[Lex Talionis] Absolution (v0.1.6.0 - 6 Chapter Demo)

[LuckyStart]

Salutations, everyone! I am happy to introduce to you all to a new FE project: Absolution! I've been working on the ideas and concepts behind this for a long time now, and it feels so good to finally have a playable build out there. The current build, v0.1.6.0, starts at the prologue (Indictment) and ends after chapter 5 (A Greater Struggle).

This game runs in the Lex Talionis engine, and as such is for Windows only.  But if your machine runs on windows, then there are no additional requirements. Just download and play! Special thanks to rainlash for making the Lex Talionis engine, as well as accommodating my feature requests and providing excellent assistance.

Absolution takes place in the world of Aletheia, a world split in half by conflicts too old to remember. Today, the 2 sides of Aletheia reunite - in less than harmonious circumstances. Help Valentina Bolivar free her people from oppression and overcome her personal demons through a story that spans two continents and 7 countries. The road ahead is an arduous one, laden with inconvenient and painful truths. But still, you must fight onward towards absolution, and right the wrongs of millennium past!

This is my first foray into game development, so your feedback is very much appreciated! I am heavily invested in this game being the best it can possibly be! Thank you! (I also love seeing how people's units turned out, so if want to share that, please do!)

Dropbox Download Link (Prologue + 5 Chapters)

All you have to do to play is download the game from the link above, unzip it, and double click the "double_click_me_to_play" batch file!

Implemented/In Progress Features:

• An original story/scenario with original characters
• Original music written specifically for the game
• A simple yet robust class system
• 2 - 3 range archers, 1 - 2 range crossbows,  and a combination of Radiant Dawn-style and Fates-style knives
• A variety of personal skills and combat arts
• A support system where every character gets at least 4 support options. Even the most side character of side characters get equal love!

Unimplemented Features:

• Battle animations and unique enemy pallets based on faction.
• Lore entries in the game's library
• Multiple difficulties; all difficulties are currently identical

Screenshots:

Spoiler

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Graphics Credits (AWESOME PEOPLE):

Spoiler

Custom Item Sprites:

• rainlash
• FE7x Team
• LordGlenn
• LuckyStart
• Zane
• Valak
• Zelix

Custom Class Cards

• rainlash
• Dei
• MageKnight404
• Team SALVAGED
• Melia
• MeatOfJustice
• FPzero
• Shtick
• Rasdel
• DerTheVaporeon
• Orihara_Saki
• Kenpuhu

Custom Map Sprites

• rainlash
• dondon151
• Agro
• Team SALVAGED
• Melia
• MeatOfJustice
• FPzero
• Shtick
• Rasdel
• DerTheVaporeon
• Orihara_Saki
• Kenpuhu
• HyperGammeSpaces
• Flasuban
• Dellhonne
• Snewping
• Unknown
• Ayr
• Pikmin1211
• Nuramon

Custom WEXP Icons

• LordGlenn

Custom Affinity Icons

• LordGlenn

Custom Combat Animations

• rainlash
• AstraLunaSol
• Dei
• Fe7x Team
• Keeks
• Klokinator
• MageKnight404
• Temp
• Nuramon
• flasuban
• Team SALVAGED
• DerTheVaporeon
• Leo_link
• Iscaneus
• Mikey Seregon
• Khrene Kleaver
• Khardos
• Alfred Kamon
• Spud
• BlueDruid
• PrincessKilvas
• Maiser6
• Ayr
• Raspberry
• TBA
• shadowofchaos
• Jeorge_Reds
• MrNight
• Black Mage
• Marlon0024
• Red Bean
• Teraspark
• Aruka
• Kenpuhu
• Seal
• Mercenary Lord
• Vilkalizer
• Jj09
• Alusq
• GabrielKnight
• Skitty

Custom Spell Animations

• Arch

Custom Tilesets and Tileset Palettes

• Zoramine
• feaw

 

Edited December 3 by LuckyStart

[hhshark10]

Wow, I've started playing this, and this is really amazing!  Love the music in particular.  I'm working on a longer thoughts post that I'll share when I finish the demo (just got to 'luminescence', was this the last available chapter?), hopefully tomorrow if I have time.  But I'd be really happy if you continued working on this!

