[Chapter 8-4 Released!]
Chapter 8-4: Folklore Tactical Moon is now available!
“An adventure of unprecedented scale awaits.
Journey to the ruins swept by the moon's storm and revive the lost Folklore.”
This marks the first new stage update in six months since Chapter 8-3.
I'm the programmer for this game writing this, and I was forced to spend months building this system.
I destroyed the game designer. My personal record this time was 15 kills and 19 deaths.
This stage incorporates and rearranges all the gimmicks from Chapter 8-1 through 8-3, making it an ultra-high difficulty challenge.
The stages in the Chapter 8 DLC share themes of “puzzle-solving” and “heavy gimmick usage,” and this stage epitomizes that.
Recall the techniques you gained from Chapters 8-1 to 8-3 and do your best to conquer this puzzle-heavy stage.
(It's been half a year since 8-3, so you might have forgotten the tricks by now...)
It'll be obvious once you play, but this stage's game system itself isn't the usual TacticalNexus.
A baffling system called the Inventory System has been implemented, and players will likely start by trying to master this.
Both the game system and difficulty are extremely unique.
We tried to allow for various strategies, but even so, every strategy is extremely challenging.
Please tackle the stage while considering various approaches.
[Tips for Chapter 8-4]
This stage incorporates not only the Inventory System but also a highly unique gimmick called .
Because of this, players will likely be overwhelmed by the flood of new information during their first few hours, leaving them confused about what's happening.
This stage is that impressive... or rather, it's just a design oversight on the development side.
This time, the gimmick is quite difficult, and as is often the case with stages featuring unique mechanics, players frequently fail to even notice the gimmick exists in the first place.
You might think, “I should be able to figure this out without reading the manual,” only to find yourself confused and having to revisit it. I know I have.
So, while this is a copy-paste from an article I wrote before bed, I'll include the absolute minimum information needed to clear this stage.
◆The balance assumes you'll fail if you skimp on .
If enemies feel too strong, press the V key.
◆The balance assumes you'll fail if you don't pick up the stone tablets.
If enemies feel too strong, pick up the stone tablets.
(Pressing the R key shows which items are on which floors)
◆The balance assumes you'll fail if you don't offer the stone tablets.
If enemies feel too strong, offer the stone tablets.
(Offering the tablet to the cracked moon wall grants significant power-ups)
◆The balance assumes you'll need multiple attempts.
Please experience several game overs.
◆When encountering an item in your inventory, press the Shift or C key to stand on top of it.
Avoid items you don't want to pick up.
(The controls feel pretty crappy, but we concluded this is unavoidable.
This is officially crappy, so everyone should just accept it as such.)
[Other Adjustments]
◆ Extended the effect duration of from 3 turns to 7 turns.
[Acknowledgements]
For this stage development, we had volunteers play the alpha version on Discord and received several bug reports from players in advance.
TacticalNexus's Discord is famously meticulous and thorough—players even send save data when reporting bugs—and it was a huge help.
Typically, the workload right before updates for Chapter 4 and beyond is immense. Programmers especially halve their sleep for 1-2 weeks each time, pulling 30-45 hour marathons the day before release. This time, it only took 26 hours.
Ultimately, some bugs remain this time, and we'll be silently updating to fix minor issues for a while. However, having the critical bugs largely resolved is a huge mental relief for development.
I'd like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude. Thank you very much.
TacticalNexus may seem like a game that only delays updates, but it's true that your cooperation is accelerating development.
Or rather, it would be strange for a game in its sixth year of development to suddenly introduce baffling proprietary systems like inventory. I never imagined anything could be more grueling than the Extended Screen.
The fact that this game's development and stage gimmicks keep spiraling into increasingly bizarre territory over time is also entirely your fault. Thank you very much.
We'll continue creating baffling stages starting from Chapter-9 onwards.
[Regarding the Next Update]
We're considering a mid-update for feature improvements sometime in September or October, but it's uncertain.
Additionally, we plan to update at least one of the following in October or November:
◆Chapter5-0 Rainbow Tactical Bridge
This stage is intended to bolster the content-light Chapter-5.
It's a highly unique stage containing several smaller stages within it.
(Similar to EX-2, it's packed with original gimmicks.)
◆DLC: Tactical Nexus Media Player
A media player that allows you to play Tactical Nexus BGM.
Furthermore, with the release of the media player, it will become possible to extract music files from Tactical Nexus data even without purchasing the media player.
(In other words, if you just want to listen to the music, you won't need to purchase this DLC.
This DLC is intended as one form of content for players who have spent thousands of hours playing this game and wish to support us financially in some way.
Going forward, all stage DLCs for Chapter-9 and beyond will be sold for $1, while game-related QoL updates will continue to be provided free of charge.
For more details on this, please refer to this article.)
This media player features unique processing that plays animations of TacticalNexus characters performing the music during playback.
Additionally, it will be possible to play music unrelated to TacticalNexus by placing your favorite files in a specific folder.
[About Monthly Nexus]
Monthly Nexus was very well-received, so we planned to update the August edition. However, the theme for August's article was “Chapter 8-4 Development Postmortem.”
Spoiling all the gimmicks before release is a bit crazy, so we held off on the update.
We will update the August Monthly Nexus on 9/15 and update the September Monthly Nexus at the end of the month.