We are back again A lot of time has passed! Dont worry, we from team FervorCraft were just very busy working on the game. Well, and during February and March we also had conventions to attend in Dresden (DeDeCo) and Leipzig (MCC 2024), thus needing to invest some of our time into creating new prints for our booth as well.
But apart from that we have continued working on it and managed to make a lot of progress. A Semi-Linear Story Section When we werent busy attending conventions, we took care of the first sections of Chapter 3 in which the players will have to take action themselves: the entire Southwest of Zhetan will be available to you! What does that mean? Here, the plot will continue semi-linear. While the main quest will give you a final destination, numerous optional locations are open to visit - even if some might prove to still pose a sizeable challenge. But an extensive trip has never failed yet to make you more familiar with the final companion. Here are a few impressions of the areas we have finished or are currently still working on.









The Plot Must Go On! But how about the plot for the whole game? How far along are we? As mentioned, we focussed on the first section of Chapter 3. For a good reason: we divided the contents of the chapter into thirds - to serve as milestones during development - and we have finished all the texts of important scenes for the first third of it; whats missing now is their implementation. Sidequests and NPCs are in the works as well but will probably get implemented when the main quest for this segment is also fully playable. In short: regarding the story we finished all the groundworks and will add in the rest one by one before proceeding to the next segment. Art Assets We made a lot of new graphic assets or edited or finalized existing ones over the past few months. Apart from pixelart and effects for the different areas, there have also been new NPCs added which will become more important in Chapter 3.


RPG MAKER XP evolves into MKXP-Z One of the two most substantial changes we made was changing the engine Charon - Zhetan Chronicles will run in when finalized. Development continues in RPG MAKER XP which is still more than suitable for that job but is showing more and more issues when it comes to actually running the game. Thus, weve decided to go for the MKXP-Z framework! What is that?, you might ask. Well, its a C++-based framework specifically intended for the Maker generations XP, VX and VX-Ace that allows games to be played fitting more contemporary standards (It is often used as a base for fan projects in the Pokmon community as well). Which in our case means:

• a much more stable performance
• the possibility to use updated Ruby code (the standard in RPG Maker is rather outdated)
• freely adjustable window resolutions*
• fonts loading automatically
• the ability to connect it to the Steam-API for achievements etc.
• portability onto other operating systems**

• damage done by heroes and enemies is not strictly capped anymore, making buffs and debuffs more noticeable
• character level now got a bit more impact on the damage calculations; equipment and action levels remain very important but forgetting to take care of them for a hot second shouldnt result in a frustrating bottleneck anymore
• the heroess LPs have been increased and adjusted to the enemiess damage so players should not get not challenged enough nor immediately destroyed either - except when trying to go for a boss way above their level.
• the reconstruction also allows for an easier implementation of future enemies, since status effects are now much easier to calculate and adjust

Hello everyone! We hope you had a great start into the new year! Over the turn of the year it has been quiet around team FervorCraft but we managed to make plans for chapter 3 and work on a roadmap regardless. Thus we used January to really start working on chapter 3 - admittedly not on the main stages yet - to get things moving again. Workflow Adjustments for Dialogues and Scenes: One change that was mainly noticeable behind the scenes but will improve a better workflow in development going forward has been the export of dialogue. Starting with chapter 3 - I previously used this technique for the lore books in the game - dialogues will be exported to external text files which, depending on language settings, are then getting loaded into the game at the game start. I then have to specify the fitting texts in the game code so they get assembled during the run time. Admittedly, this is nothing huge but still an alleviation. Now we can write out texts and dialogues separately, take more time for translation and are able to code whole scenes in one go. In fact, until now coding scenes has been the most straining part since not only did we have to script the scenes but also had to write dialogue simultaneously. Considering some of the more extensive scenes we already have in Charon - ZC you can probably guess how long that could take, stopping after each step of a sequence to not only come up with dialogue but then also having to translate it on the go. Freedom in Chapter 3: There will be some changes and additions coming with chapter 3 concerning the story and the gameplay. You will likely first notice that you will have more freedom when it comes to exploring new areas. Of course we will provide a clear main path for you but there will also be a lot of optional areas to explore and complete.




Innovations in Combat A new gimmick for selected encounters in chapter 3 will be so-called area effects. These will be permanent status effects for the enemies and/or the heroes lasting the duration of the encounter, which cant easily be countered.
In this example, all enemies have the Regena-effect active which neutralizes all poison effects. So you will have to find a way to make more damage than the enemies can heal. That is not dead which can eternal lie...
Without wanting to reveal too much: those who still know the old iterations of the project might remember the Exa-Celestia summons and their respective combat mechanic for using very powerful skills. While these mighty beings still persisted in-game as super bosses, they did not offer learnable skills. What does the scene above have to do with that? Who knows? But maybe there is a possibility to bring back the light into dark crystals? And Reiko makes Four!

Finally, with chapter 3 the fourth member Reiko Octavia Katsura will join our party - earlier than in previous versions of the game! We will share more insights in the future about her new skill set - which we are currently working on and implementing. But you can look forward to a lot of magical action from the back row. Nalla's Return:


There really is not much to say Nalla von Klausens, infamous bandit and (self-proclaimed) greatest rogue of the World Above and even (in his dreams) Sais arch nemesis - got his final makeover for his faceset and battle sprite thanks to AbsoScribbles. This scoundrel too will celebrate his return (again) in chapter 3. Future Prospects: That would be all for January Not a lot has happened regarding the main story but we got back into the groove and were able to fix a lot of smaller issues. Next up are implementing the remaining skills of the characters (which will include Reiko entirely) and more groundwork for graphics and in terms of content, so we will hopefully be able to assemble everything more quickly. Until then, take care! Kind regards, Schilderich Team FervorCraft

UPDATE:

• Updated Texts (dialogue, terms and lore) for German and English
• Updated of some art assets
• Updated shop system with new UI
• Shops now have a function to sell all loot items at once

• Mining Town Mikhail
• Dungeon Mikhail Mines
• New Quests and Mercenary Errands
• New gameplay elements