Ethereal Legends - Unreal Engine 4 JRPG

[soverance]

Ethereal Legends is a modern turn-based RPG, built in Unreal Engine 4 for Windows PCs.

You play the role of Absolut, an aging wizard who must solve puzzles, defeat monsters, and explore dungeons in his quest to find meaning in his life, before it ends.

• Active Turn-Based Battle System
  
• Numerous spells, abilities, items, and enemy types
  
• Environmental puzzles
  
• Gorgeous fantasy settings
  
• Epic orchestral soundtrack
  

[PLATFORMS]

• Windows PC
  
• 7 / 8 / 8.1 / 10
  
• 64-bit OS ONLY
  
• Nvidia 700 series GPU or better
  
• 4 GB RAM or better
  

The full version of the game will also support 32-bit Windows, and possibly Linux and/or Mac

[INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS]

Download and install the Pre-Alpha Demo from soverance.com/ethereal

View Ethereal Legends on Itch.io

[CONTROLS]

We recommend playing Ethereal Legends with an Xbox 360 gamepad. Keyboard controls are also supported.

• Left Analog  (W/A/S/D)  – Move Absolut
  
• Left Stick Down (L3) – Unused
  
• Right Analog  (Arrow Keys)  – Move Camera
  
• Right Stick Down (R3) – Unused
  
• Directional pad  (Arrow Keys)  – Menu movement
  
• A (Enter)  – Interact
  
• X – Unused
  
• B (Escape)  – Back
  
• Y – Unused
  
• Left Trigger – Unused
  
• Right Trigger – Unused
  
• Left Shoulder – Unused
  
• Right Shoulder – Unused
  
• Start – Unused
  
• Back – Unused
  

[PRE-ALPHA DEMO DUNGEON – SHIITAKE TEMPLE]

In the Pre-Alpha Demo (released August 8, 2015), there is a single dungeon to explore, known as the Shiitake Temple. It's an ancient house of worship, situated in a beautiful valley between two volcanoes. The magma from the volcanoes pours into the surrounding lake, heating the waters in a way which makes the climate ideal for fungal growth. Dragons make their home beneath the volcanoes, and legend has it that, at the beginning of time, an ancient Ice Giant would battle the Dragons for control of the valley. The temple was built in the Ice Giant's honor, but most living souls believe the story to be nothing more than myth.

In the Pre-Alpha Demo, Absolut must explore the Shiitake Temple, and find out what lies atop the temple's watchtower. He does not have to do this alone, as he is accompanied by his daughters, Sonya and Morrigan. Sonya has been a Templar Knight since a very young age, and Morrigan followed the mage's footsteps of her father. Together, the family has proven to be quite formidable in battle.



The temple has two paths through it that lead to the tower. The main path is through an ancient sealed door, protected by statues, on the upper floor. The second path is somewhat hidden, but savvy adventurers should be able to figure out how to reveal it!
The statues serve the purpose of carrying DragonFire – a powerful light stolen from the Dragons long ago. The ancients used DragonFire to power the temple, and you will need it too.

Various chests are scattered around the temple, and they contain powerful items. Be sure to explore the whole place!

Be on your guard; the Shiitake Temple is inhabited by all sorts of foul creatures, including demons and floating eyes. There are even reports that the fungi itself has come alive.

You know the Dragons still exist. Take care not to wake one from it's slumber.



Characters have the following stats:

• HP (Health Points)
  
• MP (Magic Points)
  
• SPD (Speed, affects ATB charge time)
  
• DEF (Defense, affects damage taken)
  
• ATK (Attack, affects damage dealt)
  

At this time, characters each have the following menu options:

• Attack (basic attack command)
  
• Spells (opens the spells menu)
  
• Items (opens the item menu)
  

At this time, there are three characters in the party, and they each have a variety of spells and abilities to help you during battle. We're still working out exactly what abilities we'll include, all of this is likely to change, and they'll undoubtedly end up with many more abilities in the future as we start building experience/level and skill tree systems. But for now, it looks something like this:

Absolut  (Wizard)

Haste (Temporarily increase SPD of a single target)
Barrier (Temporarily increase DEF of all party members)
Cure (Heal the HP of a single target)

Sonya  (Paladin)

Rally (Increase ATK of all party members)
Pray (Lightly heal the HP of all party members)

Morrigan  (Black Mage)

Blizzard (Deal Ice damage to a single target)
Thunder (Deal Lightning damage to a single target)

As of now, the ATB gauge for enemies never stops charging. They're going to get, and take, their turn... and then continue. Currently, nothing you do will stop or stun them. We feel this creates a greater sense of urgency during battles, forcing you to pay attention, act quickly, and manage resources better than a more traditional turn-based system.

As for your party, their ATB gauge will charge to full, and they'll wait in queue until you've made your actions and moved on to the next character.





We had a lot planned for Ethereal Legends, but not all of what we had in mind could make it into the pre-alpha demo. Instead, we've saved some of the higher level features of the game for the full version. Therefore the pre-alpha demo available now does not contain some of the features you're expecting to see from a modern JRPG. With your help, we can get this game through Greenlight and get the full version made and ready for sale here on Steam. Features we plan to include in the full version of the game:

• Lots more story!
  
• High quality voice acting
  
• 10+ dungeon environments to explore, with more advanced puzzles
  
• ~10+ hours of gameplay.
  
• Character leveling and progression system
  
• Weapons, Armor, and other Equipment
  
• Unlockable Skill Trees
  
• Combat Limit Break System
  
• Lots more enemy and boss types
  
• Possibly new party members?
  

We expect the full Steam release of Ethereal Legends to retail at $19.99 USD.







Ethereal Legends was created and programmed by Scott McCutchen and Jacob Corle, the founders of Soverance Studios. As of the release of this Pre-Alpha Demo, the two of us have only been working on Ethereal Legends for about eight weeks. You can expect us to be vigorously adding new content and expanding the game as we gather your feedback from the pre-alpha demo. We hope you enjoy playing the game as much as we enjoyed making it!

All of our art assets, including characters, animations, and environment meshes, were provided by or purchased from these great folks:

[Jubal]

What sorts of puzzles are you planning to put in? Will there be a lot of item/inventory based puzzling, or will it be more in the way of minigames?

[soverance]

Most of our puzzles will be environment based - exploring a dungeon to unlock a door, climbing a tower, setting objects in order, or duplicating a pattern. We've got a number of things planned. Just don't expect any "fetch quests". They'll play much more like minigames.

[Jubal]

That makes sense, cool

What level of "seriousness" does the setting have? Is it all quite "grimdark world ending imminent dragons are going to burn your babies to death" or is it a bit more light hearted?