After a successful Early Access phase the tactical RPG Himeko Sutori has finally been released:

Himeko Sutori

Intricate Plot
An unprovoked attack on a minor noble house sparks a fire that will engulf kingdoms. Aya, the youngest daughter of House Furukawa, must find her way amid crumbling alliances and her family's questionable decisions. The war rages on after its original aim becomes impossible and the innocent begin to lose their way. If there is still a victory to be achieved, you the player must fight for it.

Epic Battles
Lead House Furukawa's few remaining loyal soldiers into battle. Forge new alliances and rally new troops. Train your human troops in 20 unique character classes and fill your ranks with wolves, fairies, the undead, and your own mechanical creations, each with their own character classes. Equip them all with hundreds of different items in limitless combinations. Craft powerful new weapons to give them an edge in battle. Organize your troops into lances, relying on your captains' leadership abilities and your troops' affinities to maximize their effectiveness in battle. Order your lances in tactical turn-based combat to defeat your enemies in epic battles with hundreds of unique characters on each side.

Huge World
Travel across a huge world, spanning forests, deserts, caves, mountains, and the dangerous Shadowlands. Meet unique, diverse, and interesting characters who may help you on your way--or stab you in the back.

Modding Support
And all this is just one possible adventure to be had in Himeko Sutori. With the included campaign editor, you can make an infinite number of possible stories. Use the powerful Kismet visual scripting tool to set up your campaign without writing a single line of code. Or for the advanced modder, make entirely new games using Himeko Sutori as the base for your development. Then share your campaigns for others to experience.

Come experience Himeko Sutori. 

OnlySP previewed Himeko Sutori, which is currently in Early Access.

In general, battlefield layouts are straightforward, offering few opportunities for players to be creative in their movements. Flanking manoeuvres or phalanx formations are simply unnecessary. Furthermore, environments are free of hazards or other special tiles, resulting in the battles more often seeming like thoughtless brawls. Another major issue at present is that each enemy type has only one battlefield, meaning that, before long, the conflicts become rote and unexciting.

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Thanks Farflame!

Strategy JRPG Himeko Sutori has been launched on Steam Early Access.

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Huge launch day! Lots of bugs, need to disappear for a bit so I can fix them

1 Feb @ 7:39pm - Nameless3W

Hi everyone! Thank you for making launch day such a big success. I truly appreciate your willingness to try out an Early Access title.

I've been trying to stay on top of all of the feedback. But now I need to go and actually work on fixing the bugs you've mentioned. There were quite a few.

I'm ranking the bugs by severity and I'm going to start fixing them. While I do that I'm going to have to concentrate and I'm sorry but I might not be answering all of the posts here and elsewhere while I work on that. It worries me to think that someone's feedback is going unseen and unanswered, but because I'm the only one working on this right now, that's just how it's going to have to be for a little while.

I'm going to try having a patch out later today. Thank you everyone for your interest in the game, for all of your feedback and bug reports, and for your patience. I'll be back soon.

The turn-based RPG Himeko Sutori will be released as Early Access version at the end of January 2019:

Himeko Sutori

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The game isn’t quite ready for release yet, but we are close enough to the end that we feel confident being able to tell you our timeline. We hope to have all of the regions fully playable by the end of January when we will begin selling the game as an Early Access title on Steam.

Due to some missed milestones early on in development, we had to redistribute our soundtrack budget instead of holding onto it and losing much of it to taxes. We hope to use proceeds from Early Access sales to pay for more original compositions to use in the game and to share with our Kickstarter Digital Deluxe backers, to whom we still owe a download of our original score.

We also hope to use Early Access proceeds to help finish sprite sheets for the highest-tier weapons, plus several new enemy types. Pixel art is time-consuming, and it is a necessary element of the game that could be contracted out. Nathaniel has been spending a lot of time on pixel art for the last two years, but with some additional money to hire more pixel artists, Nathaniel can focus on other tasks and we can finish the game faster.

We plan on keeping the game in Early Access until the game is fully playable start to finish; in a world populated with interesting characters; with new weapons, armor, enemies, and crafting recipes to be found in each area you explore; with a moving original score; with a solid plot expounded through cutscenes; and with all Kickstarter backer cameos inserted into the game. That’s too much to finish by the end of January. But the game has come along far enough that we should be able to get it presentable by then. And with some Early Access sales we hope we can finish the game faster and deliver Himeko Sutori version 1.0 sometime in 2019.