Edited December 3 by hhshark10

[LuckyStart]

Thank you so much for playing, I'm glad you're enjoying it! The last available chapter is "A Greater Struggle," which is the one after Luminescence. It occurs to me now that I forgot to put numbers in the chapter names, so it's not exactly clear what chapter 5 even is. I updated the OP to make that a bit more clear. Thank you for your encouragement, and I'm excited to hear your full thoughts!

[hhshark10]

Sorry for the delay, but I've now finished the demo!  Here is the feedback I've been jotting down as I've gone along. This feels like a long post, so I hope you enjoy all of this feedback!

Character Thoughts:

Spoiler

In terms of characters, I really like just about everything about them in terms of story and gameplay design.  It felt like that just about every character had a really impactful or useful ability to start with that made them feel much more unique compared to a lot of other FE games/hacks, which really helped to make them feel more like 'characters' instead of 'units' or 'classes', where skills at this point are often just +2 strength, or +10 hit or whatever.  I think a lot of my characters got blessed in terms of rng when I've looked at their growths, but I think that's fine for a first play through while I learn everything.  The combat arts that they had were cool, but I always found that I would forget that I even had them a lot of the time, since they took time to charge up.  That's probably just an issue with me, but it would be nice it I could get more info on the additional damange/accuracy/etc that they give so I would better be able to calculate things on the fly.  Not sure if that's feasible with the amount of space given in the window though.  

Here's how my characters turned out:

My Valentina was amazing, hands down probably my best unit, and definitely my bulkiest. Defiance is an amazing ability for early game, I would often end up purposefully not healing her or let her get damaged to proc it to get the boost, it feels so strong.  I can see it being less useful later in the game though, as damage thresholds get higher, but that's fine.  She's great in terms of personality too, generally very eager and peppy, which is honestly something not seen often at all for FE lords, even in rom hacks.  I took a peek at her prf weapon too, which is also very unique in terms of stats, it's basically a better wind edge.  It's probably good that it has some tradeoffs in accuracy and weight so it's not just better than a normal iron sword for instance like standard prf rapier would be.  It'd certainly be useful with a tanky build to just send her on the frontlines and bait a bunch of enemies at once for everyone else, since she'll probably miss a few of them.  I probably used her a bit too much looking at it now compared to everyone else, looking at her level. 

For an armor knight, he's Eduardo was pretty middle of the road for me.  He has enough speed to generally avoid getting doubled, but his defense/hp leaves a bit of something to be desired.  Although, looking at his growths, he might have just been slightly under average in terms of bulk.  He generally had a hard time keeping up with everyone else though, but that's to be expected. 

Raymond was probably one of my worse units for me, although he was always at least useful since he was a cav.  I don't think he ever really doubled, but he was good for some chip damage every turn.  Chivalry seemed a bit less useful than some other skills imo, but maybe it was just due to me not noticing it proc.  

Spencer was a consistently good and useful unit, even with his low strength.  He generally doubled most enemies, but definitely not all.  Axes really helped to make up for low strength, and diamond axe would probably help a lot too, but I always forgot to use it.  Provoke seems to be an amazing ability now, ranged enemies still generally seemed to prefer attacking units that can't fight back, so they would much more consistently miss in these instances, which is really helpful when you can't kill everyone nearby right away.  Solid bulk too, and I ended up giving him the secret book to patch up some minor hit issues from using axes.

Lakshmi was always useful, 2-3 range is a simple, but good, solution for trying to make archers more useful.  I think she got a bit strength blessed as well, I feel like a more average Lakshmi would just end up being a good chip damager, which is probably a good way of keeping 3 range in check so it's not too good, since it would be too easy to take on bosses that don't move. I'm really confused by her lucky day ability, would you mind clarifying it's effects for me?

Evelyn is a relatively standard healer.  She starts off with a lot of strength actually, which kind of makes me wonder if her promotion is going to give her a physical weapon.  Fire Balm was good at the start, although when you only have one healer you generally prioritize healing whoever's taken the most damage instead of trying to use the ability more offensively.  I don't see it scaling as well later into the game when numbers get more inflated, but that's fine.  The fortune staff is a cool idea for a staff as well, but again healing usually took priority since I only had one healer, so I see it being more useful later on.  

