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[WhiteSponge]

Just added support for the upcoming iOS 7!



I must say that most of it only involves ensuring that the tables in the game look and feel the same way as in iOS 6 and below ~

If I just compiled and start the game without making any changes, this is what a table in Small Chronicles would look like in iOS 7:



And that is because the default background color for iOS 7 tables is white :D

So after making it transparent again, this is what it becomes:



Overall adding support for iOS7 was pretty smooth. There wasn't any ground-breaking changes that affected Small Chronicles :D

P.S ~ ignore the 999999 coins and rubies (it's only for testing :D)

[WhiteSponge]

Finally got time to sit down and pull together the interesting in-game footage and craft this out for you all :D
Enjoy and share it with your friends and family! Cheers :D

[WhiteSponge]

Small Chronicles is now in open beta!

To be qualified as a tester, all you have to have is to have an Apple iPod Touch/iPhone or an iPad.

Your feedback on your testing experience with Small Chronicles is important in order for WhiteSponge to make Small Chronicles into the most immersive and awesome gaming experience!

If you can match these requirements, you are very much welcomed to be one of the first open beta players of Small Chronicles!





In addition to getting to play our game for absolutely free, all testers will receive an awesome tester-only item in the released game. You will also have the special honor of having your name on the game’s credits.

To become a tester, simply indicate here that you're going for the open beta event and provide your email address or tweet @SmallChronicles that you want to be in the open beta with your email address

For more information and updates, don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter!

[WhiteSponge]

As you might have known, Small Chronicles has just started its open beta! The feedback from the beta testers have been awesome so far!

In response to their awesome feedback, here are just two changes that will make the game better :D

1) Showing the experience gained



You can see the amount of experience gained from defeating a monster! That should help those of you who are worrying if you will lose on a stage or level up just in time to regain your health and mana.


2) Updated Store Interface



The in-game store now also spots a slightly different interface! You can now scroll from 1 end of the screen to the other! This means that you'll be able to see at least 1 more item on your screen at any 1 time.

So what do you think? Do you like these 2 new changes? :D

[WhiteSponge]

To make things easier for those who haven't joined the beta testing family and wants to do so, I have also created a signup page just for that purpose!

http://whitesponge.com/games/smallchronicles/openbeta/

Sign up now to become a beta-tester and be rewarded for helping make Small Chronicles a better game with your feedback! :D

[WhiteSponge]

Small Chronicles has come a long way from the prototyping and alpha days...

And now v1.01 beta is finally here! I hope you are as excited as I am while I highlight main additions and changes of this new beta update!

The New Goodie



Hmmm... did you notice that there is a "Lv. 1" at the end of the Volunteer's Guard's name?

Yup that's right! I have added the ability for items to grow alongside your characters! Just equip an item and it will gain experience and levels too!


A Volunteer's Guard at Lv. 2 gives +17 def!!

While getting and upgrading items in traditional RPGs involves going to a blacksmith, Small Chronicles goes about it differently.

Think of your equipment as being alive with souls in them. The more you fight alongside them, the stronger they will become




As mentioned in the previous post, you can now also see the amount of experience earned from defeating each monster!


The Changes



Remember that animation that plays at the start of each stage? It now plays faster so you can get to the gameplay even quicker!




This is actually more of fixing a loophole than a change. This particular stage had 4 tunnels positioned in a cross position. That meant that the monsters were entering and exiting from the tunnels forever.

If you played as the mage, you could potentially sit from a distance and fire away at will.


Bug Fixes



While not a critical bug, this could affect the shopping experience at the in-game store. If you had Kon at Lv. 5, he would be able to use the Might Ring (which requires Kon to be at Lv. 4).

While it didn't use to do so, this is now shown by the white colored label in the screenshot.


More?
Yes the next update could be a bigger one than this!

Do follow @SmallChronicles or @WhiteSponge on Twitter for up to the minute updates!

You could also like Small Chronicles on Facebook for regular updates too!

[WhiteSponge]

It’s been a short while since the last update! And that’s because I’m working on what is coming next for Small Chronicles! The next update will be interesting…

What would the next update be about? Well if you have been following @WhiteSponge or checking the news regularly at the Facebook page, I have been dropping hints here and there.



