New Demo Release

To celebrate the new year and prepare for Steam NextFest, we're rolling out a new release of the Trope Tales demo! There's a lot of changes in this update, but I'll try to cover most of it and break this into sections for easy consumption:

• More Bats

• Storyline Changes

• Feature Changes

• "Other" Changes

More Bats

This deserved its own top-level heading.

By popular demand we've increased the number of bats in the game by 200%! Every region now has its own variant of bat with different bats employing different bat-related tactics.

We've also introduced a bat-only optional dungeon for players to conquer! Think you're ready to take on the Bat Boss?

Storyline Changes

There's a few big things to touch on here:

• Reduced Scope

• New Chapters (8 and 9)

• Chapter 6 rework

• Side quests!

• More railroading

So let's focus on them one at a time.

Reduced Scope

Our original demo post mentions that as new content was ready the demo would be updated, and once the full story was complete the game would exit demo mode and go on sale for $4.99.

There's a couple updates that we would like to make to this post as time has passed, we've gathered new data, and as we're pushing to finish this game:

First, the original post mentioned there would be 18 chapters in total, mapping to Campbell's 1949 "Hero's Journey"archetype. However, as we went back and reviewed the high-level story plan for the game, we realized that most of the later chapters ("Crossing the Return Threshold", "Master of Two Worlds",...) don't really map to any JRPG tropes. In a JRPG, after you've beaten the god at the end of the world, the game just ends. There is no "how do we fit into normal society now" bit. That's a cutscene at best, but usually completely left off.

This was evident in my story where we had multiple paragraphs written for the first 12 chapters, followed by comments like "figure out a what to do for this chapter" or "maybe this will be a cutscene chapter like 1 and 4".

So we've stepped away from Campbell's archetype and decided that the game will conclude with only 14 chapters. These 14 are well-thought-out, have a clear beginning and end, and can still map really well to the first 14 scenes of the classic Hero's Journey.

Next, the original post mentioned that there would be constant updates to the demo. However, we learned over the last month that it's easier to burn through writing content and building a game if we're not constantly stopping to deploy what we're working on and fixing bugs in production. So after this next demo release, we expect there to be no new demos until the game is ready for launch.

Finally, on the topic of price. We do want the game to launch at $4.99, as we hope being in the "$5 or less" bin will get a lot of visibility and bring a whole new audience into the world of 2D sprite-based JRPGs. However, over the last few months we've spent a lot of time and money producing this game:

• Nearly $1,000 spent on voice acting

• Nearly $500 spent on custom art

• Nearly $500 spent on third-party art

• Nearly 3,000 hours spent in RPG Maker MZ

• Nearly $2,000 paid to friends to help populate the world with new NPCs, side quests, and jokes

When you add all this up, and compare the scope and scale of our game to others on Steam, we believe that $7.99 is more than reasonable as a "base" price for the game. Steam allows up to 40% discounts for 7-14 days as a "launch sale", and so we will take advantage of this to make the game available for $4.99 the week it launches.

New Chapters

This is the meat and potatoes of the new demo release... but it's also where all the spoilers are, so we don't want to give away too much!

The previous demo release ended after chapter 7, never quite "starting" chapter 8, but instead giving a "thanks for playing" message and dumping you in the world with no direction.

Since the chapter 8 flag wasn't set, this meant there were hard blockers to further progression -- NPCs who didn't move out of the way, vehicles that didn't spawn on the map, and items you couldn't interact with. So you could just run around Storyland fighting random encounters until you got bored.

We've now granted access to chapters 8 and 9 with this new release! So after defeating the First Villain, you'll be able to progress through Short Cave (beware of bats!), visit Obligatory Cat Girl's home village of Purradoxia, lay claim to your own castle, and enjoy the wonderfully exotic land of Orientasia! Think you can clear the Pagoda of Arbitrary Trials? There's lots of laughs and fun ahead, so please be sure to continue the story if you played the demo before.