Trudy is a character that has probably the most impactful ability right now, and I love that about her.  Duelist is so interesting because you have to play her so differently compared to a typical fighter.  Her ability is amazing, not having to worry about hit is really solid, she was amazing against sword units since she would always hit them anyway.  Her bulk isn't good enough to have her be in range of more then 2-3 enemies though, but Duelist makes her so consistent of a character that I love using her so much.  Shove is cool too, I think that she can place down a rescued unit and shove in the same turn, which probably would have uses when you have tighter objectives.  

I really wanted to use Samantha more, but she was a bit hard to use, although that's fairly common with Pegasus units in the early game.  With her growths, she seems more like a late-game glass cannon kind of character, which is fine.  Flying is always useful, although with 2-3 range archers you often have to play more passively, which is also fine since pesasus are generally very good units in any FE game.

Everyone from here on out I obviously never got to use too much since there was only 1-2 chapters left.  Gabriel was a good front line unit with his crossbow, and could hit things consistently.  I'm a bit cautious about his late game potential, since it looks like you can't currently buy more crossbows and he looks to have some speed issues.  I think that wrath will be more useful when we get killer bows to combine with, and if his promo gives him additional crit you could probably get him to crit moderately reliably though, which would likely kill considering his good strength.

Thematically, I really like how you're splitting up magic based on the continent, with the raven one having anima and the gryphon one having light.  I like how all tomes seem to have some additional effects, which help differentiate the different types of magic more as well since they all tend to be so similar in most FE games.  Bennett here seems good and perfectly useable, I have no idea what transcribe does, although I'm guessing that this is basically just 'This unit can use certain tomes'.  Experimenter seems very good on paper, although most enemies in FE don't tend to survive more than 1 turn, so I'm a bit hesitant on it right now.  Maybe it makes him a good boss killer later on?

Seems like a pretty standard thief unit, all things considered. Assurance seems like it could end up being really useful, but it's only going to be useful for 1-2 range knifes most of the time, which seem pretty weak in terms of might.  It seems like the main selling point of the different knifes are for the different status effects on them, so if we eventually get a 1-2 range knife with a really useful status effect, then he'll probably be pretty good for initiating combat.

On paper, he seems like a speedier alternative when compared to Bennett.  Compared to the debuffs that anima gets, the stat buffs that light magic seems to give honestly probably makes it more useful to the player, since in these types of games buffing your units is better than debuffing enemy units.  Germaphobe means he'll probably be ending up being a somewhat reliable dodge tank when he's in terrain too, which is interesting. 

 

I played just enough to unlock this dude.  I know nothing about him, but he seems cool, lone wolf seems like a strong ability for a flier.  

 

Gameplay/Chapter Thoughts:

Spoiler

Overall, chapters feel extremely well-designed and varied in terms of gameplay.  Maps are clean and aesthetically attractive while still clearly being made for gameplay with varied objectives and chokepoints.  

The prologue was designed to be a bit more of a story focused chapter, which makes sense.  Gameplay was a bit on the simpler side, but that's fine since it was the prologue.  It introduces knifes, which play more unique to other FE's, so that's good.  

Chapter 1 was a good introduction to the overall units that we're actually using.  I like the mixed objective, although there isn't really any incentive to move quickly in the chapter, which maybe makes the objective a bit less interesting.  Although, maybe it's good that the first chapter doesn't have an incentive, so you have time to get more familiar with all of your units.  It looks like the boss stops attacking you when you burn all the crops and rushes towards the exit, although if you have him trapped already on the gate like I did, it looks like he just stops attacking you completely on enemy phase, which I felt just prolonged the chapter a bit since he's a bulky boss.  Maybe consider having him attack you if he can't path toward the exit?  (Assuming that's possible in this engine.)

Chapter 2 was a very good gameplay chapter.  The green unit you get (sorry, forgot her name) can certainly hold her own, although you can't help but get the feeling that she's stealing a bit of exp, but it's good to rely on her for some of the cavalier reinforcements.  

