Spectacles: Bruce's Story

Spectacles: Bruce's Story is the first installment of the three-part Spectacles Saga, a series of role-playing games following the travails of Scott Starcross as he quests to defeat the Primus, an exceedingly powerful magic user who threatens both worlds. According to a prophecy made years before the saga begins, Scott, the eleventh Littermate, is the only person capable of stopping the Primus with the aid of the Spectacles, a legendary pair of eyeglasses granting their wearer magical protection--ostensibly making Scott the chosen one. But all may not be as it seems...

Credits

• Bruce Pascoe - Director / Writer / Lead Developer
• John Stanko - Writer / Beta Tester
• Richard Lawrence - Programming/Optimization

Building

Spectacles: Bruce's Story was developed in JavaScript for the miniSphere game engine. To build the game, you will need to install miniSphere, available for download here:

[miniSphere on GitHub] (https://github.com/fatcerberus/minisphere/releases)

Be sure to install the development tools, not just the engine itself. After that's done, build and run the game by entering the following at the command line:

$ cell
$ spherun dist

Alternatively, you can open spectacles.ssproj in Sphere Studio.

The Battle System

Spectacles uses the CTB (Conditional Turn-based Battle) combat system, the same system seen in Final Fantasy X. CTB resolves turns dynamically and assymetrically, based on both the battlers' speed (AGI stat) and the nature of the attacks used. The Rank of a move determines how long the move will take to recover from. The higher the Rank, the more recovery time is needed and the longer it will take before the unit's next turn will arrive.

Battlers may also choose to change to a defensive stance to parry powerful blows and counterattack. Pressing 'V' during move selection will switch the battler into Guard, which reduces the damage taken from attacks and prevents secondary effects, such as the Zombie affliction caused by Electrocute. Guard cannot block statuses inflicted as a primary effect, however, such as that from Necromancy. Guard is a Rank 5 action; if the cooldown expires before the character is attacked, they will automatically return to Normal stance.

Note that when a melee (sword or contact) move is Guarded, the attack will always miss outright. The opening thus created will allow the Guarding character to counterattack, dealing extra damage with their attack.

Status Effects

There are many status effects in Spectacles; some are detrimental, while others are benign or even beneficial. Unlike many other role-playing games, almost all bosses in Spectacles are susceptible to status afflictions, with a small to non-existant list of immunities.

Below are descriptions of some of the statuses available in the Spectacles Saga.

• Crackdown: Crackdown, as its name suggests, cracks down on consecutive attacks of the same type. Each time an attack of the same type as the previous one is used, its efficacy is cut by 25%. Using a different type of move will reset the multiplier, but the affliction will remain in effect until the end of the battle.

• Disarray: Randomizes the ranks of actions taken by the afflicted unit. Disarray cannot be cured; it will however wear off on its own after the victim has taken 3 turns.

• Drunk: Using Alcohol constitutes full HP recovery at the cost of inflicting the Drunk status on the user. This cuts the victim's AGI, FOC, and accuracy, as well as creating a painful Earth weakness, but doubles STR as a compromise. The status must be allowed to wear off on its own; the number of turns required for it to expire depends on the victim's base VIT.

• Frostbite: Inflicts a small amount of ice damage after every action taken by the victim. The effect worsens over time, peaking at double its initial efficacy. Frostbite can be removed by subjecting the afflicted battler to a fire attack, the damage from which will be increased as a tradeoff.

• Ghost: A battler in Ghost status can't be damaged by anything other than magic; however, they are also limited to using magic against non-Ghosts if they intend to get anywhere. Note that two Ghosts attacking each other will bypass this restriction. Ghost can be removed with Holy Water.

• Ignite: Similar to Frostbite, except it inflicts fire damage and hits between turns, dealing damage with every action taken in the battle. As a tradeoff, the effect weakens over time, quickly dropping to only half its initial output. As with Frostbite, this can be removed by attacking the afflicted unit with ice.

• Skeleton: The end result of a Zombie affliction (see below) if the status is not cured before the victim reaches 0 HP. Skeletons have their STR and FOC cut in half in exchange for being allowed to continue fighting after death. Any physical or slash damage will end a Skeleton, however. Skeleton can be removed with Holy Water, reviving the battler with 1 HP.

• Zombie: Reverses HP restoration (healing), converting it into an equivalent amount of damage. If a zombified battler is reduced to 0 HP by an attack, the status will progress to Skeleton; however, converted restoratives bypass this clause and may kill the Zombie outright. Zombie can be cured with the use of Holy Water.