I realized today that it’s been nearly a year since I announced the reboot (as it were) of the Eden’s Last Sunrise project. It sure hasn’t felt that long, and most of the time spent since then has been focused on refining the design, building backend and secondary systems, and negotiating with artists for assets. But, with the two-year anniversary of the release of The Tenth Line coming up in the next few days making me feel incredibly old, I reckon I ought to give an idea of what I’ve been up to, and what to expect from the project going forward.
First, for new readers, the elevator pitch: Eden’s Last Sunrise is a tactical RPG very much in the spirit of Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, and other mid-to-late 90s classics with the word “Tactics” in the name. (I briefly considered changing the title to “Eden Tactics” to follow along. It’s not too late to do that, right?) The basic premise involves an advanced, spacefaring society coming into contact and conflict with their magically-oriented high-fantasy-esque other half, and the complications that arise from their strained relationship. Otherwise, the usual tropes apply: isometric battles, character classes, spending points to learn skills, a story fraught with tough choices and political motivations, and an optional dungeon or two.
Where things differ is in the details: gameplay-wise, in the class system and the weapon-skill integration. Whereas the “warrior, mage, healer” triangle is a popular baseline for designing class trees, I’m changing things up a little bit. Sure, there will be elements of this, with some classes excelling at healing while others preferring swords or spells, but classes are treated more like “professions” than purely being roles in an RPG party. For instance, your allies can take on the Medic class, which has a few healing abilities, as expected. But, this class also excels at administering other drugs as well, which can inflict harm or status effects on foes. Equip him with a gun, and he can use these abilities at a long distance – as long as he has ammo available. Similarly, a magic-oriented class can’t equip guns at the beginning, but can learn to use them through other means, allowing them to couple their fire magic with their gunshots and open up new elemental opportunities. It is also possible to multi-class, setting a class as “secondary” and using its abilities in conjunction with the main class’s stats and equipment options.
Tactically speaking, many of the expected mechanics apply: attacking from behind is good, as is having the high ground. A prepared attack will present you with its outcome and probability of success before you commit, as you would expect. One additional wrinkle I’ve added is a small list of exactly what factors are in play for your attack, and how they affect the outcome. Eventually, this list will grow when other factors from buffs or skills come into play. For instance, one passive ability would let you more easily avoid AOE magic attacks. Naturally, these rules could apply to the enemy, too.
Actions are also dictated by the user’s AP, which is just a little bit more granular than how it’s used in modern iterations. You get one move per turn, which costs 1 AP (normally). Major actions like attacks usually cost 3 or 4 AP, while a minor action like changing equipment, using a health potion, or defending may only cost 1 or 2. Most classes have 7 AP, while enemies will have more or less depending on their relative power. Bosses can have more, while grunts can have less.
Woof, I’m really getting out into the weeds, here. Anyway, to sum it up: Eden’s Last Sunrise is a tactical RPG with a classic feel and a few twists and modern sensibilities woven in. Also, it has dragon people.
If you’re still reading, or you skipped the intro because you already know the score, then it’s high time I get into the actual development side of this post, I reckon. What the heck have I been doing in the past… (checks notes) 13 months?
Well, mostly, it’s been the invisible grunt work that goes on behind the scenes. I refined the design and pared down the numbers of “things” into a more cohesive mix. “Things” being elements like classes, weapon types, status effects, primary characters, story branches, and all the extraneous stuff that should float to the top when you do a real polish pass over a draft of your design document. When I first pitched the project, I had a vague notion of how things should fit together, but nothing fleshed out in specifics. This phenomenon sort-of presented itself in the first demo, where some of the ability sets were along the lines of, “I dunno, buffs or something” instead of a more interesting and more cohesive role. I’ll post a new demo sometime in the next year that shows how things fit together now, as well as a lot of bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements that weren’t present in my original pitch. Just waiting on some art assets in the meantime.
The good news is that I have coded all of the classes and all of their abilities, so from the player’s point-of-view, all of the battle mechanics are in place (and just need a little more polish before I call them “final”). This includes basic attacks and passives, but also unique abilities: things like summoning temporary allies, building cover on the battlefield, manipulating the terrain to help or hinder those who pass through, and special class-specific factors and buffs. When I get around to introducing the classes one by one, I’ll go over those in detail.
Outside of the battle system and design, I’ve also been grinding away on the so-called “secondary” systems that make up the bulk of what the player will interact with, even though they’re not all that pretty or interesting to look at. This includes navigating the world map, setting up character classes and equipment loadouts, learning and assigning abilities, deploying troops into battle, and character creation. Yes, you can finally create custom characters for your party! You’ll also create your “commander” character, who will act as your avatar in the world. I’ll go over that in detail next time.
What comes next? Well, I really want to finish those secondary systems and have them tested thoroughly before I move into the “real” game. This means things like saving and loading data, the calendar system (and dispatch missions), and other important systems that many gamers take for granted. They don’t just spring up out of the ether, unfortunately. Hopefully, though, I’ll have those done by the end of March, and then I can finally move on to implementing the “real” game.
My plan for the next phase is building one entire story path from start to finish, and have that tested thoroughly before I use it as a template to build the other story paths. There are several hard decision points that will change your avatar’s (and party’s) role in the story and lead to a different conclusion. They will be unique and varied, and allow recruitment of different characters you wouldn’t normally see on your side, so I am excited to see that come together. Also, you’ll be able to play again through New Game +, so picking up every character is completely possible.
The main game loop is based around a hard-set calendar of 180 in-game days, with specific “major operations” occurring at certain points. It’s up to you to prepare for these major operations in the time you are given beforehand. Events will appear and disappear as days pass, allowing you to send off allies for dispatch missions, participate in optional battles, or socialize with your characters to build their trust in you (which will eventually lead to other rewards (don’t read too deeply into that)). Some events will take multiple days to complete, or will cause time to pass when partaken, so the clock is ticking and the end is nigh.
That’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll start giving more frequent progress updates starting next week, and also start with introductions for your main characters, with some artwork and story backgrounds for each.
