News
v0.4.0 Now Available!
-Exploration menu has been implemented.
-Travel fatigue has been implemented in world map.
-Gateway – Forge District map has been removed from the map pool.
-Gateway has been added to the map pool.
-New exterior maps for the Acheron Vale region have been added to the map pool.
-Incapacitated party members earn 50% experience rather than 0% experience from fights (They can still learn from the battle since they’re not actually dead).
-Player can no longer sprint if one of the party members has 0 SP.
-Fixed Disarm skill crash bug.
-All placeholder and stock music has been replaced with empty placeholder files. These placeholders will be replaced with the game’s original soundtrack as it is developed.
-Title screen music implemented (work in progress).
-Additional debug menu added to assist with troubleshooting
-Ginseng Root and Ginseng Tea now properly restores SP
-Fixed save deletion crash bug
-Kotori’s face set and character sprite has been added
You can view the full patch notes history here
Dev Blog: Exploration! (Part 1)
Since graphical assets are still a work in progress and will take a while to complete, I thought I’d take some time to give an update on some of the mechanics we will be introducing to the game. Today I’ll be talking about some of the exploration mechanics you’ll find in Ardenian Legends: The Fall of Arcana.
Now, before we start talking about what we plan to do, I want to first iterate what we’re trying to achieve here. This can be summed up in two important goals:
Open-World Gameplay
The exploration mechanics will need to be able to provide the player the ability to discover Ardenia in a non-linear manner at their own pace. While this is a fairly straightforward goal to achieve, there will be a lot of work involved as far as both the number of maps that will be created for the players to explore as well as the content within them for the player to discover.
Dynamic Gameplay
The exploration mechanics will also need to provide the player with multiple avenues of accomplishing the goal they set out to achieve. Whether it’s finding and gathering a certain type of material, travelling to another town, or beating up some random guy in the wilderness, providing the player with more than one way of getting things done will both create unique gameplay experiences for the player as well as encourage the player to think strategically about what method would be the most suitable given the scenario they are currently in.
That said, allow me to introduce the exploration menu and the two kinds of maps that players will be exploring on:
Exploration Menu!
The exploration menu is what will be tying all of the exploration mechanics together, and will act as the central point from which the player will be taking their actions. Please bare in mind that the screenshots show a very rough prototype of the menu and the final system will probably not look like this.
One of the main functions of the exploration menu will be to transition the player between the two levels of maps that each carry their own distinct form of gameplay:
The player can travel by a series of interconnected exterior maps that provides engaging gameplay that require players to think on their feet and make tactical decisions that will affect their chances of succeeding at whatever their goal was. Enemies are visible and will actively chase you around the map if you get too close. Players will also have to navigate different paths and obstacles on the map to reach treasures and new places. More details on exterior maps will be given in a later Dev Blog.
The world map will provide a more abstract form of gameplay, requiring strategic thinking to succeed. From the world map, each grid square corresponds to its own exterior map (with the exploration menu being a means of transferring between the two). It’s possible to skip over entire exterior maps by travelling on the world map, but doing so expends Stamina, which is also needed to sprint, use techniques in combat, etc. Encounters on the world map are randomized, and it isn’t always apparent whether that encounter will be hostile or not. More details on the world map will be given in a later Dev Blog.
That’s it for now! We’ll be going into further detail on exploration and other game mechanics with more Dev Blogs in the future, so stay tuned!
Playtesters wanted!
Hey, you! Yeah, you right there!
Now that Ardenian Legends: The Fall of Arcana is really starting to pick up steam, we need feedback to help improve the game! Today we have release v0.3.2, which brings a few tweaks to the core mechanics, a number of fixes and upgrades to the enemy battler AI, as well as a whole host of bug fixes and other minor improvements.
Click here to see the full patch notes.
You’ll find the latest iteration of the prototype in the downloads section. There is currently a test module implemented in the game you go go to that has each of the classes you can play as and fight with. We’re looking for the following feedback:
- How was the learning curve? Was the game easy to pick up, or was it too hard to learn?
- Would a tutorial be required to learn the combat mechanics, and if so, what game mechanics would need to be explained in the tutorial?
- How did the classes fair against one another? Did any seem overpowered? Underpowered? (keep in mind these are basically one-off 1v1 battles, which doesn’t account for battlefield longevity. Also keep in mind some classes may work better in a team than on their own.)
- Bugs, bugs, bugs! Find all the bugs!!
You can give feedback by sending an email to ardeniaproject@gmail.com. Every little bit helps!
First Post!
This is going to be the new website dedicated to the Ardenia Project!
Ardenian Legends originally started as a chronicle of short stories and other literature, and now the stories are being adapted to a video game series! We’ll be updated the site with more information, so stay tuned!
The Ardenia Project 