That’s right! League mode is coming to Small Chronicles! What this means is that you will be able to do battle against other players’ characters!

Wait… that is not realtime multiplayer? Yes it isn’t. If you have noticed (in the screenshot above), you can either play a random match or create a game room in League mode. Let me explain what are the difference between these two.

In random matches, you start by searching for a random opponent (well by using that “Random Match” button!). The game then searches for a suitable opponent for your selected character (usually +/- 5 levels of your selected character’s level).



Once that is done, the game’s A.I will take over the opponent’s character and you will do battle against it. While monsters in the story mode do not seem to have a crazily intelligent A.I, the A.I in league mode behaves similarly to a player like you.

It will definitely make use of blessings, go through tunnels and push any rocks that it can find. You can also be sure that it will use traps against you too.

So why isn’t random matches real-time? Why that is because not everyone can be online at the same time. If random matches were real-time, you can be sure that you will walk into a ghost town at least once.

That is especially true for mobile games. Small Chronicles is a mobile game and mobile devices do not always have that awesome WiFi or steady 3G/LTE connection.

Now what about creating game rooms? Is that real-time multiplayer? Hmmm I’ll leave that to your imagination…

[WhiteSponge]

Do bear with me as this will be a lengthy game dev post ~

I have been working on Small Chronicles' league mode since the previous update. There are some interesting things that have happened or changed since then.

It would not have come as a shocker if I were to say that random matches in Small Chronicles' are really random. During testing I have faced characters that were at level 1 and also characters that were at the same or higher level than mine was.

Ironically I wrote the script at the server to do just that. So here is what random matches are really all about.



Once you have started searching for an opponent, the game essentially walks up to the server and says, "Hey I need an opponent for my character. Choose 1 randomly who's like +/- 5 levels of mine".



And that is what you will see once the game receives the notification that an opponent is found. At first glance, you will notice that your character is on the left while your opponent is on the right. Blue is friendly and red represents hostility right?

The game randomly decides where your opponent and your character starts on the map. So if you are using Kon (the fighter) and your opponent is Lyea (the mage) who's weak against physical attacks, you are lucky if both of you start next to each other!



In-game objects such as blessings, tunnels and traps also appear randomly on league matches. Sometimes you might get 1 to 2 of them but sometimes you might get none. This adds flavor to the random matches as you will not know what to expect.

Now remember that moment when you use your characters' skills against monsters and they just work?





Well with league matches everything changes. In league matches, you are essentially put to fight against other characters. This means that they can use character skills against your characters!



If you have noticed above, Kon's charge skill doesn't stun the opponent if it was blocked! And what's more? The opponent can stun your character if you're not careful!



Luckily, unlike monsters, opponents have limited mana points (MP) so they can't use their character skills forever. Pitting characters and their skills against each other allow for similar interesting situations to occur and I can't wait to see more of it!

As of the moment, I am working on allowing most of Kon's skills to accommodate for those unique scenarios (skills vs skills). So if you want to follow my regular or up-to-the-minute updates, be sure to follow @SmallChronicles or like Small Chronicles on Facebook!

Cheers!

[WhiteSponge]

If you haven't already heard, Small Chronicles will be released in multiple chapters! The first chapter will consist of the first half of the story of Small Chronicles, along with the game's league mode.

On top of that, the first chapter will also feature 2 playable main characters - Kon and Lyea. Does that mean that you will only get to play only half of the game? Well fret not as the 2nd chapter will come later as a future planned update.

Why release the game in multiple chapters? I will be honest and be straightforward about it. Making a RPG does require a huge amount of resources (finance, people and time). Therefore, dividing the game up allows me to better manage these resources.

Well and not forgetting the main reason that doing so will allow each and everyone of you to get your hands on the game earlier! I want everyone of you to be able to enjoy the game as early as possible. Your feedback is also really important to making the game better so there's that too!

So now that we have got that all down, it all boils down to 1 thing. What should the first chapter be called? It should definitely reflect what the 1st half of the game's story is about.

