Ghostlight Blog

Omega Quintet first playable build arrives!

Hi everyone.  Quite a bit has happened since I last updated you on the status of our games.  While we've been continuing our work on Lost Dimension, the big news here this week is that the first playable build of Idea Factory's brilliant JRPG, Omega Quintet, has arrived!  I've already done some of the early testing for it myself on Steam, and it's certainly been great to get my hands on this amazing game again :).

In most cases, testing the first playable build of a title usually involves seeing how far you can progress into the game before encountering easily reproducible crashes.  These crashes are then feverishly reported back to the programmer to track down and resolve.  While Omega Quintet isn't an exception to this, I’m happy to report that I managed to get considerably further than expected, especially considering that this is only a first build.  Clearly, our lead programmer has been working mightily hard to produce a very stable version of the game first time around, with no major sound or graphical issues to report!

Now, I'm sure that having a first build may not sound like terribly exciting progress to some of you, but in fact, just getting the console game compiling and running on PC is a major step forward.  It means that our lead programmer has successfully completed rewriting the console libraries to run on PC, and that’s possibly the most complex task in porting the game!  The fact that the game is already fairly stable at this early stage is a very welcome bonus :)

Of course, this certainly doesn't guarantee that the rest of the port will be straight forward, but given the wealth of experience our development team has with Idea Factory’s well-crafted code, we’re very happy with this early progress and things are looking good.

So, what are the next steps?  Well, along with the ever-present bug squashing which will keep us all busy for a good while, we will be reworking the User Interface to function with mouse and keyboard, integrating middleware where necessary and re-rendering the movies.  We’ll also be adding new features such as cloud saving and achievements, plus generally adding as much polish as possible to the PC port to make it the best version we can.  While it's too early to give you all a more precise release date, the good news is that we are well on course to get the PC version of Omega Quintet to you all this year :).

So far, one of my favourite aspects of the game has to be the music themed battle system.  Of the many JRPGs I’ve tried, this has quickly become one of my most highly regarded JRPG battle systems.  While it is at heart a turn-based system, the addition of precision range attacks and the importance of manipulating the turn order really add some hugely enjoyable complexities to the gameplay.

If you're wondering whether I’m being a little biased towards this game :) here’s what RPGSite had to say in their solid 7/10 review: "Far and away, the best feature in Omega Quintet are the battles themselves.  Compile Heart put a lot of work into providing a complex system."  I'm sure that all you JRPG fans out there are going to have a truly great time with this game and I'm really looking forward to being able to share more details with you over the coming months.

That’s all for now. I’ll be back soon with more news from Ghostlight, but until then why not follow us on our Twitter and Facebook pages, our Youtube Channel and our  Google + account, where we’ll be posting all the latest news from Ghostlight. You can also follow me on Twitter for a more personal take on all things Ghostlight.

© 2017 IDEA FACTORY/COMPILE HEART. All rights reserved. Omega Quintet™ is a trademark of Idea Factory.  Licensed to and published by Ghostlight Ltd.

The Lost Dimension DLC Bundles

Hi Everyone. I've been busy handing out DLC codes to the Lost Dimension beta testers this past week so that they can check everything's working as expected.  While I was doing this, it occurred to me that I hadn't told you how we would be handling the DLC yet.

Since there's quite a lot of individual items to get your teeth in to, we've decided that rather than making it all available individually, we will be packing the items into bite sized bundles.  While prices for the DLC have not yet been confirmed, we are planning to offer you significant savings on the cost of the DLC over the console version of the game.

Since there's a lot to get through, I'll go straight to the DLC bundles themselves:

Phew!  Like I said, there's certainly a lot of DLC available with Lost Dimension, so hopefully bundling the DLC in packs will make it all a little easier to manage and of course far more cost effective for you all :)  That said, please do let us know if you have any comments that you'd like to share with us about the DLC.  Next week I should be able to share release and pricing details with you all so keep watching this space!