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Here's the May Kickstarter update for Himeko Sutori with some alpha gameplay:

May update: one year later, first peek at alpha campaign

Sometime in 2014, almost four years ago now, I was frustrated with a bad situation at work and I wanted to withdraw into a video game.  I realized however that there was something more productive I could do instead and I started channeling my efforts into Himeko Sutori.  It took up all of my free time.  It became my passion, perhaps even an obsession.  At one point I spent all of my paternity leave, not helping my wife with a newborn child, but working on Himeko Sutori, thinking that if I could put a month's progress into finishing the game maybe I would be that much closer to quitting my job.

With all of the extra money I could spare, I began hiring some other team members and my efforts became Rockwell Studios' efforts.  Shane started work on the pixel art, Kevin started on the music, and Alice started working on the portraits.

Circumstances at work required me to decide when I would take vacation time for the coming year.  My plans would depend on how much funding I could secure so in early 2015 I was forced to launch Himeko Sutori's ill-fated first Kickstarter.  We fell short of the funding goal, but we persevered.  For over a year we kept developing the game as circumstances allowed.

Then in April 2016 we launched a much better Kickstarter.  Your faith in us launched us to our funding goal and in May 2016 we ended the Kickstarter with nearly $11,000 to fund the game.

One year later, we are pleased to show you the first glimpse of the test campaign that we have been building toward.  You can see about half an hour of gameplay condensed into our latest video:

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Here's the April update for Himeki Sutori:

Himeko Sutori April 2017 update

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This month we focused on making the world feel more dynamic and alive. We've put a lot more movement into the battles, as well as added more particle effects and sound effects.

We also added crafting, dialog popups, and more.

Nathaniel Ayer launched a new Kickstarter campaign for the JRPG Himeko Sutori today:

Himeko Sutori: a turn-based, tactical, Japanese-style RPG

An epic adventure putting you in control of 100+ unique heroes in tactical turn-based battles.

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In a small kingdom on a vast continent, a family is torn apart by civil war.  Alliances are made and broken as scheming noble families manipulate events to their advantage. A secretive group, sworn to defend the world, falls apart as dark armies march through undefended portals. Three princesses, feared dead, raise an army gathered from all walks of life: a farmer, a teacher, a sworn retainer, a refugee. Every survivor of every battle grows stronger, until a mighty army stands ready to punish those who caused this suffering. But what use is the bloodshed, if the heroes fight for impossible goals? Noble ambitions might do nothing more than prolong the war. But maybe somehow victory can still be found, depending on how it is defined.

That is what Himeko Sutori will be. The game has come a long way already and has already been approved for sale via Steam Greenlight.

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The tactical RPG Himeko Sutori will return to Kickstarter in the near future. Check out these very interesting game mechanics:

Himeko Sutori is a story-driven, tactical JRPG, that puts the player in control of an army of over 100 unique named characters whom you can customize, equip, and level-up as you uncover the schemes and betrayals that have thrown the kingdom into civil war.  Furthermore, Himeko Sutori will include all of the code and assets players will need in order to create their own campaigns, their own stories, set in their own worlds.

Turn-based battles on an epic scale

Himeko Sutori delivers where the tactical JRPGs of old fell short.  They may have had an epic story, but the action always played out on the skirmish level.  That all changes now.  No more picking your top eight warriors for battle.  In Himeko Sutori, you will lead battles involving hundreds of soldiers, each one a unique hero.

The Element System

Himeko Sutori makes use of an intricate character-class system that strikes the perfect balance between detailed customization and speed, allowing you to optimize your army without spending hours preparing for each battle.  Each character takes certain actions in battle depending on her character class.  And each character class depends on a primary element, attribute, and skill.

Keep your characters in the same class to specialize them, or experiment with other classes to find new combinations and synergies.

