Where another story ends, yours is just getting started.
Ephemeral Tale is a classically inspired RPG for the modern age, featuring hand-crafted dungeons, classic JRPG-style combat, and a loot-driven progression system.
Goals:
The core design goal behind Ephemeral Tale is to bring the turn-based combat of JRPGs and the loot-driven gameplay of games like Diablo III, Borderlands 2, and the Destiny franchise together. As such, everything focuses towards the strengths this new combination can have.
As a turn-based, loot-driven game, Ephemeral Tale should ideally focus on "sprints" -- sometimes short, sometimes longer bursts of gameplay that the player can walk away from feeling like they've improved from. To that end, randomized loot and leveling help players improve their character on every delve.
Because of the heavy emphasis on player empowerment, narrative takes a backseat. For the purposes of this game, it is a tool meant to be a goal; an end to reach. Ideally, this doesn't mean that the narrative should suffer, but instead be more about a straight-forward, easy to understand goal. From there, you can build on this story with dialogue tidbits, item flavor, and the environments.
Lastly, in order to fully utilize the players skillset and build, there must be challenges for them to overcome. Sometimes these may be in the form of bosses, or in other cases they might be puzzles. Side quests and other hidden objectives let us provide challenges in other ways, as well. And of course, there's also the challenge of asking the player what kind of build they would like to make.
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Screenshots:
Spoiler
Demo:
Ephemeral Tale has a demo available on our Steam page! It's a bit out of date, but still gives a general idea as to the way the game plays :kaojoy:
Feedback:
All feedback is desired! Does something seem too strong/weak? Is there a particular enemy you like/dislike? Maybe a line of dialogue rubs you the wrong way? I'm wrapping up this project, so all constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.
Thanks:
A huge thank you to the following people for their help along the way:
Gamefall Team - Absolutely instrumental in getting all of these new systems to align and play nice together. Kind as could be, and just as helpful. Thank you, Luca!
Poryg - You've made what is, bar none, the best save system for MV. I'm so proud of what you've accomplished with it, and I hope that Micro can do right by that plugin. Thank you!
dsiver144 - Your quick, effective edits to a rather sloppy plugin for randomized gear have saved the backbone of this project. Despite the few lines of code, without them, this game would be entirely different. Thank you!
You, the player - Without a goal of making something for you guys to enjoy, I'd just be wasting time. I truly hope that you enjoy this glimpse into Micro, and want you to know that your feedback is heard, and greatly appreciated! Thank you, most of all!