Chronicles of Vaeltaja: In Search of the Great Wanderer · published
Very Good Day, Traveller!
And prepare, this is going to be a long one!
Chronicles of Vaeltaja Unleashed update is finally here, and it brings so much improvements, features and optimization it almost feels like it changes Chronicles of Vaeltaja into Enhanced Edition. It has taken five years for me to achieve a better understanding of the engine, but this update proves that those years were definitely not wasted. But first a I want to say something very important: Don’t let the demo version fool you – it is based on an older build with MUCH worse performance, worse visuals, and less mechanics and features. I will probably not update the demo with all these new improvements, because it would be an enormous and time-consuming task that would just delay the game’s development. The demo version is there only to showcase the basic gameplay mechanics and exploration.
Now, before we get into all those new cool features, such as the Hardcore Mode and Free Movement with full camera control, I want talk about the performance, which has been perhaps the biggest issue of the game until now. Since the beginning I have used several 3rd party plugins to bring many needed features to the engine, and while many of these plugins are very good in what they do, they are designed to work with the vanilla version of RPG Maker, which is not as demanding as RPG Maker powered by MZ3D – the plugin that allows 3d games to be developed with the engine. At some point I realized that many of the plugins were constantly processing something in the background, even mechanics and features I didn’t use; many of the plugins are designed to add sevaral things, but in many cases I only needed to use one or two of their features.
It’s ok to have some features running in the background, and some processes need to run in the background to make the game work in the first place, but if you have a bunch of unnecessary processes running constantly all the time the performance can take a big hit. After this realisation there really was only one choice left: to design much lighter alternative plugins, which only run processes when they are needed. It was a huge challenge, and even bigger change to the game than I thought it would be – the sheer amount of bugs after replacing the systems was almost horrifying! But I didn’t let that discourage me; instead I saw this as an opportunity to improve those mechanics and bring the game to a whole new level! Adding to that I also merged some my older, smaller plugins, and improved many of them along the way.
The engine itself supports so called ‘parallel processes’, which are very cpu intensive constantly running processes, and until now I have used them to create some of the game’s mechnics, such as the torch and lantern system. It’s not that bad to have one, in some cases two, running in the background, but when there are three or more, the performance issues start to increase. I decided to get rid of them too, so I created plugins to replace them too, and this allowed me to replace the torch and lantern system with much better one. This was actually the change that finally pushed me to seriously pursue the much needed optimization. Of course the performance has always bothered me, but I just didn’t know how to solve the issue. The performance increase was so huge it allowed me to add lots of new graphical improvements, which make the kingdom of Twin Falls to look more beautiful and feel more immersive than ever before. It’s a whole different experience to also see the birds in the sky instead of just hearing them. Some of the changes are so subtle, that you might not even notice them at first; for example, you never realise there are small flies until one flies across the view just like in real life. Dust particles can be seen in dungeons, and fallen leaves are blown by the wind in the Autumn Vally. There are now stars in the sky, and tufts of grass, flowers and mushroom on the ground. Weather conditions follow to the combat, and the new battle background system makes sure that correct backgrounds are displayed in the battle. Thunder storm has better sound effects, and I even managed to increase the amount of weather particles!
Overworld map system is re-designed along with the other user interface elements, and it finally has a proper ‘fog of war’ to make exploration more exciting, and two display modes for the area map. Toolbar can be placed in the bottom left corner on the screen, or hid in the Options Menu, just like every UI element there is. The new organized Options Menu offers four tabs of settings for tayloring the experience to your liking. I think it’s pretty safe to say that Chronicles of Vaeltaja has become the most ambitious, visually advanced and mechanically complex game ever created with RPG Maker, which is a feat in itself, but it is also a true computer role-playing game with lots of depth!
I have already told about the new Hardcore mode some time ago, but one thing I haven’t talked about much is the new Free Movement mode, which offers a whole new way to experience the kingdom of Twin Falls. Chronicles of Vaeltaja will always be grid-based game first and foremost, but it plays very well with Might and Magic VI-IX style movement with full camera control. The Free Movement mode is a bit heavier than the grid-based mode, but I managed to make it run 60 fps with my Ryzen 3700x at 3.6 GHz and RTX 2070 setup on 1440p resolution with all the the new visual effects enabled. It runs 60 fps even with Nvidia 3D Vision on the same resolution, which roughly needs twice the normal processing power. I don’t know what the new system requirements are, because I lack the hardware to test, but since the game runs mainly on one core, an average CPU with less cores paired with GTX 1060 level GPU should be good enough. Mobile CPUs may still struggle with the game, but I expect the Steam Deck performance to have noticeable improvement. Unfortunately my budget hasn’t allowed me to buy one for testing, but let’s hope that will change in the future.
