MV - Yggdrasil Chronicles - A Record of Valkadia (Demo, In-Development)

I've been making action sequences for several years, so those are the things I focus on.
According to the video, this game is doing a good job.
Character movements are smooth, and animations fit the skills.
I must say that not many sideview battle games can do this good.

@Lady_JJ Well, thank you so much for the useful information you gave me. That way, I would consider keeping the good features, while improving the bad features for further updates. For now, I'm still working on the next event inside the castle, right after the end of the demo, so expect a new powerful boss coming soon :wink:

Thank you for that, my friend. Actually, the further the game advances, the less effort I put into the animations and movements. I admit that my brain is quite lazy this time when making new monsters or bosses, so I only put some basic movements (like chanting or casting movement) and then play some animations on the targets. There is too much work to do simultaneously, and my time is short :frown:

Here is a bit of updates on the process I have been working on:
- Continue with the main story passed the step 109
- Fix some passable impassable terrains
- Tweak some skills to rebalance
- Tweak some enemies/bosses to rebalance
- Fix some states working incorrectly
The new update will mostly focus on the continuation of the main story, with a huge plot for the main protagonist's background.

For the past few days, I have been tweaking the Game Over screen. I think it is good for players to have the option to retry the last lost battle instead of loading a save file again. However, due to adding a new plugin to the project, the old save files will no longer be compatible.

Edit: Good news! I managed to make the new plugin work with the old save files, so no need to start a new game.

A quick look at how the new "Retry Battle" feature works. This allows you to retry the last lost battle instead of forcing you to load your saved files, saving you some precious time. You will have some time to spend on the menu to rearrange your party or enhance your equipment for a better tactic. However, some consumable items cannot be used while retrying the battle.

I have been quite busy for the last few days, so the next update should take longer than expected. It might contain the following features and changes:
- Main story after Step 109
- Retry Battle feature
- Some tweaks for skills, states, crystals, equipment
- Some changes made to the mobs and bosses for balancing

One new thing I want to share with you after thinking about user experience. Currently, there is no way to acknowledge what monsters drop which items to collect for crafting, or where the monsters are. So I decided to implement a new plugin called "Monster Bestiary" into the game, which helps you find the locations of the monsters, or acknowledge their drops. This was done with the help of Grok AI.

Main feature of the plugin:
- Showing the information of the monsters (Parameters, Location, Drops)
- Information can be unlocked just by encountering
- Bosses will have their name colored in red
- Unencountered enemies will be displayed as ???
- If the monster's information is too long, the information window will automatically scroll down and up again after a certain amount of time. You can manually scroll after selecting a monster from the list
- Works fine with the old save files (which did not contain this plugin)

A quick look at the plugin:

For the past few days, I have been thinking of improving the Quality of Life in my game. First, I have been working with Grok AI on revamping the Stats Allocation system. I have been noticing that the old system feels quite a bit unintuitive, and not user-friendly. So now I want to introduce the revamped version of Stats Allocation. New things in this system:
- UX/UI revamped
- Tracked Spent JP
- Multiple stats allocation simultaneously
- Ability to allocate/revert stats if not confirmed
- Ability to hold the mouse/keyboard buttons to allocate stats, so you will not have to press or click one by one
- Track the affected parameters in real-time
- Work with the old save files, so you don't need to start a new game

In this way, you will make fewer mistakes during allocating your stats, saving you time and resources during your journey in Valkadia.

This new system will be available in the next build. You can take a preview of the new system at the revamped Stats Allocation below:


One more update is about the Crafting System. If a material can be looted from monsters, their names will be displayed below the material, so you can find them more easily through the Bestiary.

Hi guys, the new build is now available to download. Some new changes in this build:
- Main story to Step 112
- New Boss in the Main Story (One of the most crucial bosses in the story, no drops implemented yet)
- New "Retry Battle" feature, allowing you to retry your lost battle
- New "Monster Bestiary" option in Menu (as mentioned above)
- New "Stats Allocation" system (as mentioned above)
- Change the "Stats Reset" system to match with new "Stats Allocation" system
- New "Dropped By" feature added to the Crafting System (as mentioned above)
- Some minor tweaks for skills, states, crystals, and equipment
- Some minor changes were made to the mobs and bosses for a little balancing
- Add some missing items' descriptions

Everything new will work with the old save files. Just copy your "save" folder in the "www" folder and paste it into the same directory in the new build. However, as we have a new "Stats Allocation" system, the old one will no longer be available, so your old save files need a free Stats Reset to do the new allocation.
So after loading the game on the new build, please press "`" (The button above Tab), then type "-resetpartystats" to reset all stats from the old Stats Allocation system. All your spent JP will also be returned. Please do this only once, or your parameters will decrease even more without giving back any JP.