Chapter 6 Rework

Early in the design phase of Trope Tales, we had a long list of things that we knew needed to be included in the game, but didn't quite know how to include them. Things like:

• An enemy you defeat that becomes an ally

• A village where everyone was turned into animals

• A wizard's tower you have to ascend

• A Rock, Paper, Scissors style elements system ("water beats fire", "fire beats ice", "ice beats water")

These culminated into Einstein -- the smart guy who had mastered the three elements, lived in a tower, and turned the residents of a local village into animals as part of his experiments.

But that was as far as the backstory went.

Why did Einstein turn the village into animals?

Why was he in the tower?

Why does he join your party?

We didn't answer any of these questions, but just started making a game and hoped we would figure it out as we worked on the story.

Instead, we figured out that the story was full of holes and confusing missed plot points.

You entered a village of animal people, but there was no clear understanding of why they were transformed or how to fix them.

You come back later and they're magically better, but it's unclear why or how they recovered.

After defeating Einstein there's no reason to really return to Fairy Falls -- in fact, you're told explicitly to go east to Stone Cave, instead. So most people never returned to this village.

The people didn't really seem to care or reward you for saving them.

It was all too forced, too contrived, and too poorly-written. Not to mention OCG! We needed them to be in the tower so that when the Hero lost consciousness they could join the party, but why would Einstein kidnap them? It didn't fit his character, his motivations, or anything really...

So the whole chapter was rewritten. If you're currently on chapter 6 of the demo and inside of the tower, exiting the tower and heading to Fairy Falls should get you back on track. The new story is more fun, more engaging, makes more sense, and keeps you on-track.

With this new story here's a high-level overview of some of the chapter 6 changes:

• Einstein's Tower renamed to First Villain's Tower

• Added a whole new map for Einstein's Cave

• Added new interactions in Fairy Falls

• Moved random encounters from First Villain's Tower to Einstein's Cave

• Created all new random encounters for First Villain's Tower

While we're at it, we also added a new secret area to First Villain's Tower! Try to find it!

Side Quests

We've taken what was a linear story and made it into.... a linear story, but with side quests! Will you help Mining Town recover after monsters have overtaken their one natural resource? Will you help the poor gardener recover his missing shears? Or will you ignore distractions and focus on saving the world? The choice is yours! Talk to strangers and have a good time!

Railroading

When watching people play the demo, we quickly noticed that most people never made it past chapter 2. They'd kill some bats, level up, then just... wander. Almost no one returned to Arcadia to trigger the first big quest! Among those who did return, they usually got lost somewhere in chapter 3. Less than 20% of players made it to the air ship, got a second party member, or saw the bulk of the game.

This is tragic. Poor design had led to our players becoming confused and lost instead of discovering all of the fun and engaging content we built.

So we've added several new ways to help push the player in the right direction:

• You can't enter Good Kingdom until after returning to Arcadia

• You can't travel north until after returning to Arcadia

• Helpful messages remind you to return to Arcadia

• etc

We're incorporating similar guiding messages and blockers in other chapters, as well, and will continue to do so until we feel that players are actually enjoying the game and not feeling lost. If you don't like thinking of it as railroading, then think of it as Yellow Paint.

Feature Changes

There's a lot to talk about here. The game has been constantly evolving. So let's break this out into sections, well:

• New mini-game

• New damage formula

• LUK changes

• New equipment

• New merchant

• Merchant updates

• Special Swords

• Audio ducking

• Voice lines

• Other random features

• Bugfixes

That's a lot to get into, so let's dive in!

New Mini-game

What JRPG would be complete without a way to ignore the impending end of the world and instead make some scratch betting on giant chicken races?

So in classic JRPG fashion, we've introduced only the most incredible and time-consuming mini-game imaginable: Rock, Paper, Scissors

While the original plan was to keep this as simple as possible (you pick one of "Rock", "Paper", or "Scissors" and you randomly win or lose) we couldn't help ourselves and got carried away with game design. The game we created is one we've found ourselves playing for over an hour - and we hope you'll enjoy it, too.

