I started releasing this thing! I can’t believe it.

With this post being published, we’re setting this thing in motion.

I will post on the progress and drop updates regularly.

The word “Reboot” will be removed from the title as soon as the project catches up with the content of the old build. If I don't get used to it and decide to keep it.


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Download page:

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As I mentioned in the previous post, this is a short foundation build. It has been prepared so that it can be properly tested (contact me, or leave a comment if you’ll encounter bugs), to make it easier for me to add other content to it and to finally kick start this thing. There’s a lot to add: Map-wise, almost the entire Corona continent is done, not including indoor maps. Event-wise (quests, characters, art, etc.), it’s fragmented. So, before adding those, I need to fill it with content in between.

The next build will include couple of “CG scenes”, text for which Lyk haven’t received for editing yet. I'll send it to him last thing, so the update on his page will signal that the next build is about to be released.

Notes for players regarding all upcoming builds:

- I’m trying to make a CRPG game out of this thing. Therefore, I recommend using mouse all the time, as you do in classic CRPG games. Pathfinding and UI responsiveness were edited to make using the mouse more natural. I also pushed for controller to feel more fluent while browsing UI too (if you played a lot of RPG Maker games, you will notice the difference), but the game is still designed for mouse control.

- Save a lot. It’s a game with various choices that affect things, with no auto-saves. So it’s good sense to develop the habit of saving the game after each completed quest or entering a new location, as well as after/before each battle.

- You can save during dialogues. This feature is not included in the engine by default, so seasoned RPG Maker players may not notice it.

As is typical for CRPGs, the dialogue branches in this game are complex, and your decisions affect a variety of things. So now if you press Cancel during the dialogue, a menu will open that you can use to save your game. In case you want to check other answer options without restarting the entire dialogue.

- Dash is on by default. I recommend keeping it on. I deviated from the standard map sizes that the engine suggests to make. The maps are large, using the old school tile sizes, and the new resolution fot the game covers a larger area, which again makes using the mouse more convenient.

- The cost of skills on the skill tree screen may seem like it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t, I’ll work it later.

To translators:
From the game’s root directory, proceed to “www\text\” and read “0_Readme Translators.txt”. Have fun.

I’m considering to create “translate.com” thingy (like this: LINK), to make it more accessible to you translation enthusiasts.

Some changes regarding the use of AI. I've decided against using AI-generated graphics in the game. When you work a lot with it, you begin to notice flaws it makes. At some point, I launched the game and looked at all the added AI graphics and I cringed the fuck out. At first glance it may not be noticeable, but upon zooming in it becomes clear that this art is a mess:

So, I just drew my stuff over every AI art in the game and decided not to add AI anymore.

There are probably better models and ways to generate it, but I don’t want to bother. I’m not saying I’m not using AI at all now. It still gives me good references, if Google can’t find any. But straight up AI art won’t be added in the game.

Recently I’ve discovered that the latest versions of Mac OS do not run games made in RPG Maker MV. 

“RPG Maker MV is still compatible with macOS 10.10-10.15 but will not be compatible with macOS Big Sur 11.0 or later.”

To run it, I need to port the project to RPG Maker MZ.

Naturally, more than half of the plugins I use for MV don't work in MZ.

Which is over 100 plugins to work on.

Wonderful.

Many of which I edited, paid to have edited, or created new ones. Sinking numerous hours into it. Meaning, if I’ll move to MZ, I will have to do it all over again.

I noticed that the download counter for the Mac versions of the old TDLT game is still going up, so I'm guessing some of you have found a workaround or are still using macOS 10.10-10.15. Therefore I will keep uploading Mac versions. But if it becomes clear that Mac builds are not needed, I will let Mac go.

Eventually, maybe I will hire a dedicated programmer to properly port the game to MZ. But for now this is how things are.

***

So, guys. It’s finally happening. The project experienced a lot of ups and downs. Development was stopped dead several times, but never cancelled. It endured severe turbulence but finally made it here.

Now the project looks tidy, pretty and it looks at me with confidence wanting me to add content to it to grow larger. Let’s give it what it wants.

Starting Monday, I'll start adding content to the foundation build and will keep you updated on the progress.

See you in a week. All the best to you in 2026!

Hi guys! Hugs and brofists.

A very quick technical post, just to clear the landing site.

Circumstances are forcing me to push out my work now, so the first build will be released before the New Year. It will be the foundation. A short build, slightly larger than my very first build of the old version of the game. It will include almost all the mechanics that the game will be based on. Not a lot to do in it, just to kick start this thing already. Everything else I've been working on and am working on will be gradually added to this build. Weekly updates on the progress will follow after the first build will be released.

AI haters, rejoice, there won't be any AI art in the game. More details on this and more in the next post, with links to the build.

All the best.

Hi, guys.

I'm finishing working on the build. Only minor tweaks and re-writing text are left to do. After that it's when Lyk finishes fixing grammar of the text. Then the release happens and the short updates basis follows, as planned.

The first build will cover the game until the first crossroad before Old Corona Village + one map to the left, where fisherman is located. I think it's a good starting point for building up updated content on the game.

Examples of updated content you can see bellow the “Work Progress Report” warning line, if you don't mind spoilers. If you do, then the warning line is as far as you should read this post.

There was plenty of work being done since the previous post; the build had a lot of problems. About 90% of everything was remade or edited in some way, mostly because of issues with coding and with old assets that didn't work with bigger resolution (plugins, UI, some in-game logic and such). Also, my drawing skills had improved over the years, which made the old drawings and the new ones look weird when combined. So I had to fix almost everything there too.

