Zenith Chronicles: Demo available!

[Taleweaver]

Why didn't Blue Lemma post this himself? No idea, so I am:

BL and yours truly have finally joined forces to publish another story you can play as a game. Only this time it is not a visual novel. It's a mixture of old-school side-scrolling shooter and J-RPG called Zenith Chronicles. And yes, it is Ren'ai. In a way


In the magical world of Zenith, torn apart by the constant struggle of humans and demons, you are Dain, a human mercenary with the ability to turn into a dragon. Accompanied by Alija, a young spellcaster, you are thrown into the struggle of good against evil... and you choose your own sides in this struggle...

- Customizable skills and powers
- Your choices determine the path of the story
- Different endings
- Hours of replay factor
- Hidden bonus material
- FREE DEMO AVAILABLE NOW!

Have fun!

[Mirage]

Whew, I managed to defeat the demo despite the fact it was incredibly jumpy on my computer (I am using Window 7, btw)

Good part
- The story is quite funny. I have fun thawing the fish, AND accidentally burning the villagers XD
- The graphic is nice. It's very pretty. I especially like Alija design.

Stuff I don't like as much
- The jumpiness. It wasn't smooth at all. (Maybe something to do with my computer Orz)
- I know this is not pure VN, but I really wish the ability of auto read is there like in default Renpy.
- The lack of explanation of who and what the characters are doing. Maybe it's still too early in the story, but it feels more like this is a middle of adventure than a beginning.
- The sprite staring to space. I wish they are looking at us, the audience.

Overall, it's a nice short demo. Looks promising.

[Taleweaver]

One thing I'd like to point out now is that the demo is pretty much a side story to the plot of the full game. The demo is essentially nothing but a glance at what Zenith Chronicles is going to look and feel like and was intentionally written not to spoil anything about the main story. That's why it's so short, silly and without much character introduction.

[cloudyssky]

I recall watching a demo video of the game on youtube.
From what I saw the gameplay part reminds me slighty of TouHou, but you're just going horizontal, not vertical. That comparison of course means that the gameplay looks really good.
The whole thing seems very elaborate and simply amazing. You and your team have done a very good job here. I'll play the demo later once I get home :] Can't wait for the full version.

[Mirage]

One thing I'd like to point out now is that the demo is pretty much a side story to the plot of the full game. The demo is essentially nothing but a glance at what Zenith Chronicles is going to look and feel like and was intentionally written not to spoil anything about the main story. That's why it's so short, silly and without much character introduction.

That's what I figured. It doesn't seem like an intro at all. The game demo I have seen here all begin from the intro, so I guess I feel odd seeing a demo started in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps it's better to mention it somewhere?

[Blue Lemma]

Haha, looks like Taleweaver beat me to it! I hadn't announced it earlier since I was working with Symantec about a false positive issue in the game (Norton didn't like it because it had too few users and was too recent.) But now it's fixed.

@ cloudyssky: Thanks for the compliments! People refer to Touhou games as "bullet hell" but I like to think of Zenith Chronicles as "bullet fun" That's because it has 3 difficulty levels that let players of all skills enjoy it.

@ Mirage: Can you list the specs of your computer? In particular the graphics card and processor speed? That would be a huge help! "middle of nowhere" comment noted, I might mention it as you suggest.

Keep the comments coming, please! ^^

[Mirage]

My processor is Core i7 860.
Graphic card is ATI Radeon HD 4650 1GB.

[Blue Lemma]

Those sound like nice specs... Did you have anything else like widgets or other windows partially obscuring the game window? PyTom, in particular, told me that if the game is behind the Windows 7 orb/start menu thing, it will severely slow down the game. I believe this is an OpenGL issue.

Is the speed better if you use full screen mode (from options menu in game)?

[PyTom]

I believe this is a windows sucking issue.

Fixed that for you.

[papillon]

Um, your link is now leading to a godaddy parking page, at least for me...

(edit - now it's working again)

[kinougames]

Ren'ai RPG shooter game?

Very unique put-together for sure.

I kind of wish I wasn't so horrible at shooting games more complicated than Duck Hunt. @_@

[Mirage]

Those sound like nice specs... Did you have anything else like widgets or other windows partially obscuring the game window? PyTom, in particular, told me that if the game is behind the Windows 7 orb/start menu thing, it will severely slow down the game. I believe this is an OpenGL issue.

Is the speed better if you use full screen mode (from options menu in game)?

I don't have any widgets on, since I just reformat my computer and when I play I close every other windows. And the speed is still jumpy on full screen. Orz

[Blue Lemma]

@ kinougames: Put it on easy mode, and I'm sure you'll do fine I test easy mode on my mom who rarely rarely plays games. If she can make it through, you can too (love you mom!)

@ Mirage: When you say "jumpy" do you mean choppy and slow but consistent (like 20 frames per second) or do you mean variable frame rate, like it's really smooth sometimes and choppy other times? (fast slow fast slow fast slow)

@ PyTom: Now now, be nice to Windows *pets teh Windows*

[Mirage]

By jumpy, I mean slow but consistent. Like about maybe less than 10 frames per second. Like the fade in and out is obviously very slow.

[mangakaluna]

Yay! A demo!!