Indie developer Classi5ed is working on Lies of Caelum: Spirit, an RPG inspired by the PlayStation and Saturn era of video games.
Lies of Caelum: Spirit is a sci-fi mecha game about “identity, philosophy, political conflict, and a world built on lies,” and it has launched on Kickstarter, where it is raising $34,000 USD ($47,227 CAD).
As of this post, there are still 29 days to go, and the developers say the game will have a main campaign of over 60 hours, with over 20 hours of “meaningful” side content. Multiple arcs dive into the main cast’s identities, philosophy, and conspiracies around Caelum.
The score is a collaboration between Mushra, Kurippertronixxx and guest composer Motoi Sakuraba, who’s previously worked on the Tales of series, Star Ocean, and Valkyrie Profile.
“I’m glad to be part of Lie of Caelum: Spirit as a guest composer. I always enjoy games with a strong, unusual world behind them, and Lie of Caelum’s story sounds like just that kind of project. If backers reach this goal, I’ll do my best to write music that fits what the team is building,” says Motoi Sakuraba.
“Xenogears and Phantasy Star are the games this project grew out of, and you can see that influence in the trailer right away,” said Classi5ed developer Stark Joker. “There haven’tbeen many turn-based JRPGs since Xenogears that put a militaristic, bright-future setting together with giant mechs, and we wanted to bring that combination back with our own spin on it. Building the whole thing in RPG Maker MZ was not the obvious choice, and figuring out how to push the engine past its usual limits turned into its own kind of challenge.”
The Kickstarter has a ton of details about the game, including how the combat system works and what to expect. It actually looks pretty cool from the snippets the developers have shown.
It also looks like there are no random encounters (thank you!) and enemies are visible on the map. Plus, you can engage them head-on and deal with them as you wish; you can even use LC, or Link Catalysts, to engage. These are “tiny sentient robots” who can aid you in battle. You can even feed and train them and watch them grow.
There’s also turn-based mech combat with shmup segments you’ll experience, and you can switch between being on foot or in a mech while exploring. Each character also has their own Frame, and it has its own combat philosophy, like “Kenzo’s Emperor with its balanced precision, Kanon’s Adephagia with its predatory aggression, and Aruke’s Apolaki with its reactive burst damage.” The developers state that Lie of Caelum: Spirit has 14 playable characters.
The indie title also offers deep progression through customizing Units with equippable chips that modify behaviour in combat as damage builds, defensive builds, accessibility builds, and so on.
And there’s skill progression where you equip your favourite skills and techniques rather than unlocking them from a skill tree.
Honestly, the scope of this game is astounding, and I implore you to head to Kickstarter to get a sense of what these developers are attempting to do. It’s impressive to see the ambition behind it.