Download: Yggdrasil Chronicles - A Record of Valkadia (Google Drive)

@Lady_JJ Hi, if you also try the new update, I truly want to hear your thoughts about the new QoL changes, to see if they are useful for players. Thank you! :biggrin:

I played just that first battle, failed miserably. It's been so long since I played, I'd forgotten all my strategies. Got a few things going on right now, but I plan to take a few steps back in the game, do a few skirmishes and get back into my rhythm. Then I'll return to Amelia's room and hopefully have a better outcome. Redoing the skill allocation points went flawlessly. It only took a few minutes and I was able to recreate the exact original distributions. So I was happy about that. :) I'll let you know when I can devote some serious chunks of time to playtesting. I'm really looking forward to this.

For the new Stats Allocation, sometimes you will notice that 1 point of Stats might increase the parameters more than what they are stated there. This is an expected behavior due to the passive percentage bonus of parameters you get from equipment, skills or status effects.

And for the Bestiary, if you need to unlock the old monster's info, just go back to the old maps and encounter them again. But some bosses already defeated can no longer be unlocked normally, as there is no way to encounter them again. For now, the only meaning of Bestiary is to show where the monsters are and what they drop. I will have another plan to track the number of unlocked monsters for achievements in the future.

If you encounter any unexpected issues with the new systems (including Stats Reset), please let me know. Thank you!

I want to share two new QoL features, which will be included in the next update:
- Enable/Disable Message Sound: When the messages are played, there is a "tick tick" sound. Some players feel annoyed, so I added a new option in the Option Menu to turn this sound off.

- Enable/Disable Auto Conversation: If you want the conversations to advance faster, but do not want to hold "Shift" to fast-forward them, you can now enable this feature. The conversations will run automatically until there is an action requiring your input, or until the conversations end. This can be enabled/disabled during a message by pressing "Alt". This feature can also be turn ON/OFF in the Option Menu.

You can take a look at them here:

I finally beat Subject A (had to use an easier mode) but now I'm stuck. I went to Seagull and Plati just says she's being taken care of well and Ryland says we should visit Plati now and then. How do I bring Plati back to Einhart?

Ah! So you kept going with your old save file, right? I think you already reached step 112 (after defeating Subject A), which is the end of the latest update. I haven't done anything after that yet. And thank you for pointing out the typo errors. I will get them fixed.

Besides, have you encountered any issues with the new Stats Allocation, Bestiary, or new Drops information in the crafting system? Especially for Stats Allocation, like incorrect calculation in your stats, or affected parameters do not increase correctly as stated in the description?

And one more thing, how did you feel about the battle against the latest boss Subject A? And how do you evaluate her skill set?

I like the bestiary very much. I had made my own text file of where to find monsters and what they drop, but this in game resource is very much appreciated. Subject A kept wiping me out on normal mode. I could deal with the reverse health state (ugh!) but she kept repeating that sleep spell over and over and all I could do was lie there and be beaten to death. I think I need to reallocate my points for more magic resistance and maybe rethink augmenting my armor the same. I was in a hurry, though, to see what was going to happen so I just lowered the difficulty to get through it. Loved the plot twist!!!

If this is the end of the update, then I think I'll start a new game and do a fresh playtest. I'm going to make a list of all the QoL features you've listed in your posts for this update and check them all out as well.

Well, so you already knew the identity of Subject A, I have one hint to counter her lullaby, at least for one member:

If you are gonna start a new game again, I can also make a new build with the new QoL updates (Disable Message Sound & Auto-Conversation) stated right above for you to try (in case you think the tick tick sound during conversations is annoying)

And do you usually add DEX to your characters to increase their AGI? Because the number of your turns before the enemy's depends heavily on it. Currently, I am thinking of a way to allow each character/enemy to act at least once per turn cycle, but I fear that it would erase the meaning of having high AGI to out-turn your enemies.

