The Spirit Engine DX

NOTE: Only the first world/chapter is playable in this public alpha!

The Spirit Engine DX is a complete re-implementation of the original 2D, sidescrolling real-time RPG game from 2003 by Mark Pay. Originally written as an experimental reaction to Seiken Densetsu 3, the game took a little under two years to complete and was released in November 2003 as freeware under Natomic Studios.

The game spans across five distinct worlds. Choose up to three characters to make up your party composition from a selection of nine, totalling up to 27 combinations! Three of your chosen characters are kidnapped by a fairy whom has been endangered by a scientist from another universe who wishes to seize the fairy and their companions to reconstruct the world to wish the scientist back into her original dimension! Can you stop this scientist from selfishly destroying the world in the process?

This re-implementation addresses all of the original shortcomings of the original game, including, but not limited to:

• Now written in a modern game engine (GameMaker), with no ancient code from the original Multimedia Fusion 1.5 predecessor
• Game polls at 1000 frames per second using delta time
  • This also means you can take control of time during battles! Pause the battle, set your party's moves up, rotate your character's positions as you see fit, resume the fight! Need to pick up the pace? You can also fast-forward battles!
• Game responds to your main monitor's resolution & aspect ratio, and will scale accordingly to give you the most immersive experience possible
• You can run, making the game less of a walking simulator!
• You no longer need to set up attacks through a separate menu - just set them directly within the battle via radial menus
• Rock Rain will now automatically spread across & aim towards all enemies on the field instead of being position-dependent
• Power Shot's damage will scale upwards when there are less enemies on the field
• Life Drain will now heal the caster!
• Visual Timer bars for attack cooldowns!
• Attacks from your party will now show whom it was dealt by (icon) + the text colour shows damage type
• Enemy details are now shown above and below their positions instead of having to hover over them
• Have up to 3 'quick-select' attacks per character with hotkeys!
• Parallax scrolling, screenshake and hitflash
• Healed hitpoints will be displayed upon being healed
• You can now see how much hitpoints your Kinetic & Magic Shields have underneath!
• Saving does not cost in-game money
• Refund points! Need to give your other attacks more power, but out of skill points? Simply 'refund' from your other skills and put them to better use!
• Items in shops & your inventory will now show additional attributes and special effects, if any. No need to open up a separate wiki just to look for technical details!

Transparency

Should you wish to provide any donations, any donations done through the name-your-price portal on this itch.io page will go to me (Aquellex). All proceeds will go towards making the game as good as it can be (mainly enhanced/tailored art assets)!

If you wish to support Mark's work for the original IP, you can do so with the 'Donate to Mark Pay' link found below!

If you wish to support Josh Whelchel, the composer, you can do so with the link to the official soundtrack below on his Bandcamp page!

Links

• Discord
• Official website
• Donate to Mark Pay (this PayPal is real - the same one can be found here!)
• Official soundtrack