I really loved chapter 3, I always feel like the best chapters in FE are the ones where you are forced, or at least incentivized, to move quickly.  14 turns is fair, but firm.  My only complaint in this chapter is when you talk to Myrtle and she unlocks the door for you.  When you do this, with the way everything is positioned, the next enemy phase the mage will come down, and will most likely try to move next to Myrtle to attack Val, since I think she's always at one range at this point.  Then, on ally phase, Myrtle will one round the mage and end up taking the skeleton key, which you can't get back.  There is an extra key on a reinforcement so you can still get everything, but when you are on a hard timer like this, I feel like this is something that can really mess up the players plans since it feels like it's a bit out of your control. I wish that the key would be given to a different unit in the upper area, or the mage to be moved a bit more to the left, for instance, to be out of their range.  

Chapter 4 had a good incentive to try and reach Gabe and Ben quickly.  They don't seem to be at too much risk right away, but I don't think that they can survive the cav and peg reinforcements, but you generally have plenty of time to get there before that.  I think my biggest complaint here is that there are several enemies on the map that don't move, and don't give any indication that they don't move. (The archers and knights south of the player start).  This felt annoying to me, because if I would have known that, I would have played more aggressively on the first turn, especially with Sam.  In a lot of newer hacks and FE titles, if an enemy never moves, the designer gives the unit 0 move as an indication to the player, so that they can plan around this knowledge.  Is there any way that this can be done within this engine?

Chapter 5 also had a very good transition and blend between story and gameplay through the split floors  The mages on the upper floor were fairly threatening as well with the ability to 2-shot many of my units that did not have the pure water.  And there is an additional incentive with the treasure chest, which I actually missed on my playthough, although I'm certain if I had planned my unit position better I would have been able to get it, so no worries there.  

Some other minor gameplay things that I've noticed going through this:

• AI generally seems to be better than normal FE, although I'm not sure if this is because of the engine or not.  For instance, In chapter 2 I created a chokepoint at a bridge with the cavs that came from behind.  One of the cavs actually tried to make their way around the other path, even though it was slower.  Another example: enemies with vulneraries always tended to use them when even a little injured if they could not do anything else, for instance if they could not move due to guard AI.  
• Spells don't seem to have weight, which makes me perhaps a bit cautious for balancing later spells without making them just better.  This probably isn't impossible to balance around though, just maybe that you have to be a bit more careful, if that makes sense.
• Love that the secret book is +3 instead of +2 skill.
• Mounted Aid seems really low in this game, and I'm not sure if that's intentional or not.  In GBA games, I believe that aid is determined by 25 - user's con (or 20 if user is female).  But here, all units seem to use 15 - user's con.  This means that almost no mounted units can rescue at all, and if they can they can only rescue the lightest of units.  Is this an intentional decision to help balance mounts?  I'm okay with it, but it felt a bit harsh for me.
• In contrast weapon weight in this game also generally seems to be very low.  For instance, the steel axe, generally one of the heaviest axes in games, only has 9 weight, which the enemy cavs all easily had.  The amount of times that I feel I've seen somebody weighed down by anything seems very low, it just seems like it hardly matters.  
• I'm a bit confused by the skill system.  I'm getting the impression that most everything seems to be unit based skills, but I'm not sure if some things are class based skills, I can't really tell since we haven't got two of the same class yet.  Like, if I get another fighter, would he also have Duelist?
• The prologue is good, but in terms of gameplay I was a bit suspicious when the other units we got didn't have growth rates.  I didn't think that they would die, but I did think there were some shenanigans that would occur.  that the I think it would be a better fake out if you gave them growths, even if they don't really matter after this.  

 

Story/Dialogue/World/Music design Thoughts:

Spoiler

Overall, I feel like it can be really difficult to properly judge story and dialogue in games like these, since so much of it is subjective, and for me gameplay usually is more important.  But, I really like the direction that you've taken for all of these.  Characters feel very believable and interesting within the world.  They have their own mannerisms and dialogue that make sense for them and accents the world building (for instance, they don't say "Gods!" or "Oh my God", the characters would say "By the Serpent!", and such, which makes everything more believable and interesting. 

