Wow! So something went terribly wrong with the last update and wouldn't you know it, my game got streamed and well over a hundred people saw it crash multiple times. How embarrassing! But hey, that's early access, and that's also the indie dev life for you. I stayed up late fixing all the easy bugs and  playtesting as well as I could to push out a new and fixed version. There was apparently a version control issue and half of the last updates didn't get applied to the correct version.

I also have a lot to ponder after the stream. Some design choices may change, some may not. A small sample size of other game developers might not be the best to go by. My testers in private didn't have the same complaints on the combat UI, but in fact the opposite. They preferred the wheel menu over a "list" style, but in the stream, they didn't like it. Interesting to note that they didn't like it until after the 4 hour mark, which is kind of wild that it took that long. Early Playtesters on average have been ~2.5 hours, and max has just over three. Granted, they didn't have the same crashes experienced on stream, which further drove up playtime. Also, streamers stop to chat and give their thoughts and what not so additional time was to be expected. Honestly, I think stream fatigue was the biggest issue. The chat towards the end became more and more uncouth, which is funny because the first 3 or so hours of stream was, as a whole, very positive and any critiques were actionable things, or suggestions to improve. Towards the end it was just "oh, that thing is bad" with no actual feedback, way to improve, or why this is bad.

There was also some criticism of being almost a copy of Chrono Trigger. I have been very clear about Mana Engine being inspired by Chrono Trigger, Chained Echoes, Suikoden II, and FF6. It is no way meant to be a clone or a fangame. The battles while similar to CT, are more complex, lean heavier on status and states, turn order can be manipulated, there's way more items to turn the tide of battle, enemies have more "gimmicks", my version dual/triple techs or combo skills  which are Team Skills use a renewable TP resource that starts off too low in battle to just be spammed (looking at you CT), are unlocked via story beats (Friendship Points) instead of just level progression. I think this was fairly evident by the D7 dying so much. To address Guy's character design, he was created as an amalgamation of Secret of Mana, Crono, and every other '90s JRPG protagonist. The spikey hair actually gives him a unique silhouette compared to NPCs and monsters and the colors are meant to contrast against the environment.  One of his first designs didn't have the spikey hair and just kind of a blah silhouette, he also had a much larger sword, think Guts from Berserk. The sword became a collision issue, and without a definitive silhouette, it was easy to loose the player in a sea of NPCs. In short, there was a good reason early games had spikey haired protags. So in Guy's redesign, he was modeled more after Dai from DQ than Crono as Akira Toriyama was big inspiration for me and may he rest in peace. I'm not planning on changing his design anytime soon because I see as more of an homage and tribute and since I created it that's what it is.

Changelog:

• Added Missing picture file: '/pictures/Speedlines.png'
• Added Missing Animation files: '/animations/30FPS_AC2Q025_Blackhole'  '/animations/tktk-light6'  '/animations/tktk-impact33'
• Removed Double Dialogue when finding Nael in Greystone Hills (Again, not sure what happened possible version control issue)
• Fixed 'Ladder'/Climbing Flag in Greystone Hills (Again, not sure what happened possible version control issue)
• Fixed Typo/Spelling error in Baycliff when Luma first meets Brand, 'find'->'fine'
• Fixed Spelling error on Card game tutorial
• Reduced Enemy Stats for: Armor Suit, Legionaire, Elite Legionaire, Spearman, Guardsman
• Blacksmith Tutorial now reveals only 'Wooden Training Sword' instead of all Swords while crafting
• Added missing audio "Restore.ogg"