Lunar Mage - Mandi Lynn

2023 Game of the Year Countdown #10 The Legend of Dragoon Sony PlayStation, 2000

I’ve known about this game for so long that I’m always surprised when people have never heard of it. Yet, it’s a JRPG and that wasn’t a genre I enjoyed for an extremely long time. As such, once I became a fan of the genre, I told myself I had to play it at some point. 

One of the most striking aspects about the game is the combination of the 3D models and the gorgeous background renders. Look at these!

The backgrounds are just beautiful, but the 3D models look funky and I don’t think they mesh well. A few of the closeups we get look downright bad, and I don’t remember feeling this way at all when I played Chrono Cross for the first time. Perhaps it’s since many of the Chrono Cross backgrounds appeared more impressionist in nature, and were therefore a bit lower resolution? That could reduce the stark contrast between the rough 3D models and the backgrounds. Since Legend of Dragoon has such beautiful backgrounds, generally in a higher resolution, that contrast was more defined. Luckily, graphics mean very little to me, generally speaking. So I don’t really see this as more than a quirk of the PS1 era. Perhaps even a little charming.

As with many games of the era, the pre-rendered CGI cutscenes can feel awkward when included, but are no less cool now than they were then. I mean, look at how pretty Rose is in her high res form!

I found combat to be fairly standard for a PS1 game, but that’s actually exactly what I wanted. Music too. The story, however, was a bit lackluster. I sometimes needed a refresher to remember what was going on, and some of the twists felt predictable and/or lame. I was not a fan of the ending, either. And the voice acting is fairly bad. But that’s kind of just what comes with the territory of playing a PS1 era JRPG.

I did really appreciate one of the quotes from the game, however. And was happy to see @lunarmageart's pins of the quote! “Revenge generates nothing” is such a great quote, as revenge really is a useless and pointless act. It’s something I try to live by, honestly. You will never gain anything by enacting revenge on someone. Except in Mario Kart, of course. Shoutout to the Estelle Bright one, too.

Hi everyone! 

Today's devlog will be introducing the game and the main character: Tira! 

What is 'Runic Link'? 

Runic Link is an otome RPG made by a one woman dev team...team? Is there a singular form of team that works when talking about game dev? Heh. I've been a lifelong gamer, especially drawn to JRPG's and otome visual novels. As much as I love otome visual novels, I always wished for more gameplay in them! Playing JPRG's is great but 99% of them have stories involving a male main character and you can only romance female characters. Which of course is fine, but I wanted to make a game that is for those of us who would love to play a female character and romance the male characters. :D

After many iterations of Runic Link, I settled on making an old school style JRPG style game, mixed with the visual novel aspect of otome games! There will be two routes available to play, each with a different love interest and story. The bulk of the game will be going through the two character stories, with side quests available for additional gameplay. I'll talk about each of the individual gameplay elements in further updates!

The Story of 'Runic Link'

Runic Link follows the story of Tira: A university student who feels her dreams of another reality are real. She sets out to prove so, despite the relentless critiscm of her roommate and best friend, Devin. When she finally does find another world, will it be the one from her dreams? Or will her actions cause her to be thrown into a different version of reality? Will she first meet Matus; the magical boy on a quest to save his homeland from the oppressive forces of an evil sorceress, or Ashen; the mysterious, intimidating and loyal knight of that sorceress? Your choices will change Tira's fate! 

Character Intro: Tira!

Age: 22 Weapon: Claymore 

A university student determined to travel to other realities or worlds, a big dreamer yet prone to dark thoughts and easy depression. Tira lives in a luxury high rise apartment with her roommate Devin. An apartment they can barely afford... Also an obsessive plant mom, much to the annoyance of her roommate. 

Tira is a character I've been working on for many years, through all the iterations of the game.  Tira's final in game design can be seen above! She's quite different from previous designs, however some elements do remain. I wanted her to be a very feminine character, with somewhat of an ethereal beauty to her. This is what lead to the change in hair and eye colours from previous designs. 

Here's the old ones!

The first design was just a fun sketch, then she became a character in my game! The next 3 designs with pink hair were when I wanted her to be very magical girl. The last design was just a concept for an otome visual novel, where I stole Tira's original colour scheme for one of the boys I sketched out. The blonde, overly tan colour scheme was definitely not going to stick for the final game, hah. Not quite flashy enough for a main character!

That's all for this post! Next one I plan to show off a bit of the map progress. I'm also posting a devlog and additional things over on Tumblr and post on Twitter and Threads as well, if you'd like to follow there! 

Thanks so much for reading and hope you have a lovely day!

Welcome to the devlog for 'Runic Link', the otome RPG game I'm working on! You'll play as Tira, a girl determined to travel to another reality she believes to exist: one full of magic, war and love.  The game is being developed by myself, Mandi! I'm doing all the art, coding, engine work, script etc. etc. by myself. This is a story I've been working on for years (as you'll see if you read this blog ;) ) and can't wait to share it!

I thought  I would start out by talking a bit about what the game -used- to be. This is a project I've come back to many times after dropping a previous idea, over the past 8 (!) years. I've finally settled on what I want to do with it, and a lot of figuring that out came from what had previously failed. 

First up, I started the project in 2015, with the idea of making it a platformer game, with visual novel story telling elements. 

I was able to pull off the art to a good enough level, but oh BOY did I not know how to design a fun platformer level. I implemented a mechanic where you could quickly swap between one of three magical girls with different abilities. Each girl could kill certain enemies or complete certain puzzles. It just wasn't...fun. Platformer design is an art that is beyond me. Those of you that are able to create engaging levels in games like these; I am in awe of you. :P

Following that, I wanted to present the story in a visual novel style, as I thought I could play to my strengths a bit more (which was the art side of game dev...I did not know much about programming at this time). I came back to the project in 2017 after dropping it for over a year. 

The story at this point had a character named Matus as a male lead, as I wanted to go with a more traditional visual novel: man meets a group of girls, picks one to date while saving the world or whatever is happening. Matus has definitely had his role repurposed in the otome game I am working on now... ;) 

The art style I had while working on this iteration didn't really look that great however and ...the game went back to the shelf to gather dust once more. 

It wasn't until 2021 that I picked up work on the project again, keeping with the idea of the visual novel with a male lead. I won't get into story details in this post but the story in this iteration isn't too far off from what it will be in the final game, baring a few role swaps between the characters. Here's an image showing Sarie, Asta, Matus and Zuri! I have redesigned all the characters, but 3 of this crew are still pretty similar.

I actually made quite a bit of progress with this version before dropping it again, and intend to build on a lot of that groundwork for the game. 

Devin will still be the main character's roommate, and they still live in a nice high rise apartment! :D Devin looks quite different however...more on that in a future post.

The main crew in all their former glory: 

All of these characters will be in the final game, with brand spanking new designs! I'll end this short little blog here. It's almost 6 in the morning for me. I definitely need to get some sleep! Next blog will start on the new game I'm working on! 

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a wonderful day!