The fakeout in the prologue was really well done, there's a clear shift between Val being relatively carefree and positive at the start, to her losing her friends and her experience with her survivor's guilt, which she's still going through.  The interesting thing is, while she's changed from this experience, she's not completely different. She's still eager and positive, and she still wants to fight back.  She's acknowledging when her headstrong nature is causing her to make mistakes like that, like when she charges into the temple top floor in chapter 5.  There's a lot of interesting ways you can write her story here to the end, and I really like that.  

She has some interesting dynamics and interactions going on with her dad and brother too.  Clearly we're missing a lot of background here, so I'm interested in seeing where this goes.  I will say, when her dad first showed up (Chapter 3 I think?) I thought he was joking around at first with the way he was acting, it look me a minute to realize that he was actually upset with her.  

I forgot their names (sorry!), but the masked dude and the women looking for a cure are interesting, and I'm really curious to see how these characters get intertwined more in the main plot with the rest of the characters, because the seem pretty separated at the moment.  

For the intro cutscene at the start of chapter 5, I was getting serious Logan vibes (The Last Promise), I really thought that he was going to be purposefully leading us into the trap and would be the boss since he was acting kinda nervous, haha.  

At the end of chapter 5, with the cutscene of the rogue-y assassiny looking guy talking to the janitor, I took one look at him and thought he was going to be a total edgelord character by his outfit.  I was happy that I seemed to be wrong about this, he looks to be a very polite fellow.  

From what I understand, the main motivation of the enemies right now seems to be invading for land/resources, and the king is reminding me a bit of Walhart right now.  I hope that this is expanded on a little bit through, I feel like there could be more potential here.  

I like the path of radiance style base conversations, it's probably the best way to get character development going outside of supports for a lot of characters.  

The worldbuilding is great, I like how you start off with just listing the 2 main continents instead of listing every country right away, it makes it more likely that the player will remember the important parts and easing them into it instead of trying to digest everything right away. The world map really helps with this, although I think I would like it if, when you start mentioning the smaller countries that make up the continents, you switch up to the world map to show these.  

All of the music is phenomenal.  I actually get a little bit disappointed when a music track switches to a FE7 or FE8 music track every now and then because I like the music so much. I have a soft spot for a lot of piano music, and it's very nice. 

The sprites and character portraits are all very well done.  It looks like a couple of them are partially based on splices (Like I think I see some Lowen in Zahir, Echidna in Evelyn, etc.), but they are still very well done.  

I'm not actually sure if this is an engine related issue or not, but I'm having some trouble with text skips more often than I would like.  Sometimes a character will say 4 or 5 lines at a time without reaching a text skip, and if the speed is fast enough it is very easy to miss some dialogue.  Maybe more text breaks could be implemented in the dialogue sometimes?  

 

Overall, I am really impressed by the quality of everything, and I'd be happy to keep playing it more in the future.  If there are any lurkers out there who might be a bit cautious playing this due to not being really familiar with the engine (like I was), I'd really recommend giving it a chance, at least for a chapter or two to see if you can get hooked into it.  

 

[eclipse]

Unlike the other guy, I'm gonna be more nitpicky.

Opening:

Spoiler

I don't like the fact that this game seems to be geared for veteran FE players.  If your goal is really to improve on it, I think there should be a mode for those that do their FE runs on Normal Casual.  Or someone who is familiar with SRPGs, but not necessarily FE.

Can you put an option to map keys into the game?  The default set feels really awkward.

Really like the growth rate selection option.  Might wanna change the wording on the last option to something like "somewhat randomized, but stats will not dip below their averages" or something like that.

I'm not sure if you can make the text scrolling smoother.  It's somewhat jerky ATM.

Indictment:

Spoiler

Give the longer speech sections cursor breaks.  Check the Elibe FEs for examples of this.  I read fast, so I was able to keep up.  I don't think someone like my mom would be able to.

If you made the splices, you did a great job on Val and her brother.  Jeremy/Jericho have some shading issues, but I'm not particularly good at fixing those things.  Try posting them into the Sprites subform.  Don't know how many of our veteran splicers are around, but they should be able to help you out if they see the topic.