New Damage Formula

This one is going to get a bit math-y...

In a previous Demo Update post, we mentioned that the damage formula had been updated:

RPG Maker Default:

(skill mult.) x \[atk - def]

Ours:

(skill mult.) x atk x \[atk / (atk + def)]

The original formula had 3 main issues we were hoping to address:

• The stronger the skill, the more valuable defense becomes (since defense is multiplied by the skill multiplier)

• Once defense equals the enemy's attack, additional defense has zero value (you're already taking 0 damage)

• Buffs have unexpectedly massive outcomes. For a contrived example, imagine you have 100 attack, an enemy has 99 defense, and you cast a buff to give "+25% attack". Now your 125 attack equates to a 26x damage increase!

The new formula solved all 3 issues, but introduced a new one:

• The higher your attack, the less valuable the enemy's defense

In essence, attack was both damage and armor pen. This made balancing later enemies very difficult. If we wanted to encourage using physical attacks over magical attacks we might give them magic defense, but this magic defense would have no effect on players who stacked magic attack. So we had to ramp up the magic defense to absurd levels, making the enemy take basically no damage from players who weren't over-leveled! When we started creating enemies with 500 or 600 defense (a stat that normally only scales from 0 to 255) we realized we had done something wrong.

So we've removed attack damage from the mitigation formula entirely:

New:

(skill mult.) x atk x \[64 / (64 + def)]

The new formula essentially treats defense as "effective HP". Gaining 1 point of defense is equivalent to gaining 1.56% of your base HP. This makes balancing easier and makes defense easier for players to reason about, since the same amount of defense will be just as impactful regardless of whether you're fighting a rat or a god.

While reworking this formula, we also updated how armor penetration works.

Previously each skill included the opponent's defense in its damage formula. So a single skill would say something like:

DAMAGE = 5 * player.attack * (player.attack / (player.attack + enemy.defense));

Under this system, we could create skills that ignored enemy defense by just leaving off this mitigation factor:

DAMAGE = 5 * player.attack; // done!

We could also ignore "part" of an enemy's defense, with logic like:

DAMAGE = 5 * player.attack * (player.attack / (player.attack + enemy.defense / 2));

By dividing the enemy's defense by 2 before using it in the formula, we essentially ignored "half" of their defense.

This was flexible, but also easy to get wrong and hard to update. When we swapped to the new damage formula, that meant updating over 100 skills.

So now we've updated the "general" damage formula to apply mitigation after the skill's damage calculation. All skills now only report their damage, and mitigation is applied by a separate system.

A consequence of this is that it limits our ability to do partial defense. So we've added two special tags:

• PENETRATE = ignores all enemy defense

• PARTIAL_PEN = ignores half of enemy defense

This standard means that no skill will ignore "20% of enemy defense" or "75% of enemy defense", so we've lost some flexibility in that regard. But it also means the game is much easier for us to work on and skills will be easier to balance and adjust going forward.

Note: We also experimented with another formula for defense:

(skill mult.) x atk x \[1 / 2 ^ (def / k)]

The idea with this formula is that a single point of defense is always just as valuable. So going from 1 defense to 2 defense has the same impact as going from 250 defense to 251 defense.

What we found during internal testing, though, is that players prefer when the new armor gives twice as much defense as the old armor, rather than all armor looking linearly better. In order words:

• Bronze Armor = 15 defense, Iron Armor = 20 defense? Sad Testers

• Bronze Armor = 15 defense, Iron Armor = 30 defense? Happy Testers

So we stuck with the [c][64 / (64 + def)][/c] formula.

LUK Changes

In RPG Maker by default the "Luck" stat (LUK) impacts both your chances of applying a status effect to enemies, and your chance of a status effect being applied to you.

However in Trope Tales, unless you explicitly build for it with high Evasion and Critical, we wanted battles to feel mostly deterministic. This means that you can easily calculate whether you will kill an enemy or not, rather than depending on RNG.

