Architect’s Office #2: Guild System & Rune-Lenses
Hey everyone,
It’s time for another update! Today, we’re venturing back to the Architect’s Office, where we spotlight gameplay mechanics in Eiyuden Chronicle. This week, we’ve got an extra special spotlight, as we’re highlighting two systems: the Guild System, and Rune-Lenses! A lot of people have been asking for more in-depth explanations for these two systems, so we’re happy to focus on them in today’s update.
Before we get started, however, a special announcement.
10th most funded Video Game KickStarter!
Thanks to the incredible support of all of you out there, Eiyuden Chronicle is officially the 10th most funded video game Kickstarter of all time, with 19 days still left in the campaign. Thank you for helping us smash so many stretch goals!
Guild System
In the Fortress Town’s early stages, you will need to take a direct role in expanding the town by gathering resources, conducting trade, and so forth. However, as the Fortress Town gets bigger, you’ll gain the ability to found “guilds”: a miners’ guild, woodcutters’ guild, guardsmen’s guild, blacksmiths’ guild, cooks’ guild, traders’ guild, etc.
Once you’ve established these guilds around town, they will start doing some of the resource gathering and other legwork for you. And if you expand the guilds further, you’ll be able to set up special detachment parties (separate from your main party) to carry out guild work and amass even more resources and funds. These resources can then be invested to upgrade the Fortress Town and its guilds even further.
Now, we plan for these detachment parties to actually move through the game world toward their objectives. And while the more responsible heroes may head straight for the finish line and mine the ore or defend the town that’s in trouble, other heroes may be more inclined to warm a tavern seat or take side trips. Not only that, depending on the abilities of the heroes you choose for the detachment, they may bring home extra resources. Or, if they are attacked along the way without an able fighter, they may be put to flight and return home empty-handed.
Basically, since your characters have a variety of abilities, you’ll want to choose your detachment rosters carefully to maximize your results.
Rune Lenses
Rune-lenses are the backbone of all power in the world of Eiyuden Chronicles. Lenses have different significance from nation to nation and culture to culture, but people everywhere have learned to harness their magical power and have handed that wisdom down—whether it’s to cast spells; use supernatural powers; or wield the lens symbolically, claiming the “divine gifts” represent a communion with god. The lenses are commonly crafted into weapons and accessories. However, the Galdean Empire has figured out how to amplify the lenses’ power by placing them inside specially engineered rings called “regules.”
The most valuable rune-lenses are sometimes handed down through families. There are also some individuals who are born with them inside their bodies. Many heroes have their own rune-lenses—no doubt you’ve noticed the back of Marisa’s hand or Perrielle’s hairpin—but you may also encounter heroes who don’t rely on rune-lenses at all.
The lenses’ importance carries over into the game system, too. By affixing runes to your heroes’ lenses, you can give them new magics and skills, or perhaps improve their physical abilities. Each hero’s lens is unique and supports runes of different type, rarity, and quantity. Some lenses may already contain a specialized rune that cannot be removed. Others may require runes of a certain type be affixed in specific positions. And when your heroes level up, the number of runes their lenses hold can potentially increase. We hope that players will use this system to create a roster of heroes that feels personal and powerful.
I wonder where else a brave adventurer might find rune-lenses in the world of Allraan?
Clarification on PS4 and Xbox One
We’ve received a few questions concerning whether the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are platforms we will support, due to the wording of one of our stretch goals. We apologize for any confusion this may have caused. Since we have cleared the console stretch goal many moons ago, when the post campaign survey has been released, all backers will be able to choose between PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Next-gen Nintendo platform (if one has been announced at the time. Please see Crowdfunding Realities on the campaign page for more information), and PC.
New Premium Reward
As mentioned on Friday, we have some amazing new rewards for you. First off, we have a new Premium Reward that we’re rolling out today. Thanks to our backers clearing the Top Battle minigame stretch goal, we’re able to offer a brand new Premium Reward themed around it.
Name a Rival Beigoma Trainer
At this reward tier, you’ll have the chance to name one of the rival beigoma trainers that you’ll face off against as you work towards your goal of becoming the greatest beigoma player Allraan has ever seen.