All-in-all the game's shaping up great. Nothing seems out of place, the graphics are adjusted, every new added feature harmoniously complements gameplay, and all the gameplay scripting makes more sense now. The new TDLT makes previous versions look outdated as hell. So get ready for the new one.

If no force majeure occurs, I expect the build to be released at least this or next week.

Take care of yourselves, guys.

Work Progress Report, SPOILERS AHEAD

Following spoilers include: Artwork, skill animations, gameplay mechanincs. 

In this section I will list the big stuff and what I would like to bring to your attention.

- The “Once upon a time, above Olypmus” text isn't an image anymore, so that translation enthusiasts could translate it as well.

- The intro cutscene was re-made to fit the new resolution. The background was changed, and the characters were placed higher on screen so the text window won't overlap them. The old and the new version:

These screenshots also show a downscaled comparison of the old and new aspect ratios.

- Rapunzel's look went through a bunch of edits, you know if you followed my site. She got some more edits since my last post there; this is the final version, next to the previous build version for comparison:

- Hades was remade; I didn't do him justice with his bulkiness the first time. Now he doesn't look skinny. Comes with a bunch of different poses I won't display here.

- The forest nymph has been redrawn anew

- Robbers too + different poses

- Added some details to Stabbington Brothers (had to go with animations, cause next to each other changes seem badly noticeable on these)

- Fisherman got fixed.

- Captain of Guards got some minor fixes too, not worth showing off.

- As well as the rabbit in the cage.

Again, these are about remaking or adding more details so they look better after re-sizing, to fit the new game's resolution. And about fixing some mistakes along the way.

- Also the chameleon was added.

- All the maps before the Old Corona crossroad got edited. Forest locations mostly.

These screenshots convey the gist of what was done: The road was fixed and the grass became less plain. Also I got rid of the black outline that emphasis every rock and cliffs, cause it makes maps uglier. Not sure why I started doing this, but after hundreds of maps being made it was too late to reverse it. The reboot gave a good opportunity to derail that.

- The new aspect ratio broke position of text windows, so I had to spend time trying to figure out how to change their sizes and how to move them around along with the choices height (the engine was stubborn with giving away how to do that).

I tried to calibrate positions of every text containing window you will encounter during the game. Trying to find the sweet spot for comfortable perception of the whole composition. It came out good enough, I reckon.

After playing Akabur's Star Channel 34 game, I noticed that he rarely goes for more than 2 rows when he displays text. It pays off with going through the text easier when you read it. I'll steal this trick. I'll leave space for 4 rows though, just in case.

- I fixed some coding issues concerning Skill Tree. + I re-organize the icons, so a player could navigate on it easier, using controller/keyboard.

The result isn't ideal, but it works.

A few words about pacifist walkthrough. Since TDLT is an alternate universe sequel to Princess Trainer (the game that didn't have much fighting in it), I think that providing a pacifist route is justifiable. So now it will be possible to play the game without fighting once.

For that you need to focus on the third skill tree. Figuring out which skills you should learn first in order to avoid fights later.

- Speaking of battles. I finally did a thing I wanted to do since day one – I swapped the places of enemies and main characters.

The way RPG Maker makes it by default rubs me the wrong way. I read from left to right, the commands panel is placed on the left, our hero's HP/MP and stuff is located on the left, the transparent speedup-battle button is on the left. All the additional information, items, skill and magic are being listed from left to right, as well as its descriptions.

It's like our base of operations is there. So it makes sense seeing our chars appear on the left too, during battles. And the right half of the screen should be enemy territory.

I assume original placement was based on the fact that the engine was created for making JRPGs. Most of JRPG games I've seen tend to place heroes on the right. Even if the game is in 3D, the camera usually takes an angle that displays heroes on the right side.

I don't know why it's like that, there are probably reasons for this. But the way I do it works for the game better. And it plays well, as if the engine been like that by default.

- There will be two skills available from the beginning of the game. 1 for Magic and 1 Special Attack. I had to place Multislasher and Fire from Bellow lower down the skill tree, cause they're too strong. 

Every Magic and Special Attack skill can be upgraded up to 3 levels in the Skill Tree section. Initially, I wanted every upgrade to be about increasing damage values. But I had an opportunity to made every upgrade differ visually, so I did that.

Here's what these two skills will look like at the moment, non-upgraded and maxed:

- Choosing difficulty. I guess, this one can be considered as a failed addition. It works, I set it up, it was ready to be embedded in the game, affecting database values, but I had to cancel it after all.

Because at the moment I don't know how to properly balance numbers in this game. I tried to write schemes, calculating the difference between the enemy and player strength values. Tried to predict which enemies you will encounter, and how many. An amount of Exp you could get at different episodes of a walkthrough. And I came to conclusion that I need to have at least 1/4 of the game to balance it somewhat correctly.

I'm currently designing the game around Normal difficulty, with a focus on giving players more power rather than limiting it. So, before I find a proper way to balance numbers, you will probably end up being OP. I'll try not making it an absolute walk in a park. But at the moment the main thing to me is to be sure that right now you won't stuck, playing the game.

I'll talk to RPG Maker veteran devs, who might be experienced enough to be able to give me a hand with balancing this thing at early stages. And maybe then choosing difficulty will be implemented. But that's for later.

Alright, I'll wrap it up here. There are numerous edits and tweaks I didn't include into the report. But all the main stuff is covered, if I didn't miss anything (after re-reading the post, I noticed that I missed mentioning reputation system, but I better cover it when it will affect the gameplay (meaning reaching Old Corona village)).

Untill the next post, guys, which will be the release of the build.

See you there. Take care!