To fit with this design goal, status effects for the most part have a 100% chance to be applied. This means that the LUK stat did absolutely nothing in our game!

In order to give this stat some value, we've set it up so that all RNG-dependent stats are affected by LUK. This means that LUK will increase your Evasion, Critical Rate, and Critical Evasion!

At 255 LUK you will see 20% added to all of these stats! (Additive, not Multiplicative -- so 5% Critical + max LUK = 25% Critical)

New Equipment

Equipment in Trope Tales fell broadly into one of the following categories:

• Weapons: Give ATK or M.ATK, and sometimes have unique attack skills

• Headgear/Bodywear: Give DEF or M.DEF

• Accessories: Give a + stat and a - stat, letting you tune your unique play style

• Plot Armor: Grants bonuses to all stats

• Character-Specific: This was essentially just the "Blessing" slot for Hero

We've made few updates to this, as well. First, we no longer have Headgear and Bodywear pulling double-duty. We've split their use:

• Bodywear: As before Robes give M.DEF while Armor gives DEF... but now instead of Tunics giving "a little of each", they give HP instead!

• AdjustedHeadwearThese are now entirely different. Hats grant "sustain" (HP, MP, and regen). Caps grant "assault" (agility, critical rate, and lowered target rate). Helmets grant "tank" (DEF, M.DEF, and increased target rate)

We've also expanded the accessory repertoire! Previously we only had:

• Armlets: +DEF, -AGI

• Rings: +M.ATK, -MP

We've now added multiple new ways to deck out your characters:

• Capes: +Evasion, -HP

• Boots: +AGI, -DEF

• Bandanas: +Critical, -MP

• Earrings: +ATK, -Evasion and Critical

We also have Amulets and Talismans which will become available in Chapter 10 (post-demo)!

New Merchant

With the separation of armor and hats we could have just thrown hats into the armor shop and called it a day... but then we started brainstorming other fun ideas.

So we'd like to introduce you to: Wandy T, the Wandering Trader!

No one knows her backstory, but Wandy can be found randomly popping up on the map selling hats of all varieties. If you spot her, be sure to check out her wares!

Merchant Updates

Previously whenever we created a new town, we had to ask ourselves "what will be in the shops?"

We usually started by copying and pasting a shop from earlier in the game then tuning the inventory based on your progression. "Maybe we should increase this from Bronze to Iron". Or "Maybe we should give them access to a Guitar now"...

But this was all very manual, and we never quite knew what gear was "supposed" to be available at any point in time.

So we decided to standardize! All shop inventory is now based on two things:

1. Your progression in the story. The later your chapter, the more options that will be sold and the higher rank they will be.

2. "Specialties". Every town has a "specialty" and they will sell one tier higher of their specialty than what the story normally provides (e.g. if shops are selling Iron tier based on your story progression, a town specializing in Harps will sell a Steel Harp)

So now for people who want to truly min-max, remember to go back to past towns to purchase all of their specialties whenever beginning a new chapter!

Special Swords

Princess has both Harps (buffs) and Guitars (debuffs)...

Einstein has both Books (black magic) and Canes (white magic)...

Lionheart isn't in the game yet, but when he drops he'll have access to both Claws (offensive martial arts) and Gloves (defensive martial arts)...

But then there's Hero. Poor Hero only has swords and light magic! One type of skill and no creativity at all.

Well from the beginning we had a plan for this. The idea was to introduce multiple swords that could modify his play style: one sword might make you do more damage to flying enemies, one sword might give you an AoE attack, one sword might cause you to steal mana with your attacks, one sword might HEAL when it hits (turning Hero into a white mage)...

While we had a lot of ideas, there was very little actually in the game. So we've now added one unique sword to almost all towns (no love for Fairy Falls yet, sorry):

• Good Kingdom: Manamuse

• Slime Forest: Double Tap

• Dawnstar Palace: Effulgent Eclát

• Mining Town: Knight's Bane

• Purradoxia: Boomerang Blade

• Bamboo Bay: 3 Elemental Swords (Rock Wrecker, Paper Piercer, and Scissors Shatterer)

There's also a hidden Venom Sword in the game to find which applies the Venom status effect, increasing the amount of damage enemies take from elemental sources!