Elements

• White, the element of truth and light, guiding clerics and paladins
• Green, the element of nature, life, and growth, loved by rangers and druids
• Red, the element of chaos, rage, and destruction, channeled by warlocks and barbarians
• Black, the element of deception and darkness, needed by rogues and illusionists
• Bronze, the element of technology and craftsmanship, powering gunners and engineers
• Blue, the element of order and discipline, favored by knights and wizards
• Attributes
• Strength, the attribute of physical power
• Agility, the attribute of physical speed and coordination
• Intellect, the attribute of learning and the application of knowledge
• Will, the attribute of mental focus
• Spirit, the attribute of one’s connection to the universe
• Charisma, the attribute of one’s connection to other people
• Skills
• Heavy weapons, skill with axes, hammers, and two-handed swords
• Blades, skill with daggers and one-handed swords
• Spellcraft, skill with wands, tomes, and other magical implements
• Control, skill with manipulating enchanted items, like golems and powered armor
• Marksmanship, skill with ranged weapons
• Healing, skill with healing staves and salves

Character Classes

In the base game, there will be twelve character classes to choose from.  (There might be more unlockable character classes as a stretch goal…  we shall see.)  You can keep your characters in the same class to build up their expertise, or you can change them around to discover unexpected and powerful synergies.  Each character has a primary element, attribute, and skill.  And each character class overlaps with exactly three others–one each that shares the same element, attribute, or skill.

• Cleric
• Ranger
• Warlock
• Illusionist
• Gunner
• Wizard
• Paladin
• Druid
• Barbarian
• Rogue
• Engineer
• Knight

The Action-Reaction Combat System

The heart of Himeko Sutori’s combat is the action-reaction combat system, designed to keep the battles intricate and streamlined.  In essence, your characters will perform a default action when you enter combat.  And when a character takes an action, the other characters get a chance to take a reaction.  By optimizing your individual characters’ reactions, and organizing those characters’ reactions in synergy with their teammates, you will be able to put together an army capable of defeating much larger enemy armies.

The reactions trigger off events like “teammate takes damage” or “self dodges attack,” and the reaction could be a counterattack, a heal, a buff to the target, or a debuff to the attacker.  And every reaction also uses the element-attribute-skill system.  For example:

Let’s say you have a Gunner who has learned the reaction First Aid.  First Aid triggers when your Gunner takes damage, and the reaction is a bronze-intellect-healing action on self.  To maximize that First Aid reaction, you might want to cross-train your Gunner as an Engineer, Mage, Cleric, or Druid.

And let’s say that your Gunner is teamed up with a Knight, who has learned the reaction Knight’s Counter.  Knight’s Counter triggers when a teammate takes damage, and the reaction is a blue-agility-blade counterattack.  To maximize Knight’s Counter, you could cross-train your Knight as a Mage, Rogue, or Ranger.

Each reaction can only be used once per turn.  That means that if your squad attacks and gets attacked multiple times, you’re going to run out of reactions, and even your most powerful and experienced squad could be left vulnerable.  But if you use the system wisely and don’t overextend your troops, you’ll be able to defeat enemy armies many times your size.

-> you can sign up for a Kickstarter reminder here.

-> Twitter

I had the chance to interview Nathaniel Ayer about his one man JRPG project on Kickstarter called Himeko Sutori. So give it a look, and help fund his game.

Couchpotato:  What are your top five RPGs games you play while your not busy developing the game, or working?

Nathaniel Ayer: Let's see here.  The most recent one I got into was Shadowrun Dragonfall because I loved Shadowrun years ago and I had heard that it was much truer to the original than previous Shadowrun games had been.  Prior to that, Skyrim because I always loved TES' immersive settings.  And D&D 4e, played over the internet with my college buddies via kind of a play-by-email.  Now that we all have kids and live in different time zones, we found that asynchronous play was really the only way for us all to be involved.  Mount and Blade, which I picked up for something like $5 on a recommendation from a friend, and it turned out to be the best entertainment per dollar I've ever spent.  And Fallout Tactics, even though I know it's a violation of Fallout canon, I still loved customizing my individual soldiers.  And who doesn't love rolling over one's enemies in an armored car full of heavy machine guns?

Himeko Sutori is the project of  Nathaniel Ayer. He describes his game as a tactical JRPG putting the player in control of an army of over 100 units. Here is the new trailer.

Himeko Sutori is a tactical JRPG for PC and Mac that puts the player in control of an army of over 100 unique named units that you can customize, equip, and level-up as you uncover the schemes and betrayals that have thrown the kingdom into civil war.  Himeko Sutori will also come with all the assets and code needed for players to build their own campaigns using the Unreal Development Kit.

The game plays out in two general modes:  exploration and combat.  In exploration mode you'll be able to wander through city and countryside, talk to NPCs, get quests, buy equipment, hire and promote soldiers, and discover new places.  The events in exploration mode can thrust you into combat mode, where you and your AI opponent will take turns moving your armies squad by squad across the battlefield, positioning them for the best tactical advantage.