After brainstorming for a while, here are some ideas that came up:

- 冒険の始まり(Bouken no Hajimari / Start of an adventure)
- 勇者の冒険 (Yuusha no Bouken / Adventure of a hero)
- 伝説の土地 (Densetsu no Tochi / Land of Legends)
- 明暗の土地 (Meian no Tochi / Land of Light and Darkness)

While I wouldn't say that some of the names above are half-bad, I have decided to go with a name that links the story with that which will continue in the 2nd chapter of Small Chronicles.

Interested to know more about the upcoming first chapter?



Well you can do so by checking out the official page for Small Chronicles - Key of Light and Darkness (Hikari to Yami No Kagi) !

[WhiteSponge]

I have been spending quite some time on player vs player scenarios. In league random matches, player skills really come into effect as you will see in the video below (can't post video here so it's a link to youtube)~





What do you think of random matches so far?

I will post more short videos of player vs player gameplay :D

[WhiteSponge]

I know that spending time to do extra stuff like this might cost me a day of developing Small Chronicles. But sometimes when something fun and stupid comes to you while you're bombing in the washroom, you just have to go ahead and do it :D

So here are 8 ways to always win (in battles)! In the form of a video! Hope that you will enjoy it as much as I did making it!





Cheers!

[WhiteSponge]

These past few days I have been spending time on Small Chronicles' league mode. Since then I have added and changed various things.

The first of all is the information of the next league which you can get promoted to.



As you might have noticed, you can also see the requirement to get promoted to the next league!

And if you were wondering, yes you will be fighting against other players' characters for the stars in the skies!

Every time you win a match, you will gain stars from your opponent's pool.



Be careful though as you will get demoted to a lower league if you lose too many matches!



On the other hand, if you challenge other players and managed to gain enough stars by winning a lot,



You can get promoted to a higher league!

Besides the league ranking and stuff, I have also improved the A.I for the opponents' characters which yours will be fighting.

For example, if a blessing was nearer to your opponent's character than where your character is,



Your opponent's character will head straight for the blessing to gain that advantage in combat!

In another situation,



Since the trap switch is nearer, your opponent's character will move onto it and trigger the trap which your character is standing on!



So if you are already an open beta player, look forward to when league mode comes to Small Chronicles!

If not, you can also join the open beta family here at https://www.facebook.com/SmallChronicles (using the beta signup tab) !

[WhiteSponge]

So what has been going on with the making of Small Chronicles’ league mode? Well if you haven’t read the previous post on what league matches are about, indulge yourself! If not, read on for what happens when you get to the top list of players!…



Welcome to the Stars of the Skies tournament! Each and every player will be vying for 1 of those spots as it guarantees the honor of being 1 of the best player and a sense of great accomplishment! Sure it isn’t easy to win against the other players and get enough stars to enter the top 10 list!

If you have noticed, each league season lasts only for 14 days so be sure to get to the top 10 before it ends! On the other hand, once you get to the top 10, you will realize that there’s something more!



Only the top 5 players in every season will get rewarded with a huge amount of rubies (depending on rank)! I can only imagine what I could do with all those rubies…

Now if you somehow manage to become part of the top 5, you will get a little surprise whenever a league season ends!



So what do you think? Are you ready to aim for the top?

More updates on league mode coming soon too!

[WhiteSponge]

Another new update! Just uploaded Open beta v1.02 onto TestFlight!

This new update adds league mode to the game! In league mode, you will fight against other players for the stars in the skies!

I have also added a way for u to see who attacked you!



Well you can also fight back against them using the "Fight back!" button :D



Once you have done that, the game will set up a match between your attacker and u



If you have read the past few posts, winning league matches will earn you stars! And if you gained enough stars to be placed in the top 10, you are 1 step closer to winning awesome ruby rewards whenever a league season ends!

If you are curious and want to find out all about league matches at once, and what's changed in v1.02, read it all here at http://whitesponge.com/blog/v1-02-has-arrived/! :D

More updates coming soon?

[WhiteSponge]

Hey everyone! How was your Christmas? Lots of good food and gifts?