I strongly suggest finding an editor.  I can see the story, but it seriously needs polish (mostly wording, with some character tweaks).  This includes the opening.

And holy bad ideas Val.  Unless they murder the entire fortress, someone's gonna recognize them.

What is PRT, exactly?  It's mentioned in a couple of skills, but nowhere else.

YES ENEMY RANGE IS HIGHLIGHTED!

Weapon previews are missing range.  I'd rather see that than avoid (which can be derived from AS).

When trading, I think it would be better if the cursor defaulted to the first empty space, instead of the first inventory slot.

Why can't I steal the Javelin?  Either the Steal skill is missing a few modifiers (can't steal weapons and/or items with more WT than a character's CON), or something went wrong with the coding.  I'm going with the former, due to the nature of this chapter.

And no confirm prompt for saving the next chapter.

I'll add to this as I go.

[BBHood217]

Why can't I steal the Javelin?

Stealing's bugged right now, it used to work before.  I'm sure rainlash's already aware of it, though I dunno when the next engine update will be.

[LuckyStart]

Thank you both very much for giving it a try and posting feedback! I'll respond to some of it.

for hhshark:

Spoiler

On 12/4/2019 at 10:45 PM, hhshark10 said:

I'm really confused by her lucky day ability, would you mind clarifying it's effects for me?

Lucky Day gives Lakshmi additional bonuses to attack, avoid, and crit during combat based on how high her luck stat is compared to her opponent.

• For attack, she gains +1 for every 3 luck points she has over the opponent. For example, if she has 13 luck and her opponent has 4, 13 - 4 = a difference of 9.  9/3 = 3 additional points of damage. This caps out at 5.
• For avoid, she gains about +3 for every 1 point of luck she has over the opponent. It caps out at 30.
• For crit, she gains +1 for every 2 luck points she has over the opponent. This caps out at 10.

I can't fit all of this in the window, but I will change the description to be a little bit more clear. I may simplify the skill later so the player can better plan around it.

On 12/4/2019 at 10:45 PM, hhshark10 said:

I have no idea what transcribe does, although I'm guessing that this is basically just 'This unit can use certain tomes'

Transcribe is a lore thing; it's relevant to sidequests later on in the game. There's no effect on gameplay.

On 12/4/2019 at 10:45 PM, hhshark10 said:

Maybe consider having him attack you if he can't path toward the exit?

There's almost certainly a way I can do this in the engine. I'll tinker around with the AI some more. I'll also explore incentives for moving quickly in chapter 1.

On 12/4/2019 at 10:45 PM, hhshark10 said:

Then, on ally phase, Myrtle will one round the mage and end up taking the skeleton key, which you can't get back.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. There'll be a fix for this in the next update; I'll either reposition the mage or change his AI to ignore Myrtle.

On 12/4/2019 at 10:45 PM, hhshark10 said:

In a lot of newer hacks and FE titles, if an enemy never moves, the designer gives the unit 0 move as an indication to the player, so that they can plan around this knowledge.  Is there any way that this can be done within this engine?

I genuinely wanted to include this. I do know of a way to do this in the engine, but it's not very elegant. I will probably bite the bullet and implement it next patch or talk to the creator of the engine about it.

On 12/4/2019 at 10:45 PM, hhshark10 said:

Is this an intentional decision to help balance mounts?  I'm okay with it, but it felt a bit harsh for me.

Short answer is yes, it's a balancing thing. I'm not particularly attached to it though, and I'm exploring giving all infantry units shove (and possibly other movement skills) as an alternative. I'll see what the general consensus is on it first though.

On 12/4/2019 at 10:45 PM, hhshark10 said:

I'm a bit confused by the skill system.  I'm getting the impression that most everything seems to be unit based skills, but I'm not sure if some things are class based skills, I can't really tell since we haven't got two of the same class yet.  Like, if I get another fighter, would he also have Duelist?

Every unit gets at least one personal, and the rest are class based. Some units have generic skills like Death Blow as their personals, which probably adds to the confusion. I'll fit some text into personal skill descriptions designating them so. Boss units won't have personals but they will have skills from outside their class line. Duelist is Trudy's personal, so no other fighter will have it.