I probably could talk about this update all day, but I have to update the store page, because Chronicles of Vaeltaja will participate with 30% discount to Party-Based RPG Festival starting today, and I really want the game to shine. The game has almost gone beyond my wildest dreams, and I never thought I could achieve something like this with RPG Maker MZ, or any engine for that matter. But here we are, and I am so happy I can finally present this enhanced version of my labour of love! Originally this update was supposed to be version 0.8.9, but because this update is such a game changer and I’ve already done quite a lot ground work for the upcoming content update, it deserves to be version 0.9. The next content update will be 0.9.1 or 0.9.2, and the main story will be completed with 0.9.5. The rest of the updates after the main story is finished will bring rest of the side content, bug fixes and polishement. And talking about bugs: Because the changes were so big there might be some bugs left that I didn’t catch in my tests, but I will keep monitoring the possible bug reports, even though I’m now going to take a few days off from the game. This was pretty exhausting update, but it definitely was worth the effort.
IMPORTANT: Like always, old saves should work without any bigger issues, but New Game will take a better advantage of the new optimizations. If there seems to be performance issues with old saves this should help: load a save game, save once the game has loaded and the map has settled, then exit the desktop, launch the game again and load the new save game.
I almost forgot to mention that I fixed lots a bugs, but since my working methods are not THAT organized, I occasionally forgot to make notes. I mention the bugs I remember in the patch notes, the rest will be nice surprises. Thank you for reading, now enjoy the patch notes!
Hardcore Mode: Food, water and rest are a factor, some status effects won’t be removed after battle, lanterns need oil or recharging, enemies are tougher and can ambush resting party, new items (food rations, water and oil) for general stores and the traveling merchant Sakari, torches react to rain, oil jars to some dungeons etc.
Free Movement Mode
Ambient Life: Fireflies, insects, birds, fallen leaves, flying glowworms and fallen leaves
Grass tufts, flowers and mushrooms
Battle weather
New Torch and Lantern system with Hardcore Mode features
New Overworld Map System with a proper ‘fog of war’
Starry skies
New improved party HUD (click portraits to access Skills menu)
Improved Toolbar
An optional Radial Menu for gamepads
EXP Scaling: the smaller the party, the bigger the experience multiplier
New Instant Movement system
New daytime lighting and skyboxes in Autumn Valley (clouds and celestials are in their old places, but the sky’s colors have changed)
Dynamic Shadows
A properly organized Options Menu with four tabs of many gameplay, user interface and graphics related settings, not to forget Brightness, Contrast and Saturation settings.
New Battle Background system that applies the correct background to battle scene depending on the weather and daytime conditions
New thunder sound effects
Fire shot skill for Bandit Archers
Poison Shot skill for Outlaw Marksman
Improved and lighter Magic Map system (dungeon automap)
Rows work properly with smaller parties
Row icons appear instantly
New Instant Movement system
Obsolete Shadow Optimization settings removed
No more parallel processes
No more heavy constantly processing plugins for small features
Merged some smaller plugins to decrease the amount of plugins needed
Skeleton Warriors resist poison
Weather system optimizations
Adjustments to rain and storm lighting
New prices for Inns
Adjusted sun position on Twin Falls Fields at dawn
Updated pixi.js to a newer, more efficient version
Shortened the bridges on Islands of the Prophets to get rid of two ‘bridge events’ per bridge for optimization; because of the nature of the map, the brigdes are created with two events, and less events per map is always better for performance.
Increased amount of weather particles
Quest Journal’s tutorial section updated with new Free Movement control keybindings
Simpler enemy events because of the new Battle Background system (the old system was clumsy and a nightmare to use)
Enemies roam more freely
Overall optimization
Fisherman fixed once again
Anuna Village Elder now reacts properly when talking after he has given the Amulet of Dispel
Waiter in the Hearth of the Gods Inn walks at correct speed
Digging spot in Riverside North no longer offers endless supply of Water of Life
Camping animation
Weather system bug fixes
Exiting Wizard’s Tower through the giant Travel Crystal no longer messes up the skybox
Some bugs that I have already forgotten
I really do hope you like the new additions, changes and improments – personally I think this is one of the best updates so far, and brings the whole experience on to a whole new level!
Thank You, and see You in Twin Falls!
Jani/Witchgrove Games