Progress has been Small Chronicles has slowed down a little during this festive period but that doesn't mean that there was no progress at all!

Ever since the latest beta update (which includes the addition of the all-new league mode), you guys/gals have given some awesome feedback! So here's my response to you all! (yes I do listen to feedback :D )

Skipping and skipping



Winning a stage brings you to this scene where you are able to see how much gold and how many moves you took during the stage. However, sometimes it might take some time for all of that animation to be over.

So if you have already seen it before and wished that it could be skipped, now it is possible to do so!



The new skip button at the top right corner brings you right to the end where you'll see your rank for the stage! You won't be able to see how much gold you have earned or how many moves you took though. But hey, now you can skip straight to getting more stuff from the store or jump right to the next stage!

Stage ranks and rubies

Now if you have played Small Chronicles (as an alpha/beta tester), clearing any stage with a 'A' or 'S' rank earns you free rubies!



However, that also means that with a high level character, you could potentially play stage 1 over and over again for that awesome 6 rubies.



To prevent that from being abused, the amount of rubies that you can earn from each stage is now dependent on your character's level! This will also encourage you to attempt stages that are more relevant to your character's level (stronger monsters, better rewards) !

Customizing appearances

This is actually one of the most requested feature I had so far! While it is still under progression, it will not be like your usual character customization screen at the start of the game. Think of it as character customization through the items that you equip.



You can be sure that it will help your character stand out, especially in league matches! Be sure to keep checking back to find out when the next update will arrive!

And if you haven't done so, be sure to like Small Chronicles on Facebook or follow on Twitter! Cheers!

[WhiteSponge]

Happy 2014 everyone! Hope everyone had a great celebration and have an awesome new year ahead!

I have also wrote my thoughts and did a simple reflection on what has happened in 2013 for Small Chronicles! Check it out here at http://whitesponge.com/blog/looking-back-at-2013/ :D

[WhiteSponge]

It has been almost 10 days since the last update!

I have been spending all these time changing and adding stuff in response to feedbacks from Small Chronicles' open beta!

A major addition is that now you can buy headgears from the in-game store!




So what do you think happens when you equip a headgear?





When you equip one, you will be able to customize your characters according to the headgear you equipped!





Notice how Kon looked above in action with the blue hat equipped?

Headgears will come to the open beta really soon! :D

So check back for more updates and thanks for your support guys/gals!

[WhiteSponge]

How is everyone doing? Been awesome?

I'm here with another update on Small Chronicles! The past few days have been spent on finalizing headgear in the game! Here are a few preview screenshots of what characters look like when you equip them with headgear :D

Lyea with her red headband ready for some magic action!



And here's Kon with his paper bandana in action!



Headgears are also slightly different from regular equipment in the way they add stat bonuses to your character. Instead of just 1 stat, they add bonuses to 2 different stats!



And now that headgear's done, I am spending more time on making achievements more worthwhile to complete! That also means that I will be adding many new achievements to Small Chronicles!

I will posting sneak previews of the new achievements in the next update! :D

[WhiteSponge]

It has been a while since the last open beta update! And now v1.03 has finally arrived!

While v1.02 (the previous version) added league mode to Small Chronicles, v1.03 introduces headgears and new achievements to the game.

Equipping your characters with headgears will customize their outlook while also adding stat bonuses to them.

I have also added tons of new achievements to Small Chronicles! Completing achievements can now also earn you rubies! :D




And if you are curious as to what new achievements there are, you can also view them from the new achievements list!




There are also some changes and bug fixes to the game. To read all about what's new in v1.03, do check out the blog post at http://whitesponge.com/blog/open-beta-v1-03-has-arrived/

Small Chronicles' open beta is coming to its closing soon! Which means that the announcement of the official release date of Chapter 1 is near!

So do always check back for when it's announced! :D

[WhiteSponge]

How's everyone's day? Awesome? :D

Small Chronicles' progress is still going on strong! I have spent the last few days taking screenshots and adding in-game help content!



If there's anything that you don't understand in the game, the in-game help content will be there to aid you!

And of course you can always tweet me at @WhiteSponge too! :D

In-game tips are on the way too!