On 12/4/2019 at 10:45 PM, hhshark10 said:

I'm not actually sure if this is an engine related issue or not, but I'm having some trouble with text skips more often than I would like.  Sometimes a character will say 4 or 5 lines at a time without reaching a text skip, and if the speed is fast enough it is very easy to miss some dialogue.  Maybe more text breaks could be implemented in the dialogue sometimes?  

This is a problem with how I formatted the text; I'll comb through the script and add many more breaks in the next update.

I know I didn't respond to everything, but all your feedback was very useful and very much appreciated! I'll keep weapon weight, spell weight, skill scaling, and your other feedback in mind. Thanks for sharing your units, too; that gives me an idea of what level players are reaching by the end of chapter 5.

for eclipse:

Spoiler

On 12/5/2019 at 12:19 AM, eclipse said:

I don't like the fact that this game seems to be geared for veteran FE players.  If your goal is really to improve on it, I think there should be a mode for those that do their FE runs on Normal Casual.  Or someone who is familiar with SRPGs, but not necessarily FE.

This is something important I didn't realize. I'll change the default difficulty mode to normal (which was my intention) and have Hard and Lunatic be available (although for now they'll all be identical to normal until multiple difficulties becomes a larger priority). I'll also change the engine's default descriptions for the difficulty modes to be more open. Thanks for bringing this up!

On 12/5/2019 at 12:19 AM, eclipse said:

Can you put an option to map keys into the game?  The default set feels really awkward.

The engine lets you change the controls from the options menu! If you press select on a button mapping the text will turn yellow and you can choose a different key.

On 12/5/2019 at 12:19 AM, eclipse said:

Really like the growth rate selection option.  Might wanna change the wording on the last option to something like "somewhat randomized, but stats will not dip below their averages" or something like that.

Done! That will be in the next update.

On 12/5/2019 at 12:19 AM, eclipse said:

I'm not sure if you can make the text scrolling smoother.  It's somewhat jerky ATM.

I'll look into this. I'm not sure if there's anything I can do at the moment but I have some ideas.

On 12/5/2019 at 12:19 AM, eclipse said:

Give the longer speech sections cursor breaks.  Check the Elibe FEs for examples of this.  I read fast, so I was able to keep up.  I don't think someone like my mom would be able to.

I think this is the issue that needs to be fixed the most. Like I said in my response to hhshark I'll format the text to have more breaks for the next update.

On 12/5/2019 at 12:19 AM, eclipse said:

What is PRT, exactly?  It's mentioned in a couple of skills, but nowhere else.

PRT is protection, which works similarly to how it does in three houses, except it reduces both physical AND magic damage taken. So having +4 PRT means you take 4 less damage from the enemy. I didn't want to say "damage taken" since that takes up a lot of space, and I was hesitant to say DEF/RES since that's not really what's going on under the hood. It is remote and confusing since it's not explained anywhere, though, so I'll probably change it for clarity's sake later.

On 12/5/2019 at 12:19 AM, eclipse said:

Weapon previews are missing range.  I'd rather see that than avoid (which can be derived from AS).

When trading, I think it would be better if the cursor defaulted to the first empty space, instead of the first inventory slot.

Why can't I steal the Javelin?  Either the Steal skill is missing a few modifiers (can't steal weapons and/or items with more WT than a character's CON), or something went wrong with the coding.  I'm going with the former, due to the nature of this chapter.

And no confirm prompt for saving the next chapter.

All of these things are quirks of the engine code to my knowledge (as BBHood mentioned, steal is bugged at the moment), so I can't change them directly. I can pass along your feedback to the engine creator, though!

On 12/5/2019 at 12:19 AM, eclipse said:

I strongly suggest finding an editor.  I can see the story, but it seriously needs polish (mostly wording, with some character tweaks).  This includes the opening.

I have some writing friends who may be available over the winter, I'll see if they can help. Writing is definitely the part of the development process I struggle with most.

I know you're not finished yet, but I wanted to respond anyway. Thank you for your feedback so far, I really do appreciate it! I hope you enjoy the rest of the chapters!