Before I go, since we mentioned in last week's blog that we were working on a PC port of a JRPG for another Western Publisher, lots of you have been asking which game it was.  I can't share too many details, but I am incredibly excited to be able to say that we're working with our good friends at Aksys on the English PC port of the mighty Tokyo Xanadu eX+!  Understandably, I can't wait to help out on testing that one :)

That’s all for now. I’ll be back soon with more news from Ghostlight, but until then why not follow us on our Twitter and Facebook pages, our Youtube Channel and our  Google + account, where we’ll be posting all the latest news from Ghostlight.  You can also follow me on Twitter for a more personal take on all things Ghostlight.

(Blog written by Ghostlight Ltd.)

An update on Lost Dimension

Hi everyone. I hope you've been enjoying Al's blogs on the mighty Lost Dimension from our good friends at FURYU Corporation.  I certainly have, and not just because someone else has been writing them! :)  Since we've had quite a few blogs talking about the various mechanics and characters in the game, I thought that this week I'd give you an update on where we are with the development of Lost Dimension and also provide a brief update on the other game we're working on, Idea Factory's brilliant JRPG, Omega Quintet.

We started the Lost Dimension closed beta slightly over a month ago and once again our group of beta testers have been a massive help to us.  We're currently working on fixing the very few remaining bugs, so a huge thank you goes out to everyone who has helped us along the way.  We really do appreciate it :).  At the moment we're waiting for feedback from a middleware supplier who is kindly updating their software in order to help us solve a few of the remaining issues as we move the game from console to PC.  Once we have the updated middleware, it will fix most of the lingering issues and at that point we will be very close to release, so please keep your eyes peeled for more information on a release date for Lost Dimension soon.

We haven't been idle while waiting for this new version of the middleware though.  Not only have we integrated higher res artwork than the original console version, but we very recently added the ability to assign multiple skill points at once.  While handy during your first playthrough, this is a real lifesaver when starting a New Game +. :)

Finally, as mentioned in a previous blog, we are unable to use the title music featured in the opening movie sequence of the console version of the game.  Unfortunately that particular piece of music has not been made available for worldwide use on PC due to some fairly complex licensing issues.  However, I'm pleased to say that with the help of FURYU Corporation, we now have a new track for the opening movie sequence; one which fits the opening video sequence so well that suspicions were raised in the office that it was originally created for that purpose.  While there is a lingering disappointment that I was unable to persuade anyone in the office that Viking Metal would have been the perfect accompaniment, this does seem like a very good solution to this problem.  Sadly, it does mean you may have to go elsewhere for your Amon Amarth fix. :)

It's been a while since we talked about Omega Quintet, but after announcing the game, the feedback we received was really positive! As an update, I'm pleased to say that the port is going extremely well.  Our lead programmer is busily working on rewriting the libraries, which is probably the most complex part of the process.  We're currently still expecting to put Omega Quintet out on Steam in late 2017, so watch this space for more news in the coming weeks.

© 2017 IDEA FACTORY/COMPILE HEART. All rights reserved. Omega Quintet™ is a trademark of Idea Factory.  Licensed to and published by Ghostlight Ltd.

We are also working on localising some of our JRPGs in to Traditional Chinese, which is very exciting for us.  Working on new language versions of our games is always a nice change of pace for the team, even if working in a language you are not familiar with has its challenges.  Happily most of the testing is handled by our partners in Taiwan, but I always take a close look at the games to make sure that everything is as it should be.

We're also going to be working on a new PC port of a JRPG for a Western publisher.  I can't really go into too much detail at this stage, but on a personal level I am really excited to get the chance to work on this one!

That’s all for now. I’ll be back soon with more news from Ghostlight, but until then why not follow us on our Twitter and Facebook pages, our Youtube Channel and our  Google + account, where we’ll be posting all the latest news from Ghostlight. You can also follow me on Twitter for a more personal take on all things Ghostlight.

(Blog written by Ghostlight Ltd.)