I'll load up my save prior to the Subject A battle and try your suggestion. Knowing how the battle ends, I'll be really interested in seeing this effect. :)

In my new playthrough, I'm relying more heavily on DEX. It's not something I had done before, so we'll see how that plays out. I decided this time I was going to do more defense, less offense.

I've only just finished the Lydia quest in Moonlight Cave, but I have a couple of observations.

Summerbreeze (1st Town) -
Gem vendor- says to select Optimize for inserting gems rather than Customize Crystals

The Azure Beast randomly drops Azure Sword, Bastard Whip, Wealth Crystal. I replayed several times hoping to get all 3, but the only multiple drop I got was the sword and whip and I settled for that. But...


ETA-This will disappoint you, I know, but I always played with sound muted. I wouldn't be the best player to comment on that particular QoL.

Oh! Thank you for pointing that issue out. I forgot about the equipment that provides bonuses based on Stats. I have not changed them to use the Stats from the new Stats Allocation system. That's why the issue occurred. I will make a new build to hotfix this. There are more items affected by this, so I will have to take a look at my database again to fix them all. The new hotfix build will also contain the two new QoL features.

Besides, you don't need to worry about the instructions from the Gem vendor in Summerbreeze Town. I will soon make whole new and proper tutorials for everything, with detailed explanations and images.

EDIT: @Lady_JJ I have uploaded the hotfix to the same download link. Please redownload the build to see if the issue is fixed.

I downloaded the new build, but the issue remains. I wonder if it's because I already have that weapon and it will only get fixed if I reaquire it? But I don't have a save that far back so I can't test.

Another couple of grammatical errors

Morrigan and Lilith overhear the Adventurer in the Religia City Tavern talking to the Landlord about tomorrow's auctioning off of a Griffinian, says "I think you should bring somegold." some and gold needs a space between the two words.

Seagull Synthesis Shop
Buy Armor: Iron Ring and Bracer are both listed as Headgear. They do both equip as Accessories.

I did retry the Subject A battle using your suggestion. I lasted a lot longer, but still couldn't finish on Normal level. I'm putting more JP's into defense/speed in my new playthrough. I'm in Merinberg Kingdom right now, so moving along well. :)



| |----Edit 4/17/25--------| |
v v v v

@JamesRyan (tagging you for this edit)

Crafting a Special Buckler requires a Lv 2 Shield Mold, but disassembling it yields a Lv 3 Shield Mold, actually this looks to be happening with all gear in this tier.

In the cutscene in Einhart's office after Morrigan is whisked away and Lilith wants to tell Einhart right away, Aiko yells "No! NEVER interrupt the Pope while she's praying." The character name above the dialogue though isn't Aiko, it says Lucas (it is Aiko's face and clearly what Aiko would say).

If you exit Valenka City to the east you get to the Voiceless Jungle and you can return to Valenka the same way. If you exit Valenka City to the west, you get to Sandstorm Oasis but you can't return to Valenka the same way as the wind(?) keeps knocking you back. Is this intentional?


I have 5 players awakened, all lvl 41 on normal difficulty and only failing a couple of times for 3 of them. I'm still having trouble with Blanc. I took your advice and allotted a whole bunch of JP's on agility, the exception being Lucas. I was already putting JP's into his agility all along, and I found that he wasn't quite surviving the flurry of attacks Dark Lucas repeatedly delivered at the end when his HP fell below 1000. Putting all 48 of his JP's in Vitality boosted his MHP enough to prevail. I'm pretty sure I can awaken Blanc. I just had to reset her skills so she'd have some blocking with counter damage as she doesn't have any strong offensive skills. I had Dark Blanc down to 300 hp but got impatient and tried to go in for the kill when Blanc wasn't at full health. That was a mistake. Once I get the players leveled so they can get their second Ultima spells, I'll meet up with Einhart in Lady Amelia's chambers and see if I fare any better with Subject A than I did with my old party.

I do like the Retry Battle option. I used it a couple of times in the Awakening Trials, much quicker than reloading. Thanks for that. The Bestiary is also really helpful when running around crafting those more elite crystals.

I'll also say that replaying has given me a much greater insight into the back stories and plot. I love this story, definitely hoping to follow it to completion. <3