Jeweler Job Reward Set
Some of you may have seen the Jeweler Job has been added to the ever growing list of Job reward Sets (which will continue to grow based on future stretch goals). Here is a mockup of what those beautiful enamel pins will look like.
Add-ons: Steelbook, Chibi-Chara Figures & Snappies
Unfortunately, because we don’t want to add a huge number of additional packaged tiers, you will have to order these new options by adding additional money to your pledge, and then be extra careful to choose that item on your post campaign backer survey. This can open the door to a wide variety of logistical headaches, so please be extra careful to confirm these choices in your backer survey when it arrives!
Fortunately, for these three options, you can choose them a la carte, allowing for you to customize your pledge the way you want. Please note: for other items in the packaged tiers (such as the physical artbook, figures, etc.), due to some very difficult financial considerations, they are not available as a la carte add-ons.
Steelbook
By adding $20 onto your base pledge, you can get one of the most requested items in the campaign: a premium Steelbook case. There’s no better way to protect your personal copy of Eiyuden Chronicle than by encasing it in this limited edition metal case.
Chibi-Chara Figures
By adding $50 onto your base pledge, you will get a set of five (5) premium Chibi-Chara figures. We’ve got a mockup image of Nowa in Chibi-Chara form, courtesy of Junichi Murakami.
Snappies
By adding $50 onto your base pledge, you will get a set of three (3) adorable Snappie plushies. Snappies have little snaps on their hands, so you can snap two Snappies together to make them hold hands, or even snap one Snappies’ hands together into an adorable hug!
Mockup images for Snappies will be revealed at a later date, but we can say that the three characters will be Rabbit & Bear, the company mascots, and Marisa’s pet, who you’ll hear more about in the future.
NOTE: You can order both the Chibi-Chara Figures and the Snappies by adding $100 to your pledge, if you’re a figure aficionado.
Message from the Lost Ruins Team
Thanks to all of your amazing support, both in pledges and by helping raise awareness through your social media cooperation, Lost Ruins was able to not only clear its minimum goal, but smash through it’s next two goals as well! This is the true power of hundreds of backer heroes coming together!
Altari Games wanted to send along a message as a thank you for the incredibly warm support.
“Thank you so much for all Eiyuden Chronicle backers for supporting our little indie game! We never dreamed that when we launched this Kickstarter that we’d get the support of so many amazing backers so quickly! Not only did we hit our minimum goal, but we even hit our stretch goal to release the game on consoles! Thank you to the Eiyuden Chronicle Kickstarter and their backers for the help in making Lost Ruins a reality!”
If you want to follow the Lost Ruins campaign progress, you can check it out
here.
We’ll be doing another Kickstarter indie spotlight this Friday. If you have a game that needs a little extra awareness, or needs to get over that tough minimum goal, be sure to tweet out a link to the Kickstarter with the hashtags #100heroesstrong and #KickstarterSpotlight.
Shout out to Suikoden Revival Movement
So far, this campaign has received a lot of support from all over the internet, and many fan communities have sprung up on great websites, Discord servers, and other social media platforms around the world. However, we can certainly say that without the amazing passion from the people at the Suikoden Revival Movement, we wouldn’t have nearly the momentum that we’re enjoying right now.
While there are many passionate individuals there, we wanted to give a special thanks to Chris H., Vextor, and Yuichi. If you haven’t had a chance to, please be sure to check out their
Twitter.
Character Battle Update
If you’ve been following the Eiyuden Chronicles Character Battle that raged this weekend on the official Twitter, you know that we have reached the finals. If you haven’t, swing on over to the official Twitter account, so your voice can be heard! As stated on the main page, diversity is a key theme of this game. We’ve seen some people afraid that that could mean Murayama-san will compromise his vision, but one of the best things about having 105 characters (at the time of this update) is that he can realize his vision while still having an amazingly diverse cast of heroes. The different Character Battle results for Japanese speaking backers vs. English speaking backers illustrate this point rather nicely.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------