise that I’ve been saving in my back pocket).

Next time: Two more familiar faces join the party!