Chronicle of Mars - Act 1 of 3 released

Chronicle of Mars Battle Screenshot

The first act is ready for download!

This initial release features the majority of the game mechanics, about half of the UI work, and the first act's worth of storyline and action. It will be relatively easy for hardened tactics-RPG fans, since the AI was really originally written for melee fighters and has a couple of blind spots for ranged combat, which I shall address later.

Download v0.26 for Windows (35.5MB)

Download v0.26 for Win/Linux/Mac (47.3MB)

My goal with this game is to have a branching storyline which changes dramatically (or not-so-dramatically as per the events of just the first act!) based on the choices the player makes... but to avoid all the black and white "save the orphan or drown the kittens" 'morality' choices of mainstream gaming, and avoid the typical VN approach of giving the player big obvious either/or choices in menus - which to my mind can be a bit demeaning and detract from player agency. So instead, all the choices you make are based entirely on your actions, and you're rarely actually told when a branching choice is being made.

Of course, this release is just act 1 - I'll keep working on the rest of the game and release it when it's done, but that's likely to be another couple of months. There's a few more clean-up features I'm going to fix/add, and I'll re-release act 1 when that's all done and any bugs that come up over the next couple of weeks are fixed - but after that it'll probably be radio-silence until the full story is finished end to end.

Chronicle of Mars Cutscene Screenshot

Chronicle of Mars Marspaedia Screenshot