We plan to keep adding more weapons so keep your eyes peeled!

Audio Ducking

We noticed that loud background music could make it difficult to hear sound effects and voice lines. So now the background music will automatically reduce its volume when a sound effect plays. We hope this improves the game, but if it becomes a source of many negative comments we're not opposed to removing it.

Voice Lines

While it's just a proof-of-concept at this stage, the demo does have some voice acting! The game isn't "fully voiced acted", but instead provides small voice "snippets" when appropriate during dialogue. Get ready to hear a lot of "hmmm"s and "oh no"s as our characters develop a modicum of personality!

Other Random Features

• You can now equip two accessories. Double the bling, double the fun!

• After clearing Noob Cave, you can now optionally add Mentor as a temporary party member during Chapter 3! This was added both to reduce the difficulty spike when moving from Arcadia to Slime Forest, and also to introduce players to many of the party mechanics soon to come (buffs, debuffs, magic, and more)

• Meatloaf Mavis is now waiting for you in the Good Kingdom Tavern for anyone looking for a challenging and funny early-game fight!

• Kidnapper's Tower has received a massive visual overhaul

• Kidnapper's fight has been improved with summoned Human Shields

• Dawnstar Palace now has multiple NPCs, bringing the map to life!

• We've added a "Battle Log" you can access by holding Shift, to understand what happened during previous rounds of combat

• We've added lots of new spells to the Magic shop, and new items to the Item shop -- so check them out!

• Our custom Auto-Battle logic now factors in the value of drain (HP or MP) and favors applying buffs/debuffs to targets with high base stats

• Certain enemies now have improved AI (healers will only heal allies if their health is low)

• Added messaging in battle when an enemy (or player) is immune to a status effect

• Increased maximum number of save files

Bugfixes

Oh my, did we find bugs. We've done what we can to squash any bugs we could, but we may have missed some! Here's a small summary of the ones we remember fixing:

• If you got over 800 messages in the Message Log, it would render a solid black screen. This has been fixed

• M.ATK UP and ATK UP will now work properly at very high ATK and M.ATK values (previously the post-buff value was capped to 255, limiting the effectiveness of these buffs)

• Various moments where background music would randomly restart... it now doesn't

• During the opening cutscene of Chapter 1, some players saw a brief 1-frame flash of sprites cover the screen. This has been fixed

• Also during the opening cutscene the horse and cart would separate. This has been fixed

• Background sounds like the rumbling fire if you entered the Abandoned House would never stop playing. We've quieted the game a bit!

• The bully's punching sound effect wouldn't stop even after he went inside. His log is no longer punching itself

• All doors should now consistently open by walking into them, instead of some requiring you to press the action button

• Princess's tutorial on debuffs no longer triggers upon ENTERING the throne room, but only upon exiting

• The floors in First Villain's Tower (formerly Einstein's Tower) no longer damage you

• Some wells, taverns, or inns may have accidentally teleported you across the world upon entering. We've carefully reviewed every map to ensure all entrances and exits are linked up correctly

• The ladder in Mining Town was not climb-able. This has been fixed

• The stairs in Mining Town couldn't be ascended. This has been fixed

• If you enabled Auto-Battle with Einstein in your party, he would sometimes start losing HP randomly. This has been fixed

• Fixed Auto-Battle to properly use MP Drain when applicable

• Fixed Auto-Battle to stop over-valuing healing of targets already at full HP

• The infinite money glitch at the urn was intentional ("JRPGs have infinite money glitches"), but after seeing one playtester spend 9 hours grinding to get the Unobtainum sword we decided to shorten this loop a bit. The urn will now make some tongue-in-cheek jokes if you continue to abuse it and eventually lose its patience and empty its contents for you