Lawmage Academy

opinion: you really are aught to feel proud of yourself for all the hours you poured into this project & pat yourself on the back too.

also please update your correct twitter handle maybe lol

I have finally finished Lawmage Academy and I was surprised I got mostly everything aside from Enaqua from Lost Book and the crystal/armor from Fairy Forest. Here's the playlist of the videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMJBpY9PQYmDtYaSN3-VLyaOIfRdlQX0Q

I was impressed how mostly every NPC has a name similar to Fallout and Elder Scrolls. Most RPGs generally only games to major characters while the rest have generic names. After playing your game like 3 times, it seems like a coincidence how I have ideas similar to Lawmage Academy like the Lawmages (though my version is more like a magical version of law enforcement or guard), the prison/capture scene, and a large country though mine has several countries whereas LMA only has Magusgaia. In the case of the magic academy, the idea was inspired by Lawmage Academy as well as the Harry Potter books/films.

Issues/notes

I remember people reporting an issue where the game picture would freeze although the music and sounds doesn't freeze. I suspect it may be a bug with RPG Maker MV since it can happen with other RPG Maker MV games (I had it happen when playing FSM Castle and Town's sample game).

Also, I discovered an oddity with Windows 11 when recording RPG Maker MV games due to how windows are rendered. When recording on Windows 11, there will be a black space on the bottom left and bottom right of the video when rendered through OBS' Window Capture which is due to having round edges in windows. On Windows 10, corners are sqaure and they're shown. A workaround is run the game in fullscreen (F4 or Fullscreen option) and record at the resolution you're running at. In my case, I set my monitor (which I have connected to my AORUS 15G) to 1280x720 which is the resolution for Lawmage Academy. Another option is to run it fullscreen and use F3 to run it at a normal size and try to position OBS so that the entire game will get captured. You can see the differences in this image although may need to download and zoom to see the differences.

Reminds me of Mana Khemia!

When is the full release? I can't wait to play. One the best games I played in a long time. I didn't really find any spelling mistakes or glitches though. I really enjoyed the overall addicting experience.

Its my first time writing a comment here and i dont know what to think about it-

Also there will probably be ALOT of spelling mistakes and im sorry-

After falling off the bridge and talking to Past we meet Uma(?) i forgot her name- 

well i chose to make her my party member and after that her sprite isnt there and i have the info that pops up that it wasnt found and to try again and becouse of that i cant go forward and i dont have the heart to abandon her . I dont know if its just for me or if i have messed up somehow with the files-

Edit: i have also begun a new game and on day 2or3 when i try saving in the house the savefiles dont appear and when i do save somewhere it isnt saved 

Ouverall the game is AMAIZING uwu

i apologise for the troubule i could have caused

( again im verry sorry for the mistakes-)

( and there is also alot of ands-)

There's a bug after the fight with the manavoid on the first day where a big yellow circle fills up most of the screen and wont go away. I can still move and the menu is the same but I can barely see anything in the game, hopefully you can fix it or tell me what I'm doing wrong because this seems like a fun game.

Not really a fan of Jrpg soo I did not expect to like this game but I did. After recently watching anime with magic going to schools etc. was looking for a game like it.
Found this and decided to try out the demo. Went for the solo run after seeing the soloist update and the game was great until the end of the demo. Early stages are the hard part but after seeing a pattern for a farming spot, it all becomes easy after that. Lots of choices too, did not expect that one.

Hopefully at full release we can romance some waifus(here's hoping for Uni...because why not?). 
Also in the full version of the game, will you add the spells that other npc can do??? Like the transio so you don't have to travel 2 days to get to the fields, etc. And maybe some summoning magic too??? where you can summon a beast during battle.Other than that great stuff.

Also found some bugs, where if I Alt+TAB then use the mouse to go back to the game, then when interacting the dialogues goes on auto next? something like that but I found a fix by just clicking or using ESC. Nothing really game breaking. Just missed a few dialogues but that's fine.

While waiting for this one, does anybody know a similar game where you can do it just solo??? 

And cheers to you creator. Keep up the good work!

Just released my let's play of the demo on my Youtube channel! Only a small portion of the game, wasn't very sure about it going into the video. It definitely has promise so far and I'll likely play it more. Here's the video: 

I have joined the Discord server (I'm also GothicSimmer there). As promised, I'll give you instructions for the Quest autoview option. With skillful eventing/scripting, you could make any option which I learned from this video from Driftwood Gaming: How to Add Custom Options Using Yanfly Option Core. Here's how I did it:

First, download Olivia Meta Controls and install it (you don't need to configure the plugin). Next, paste in <Global Meta> on the of the Switches (in my case it's, <Global Meta> Quests), remember the Switch ID you're using.

Next, open Plugins (🧩), go to YEP_OptionsCore, Options Categories, General (or whatever Category you want to use), Options List, and the lowest blank space to create an Option.

For me, I changed the Name to Quest Autoview and Symbol to quest. Description can be anything but this is what I typed:

Automatically open the \c[4]Quest Journal\c when you get a new \c[4]Quest\c.

Leave Show/Hide, Enable, and Ext as is. Under Functions, some parameters will be changed:

Process OK Code

var index = this.index();
var symbol = this.commandSymbol(index);
var value = this.getConfigValue(symbol);
this.changeValue(symbol, !value);
var catalyst = $gameSwitches.value(x);
if (catalyst) {
  $gameSwitches.setValue(x, false);
} else {
  $gameSwitches.setValue(x, true);
}

Cursor Right Code

var index = this.index();
var symbol = this.commandSymbol(index);
var value = this.getConfigValue(symbol);
this.changeValue(symbol, true);
$gameSwitches.setValue(x, true);

Cursor Left Code

var index = this.index();
var symbol = this.commandSymbol(index);
var value = this.getConfigValue(symbol);
this.changeValue(symbol, false);
$gameSwitches.setValue(x, false);

Change x to whatever Switch is used. In my case, it was 46.

Next, on an Event that give you the quest, make a Conditional Branch with "If Switch is ON" and in that branch, I simply put in a Plugin Command with Quest Journal Open To x.

This isn't required but I made an option to instead show a notification when a Quest is unlocked that I discussed in an earlier comment. You just need two Parallel Comment Events, a Switch (to trigger the Common Events), and a Variable (this will be set to the Quest. For the Branch that has the Plugin Command, change it to an Else Branch containing the following:

Text for Plugin Command for the Quest, a Switch for the Common Event set to ON, and a Variable set to the Quest.

Basically it displays a Notification and allows you to hit Shift (or X) to open the Quest Window. However, the player may open the Quest Menu if they try to run after regaining control but 3 seconds could be enough.

Not related but I also revamped the Options and the descriptions in my project from the defaults provided by the plugin. It seems interesting that Yanfly's Options Core includes descriptions whereas the VisuStella version for MZ does not.

I haven't finished the demo yet but there's a couple of things that have popped up that I felt I should post about here:

1) I don't know if this is the game or due to RPG Maker or my notebook I'm playing on, or something else. In any case, the game has an issue where the screen will just freeze itself. The game itself seems to still be running: the music is playing, I can open the menu and tab around, and even move my character and interact with things, but I can't see anything going on. Sometimes it happens frequently enough where I'm repeating the same day over and over again because the game just freezes on me and I have to redo my progress, other times it doesn't happen for a while. I just thought I'd let you know.

2) On that subject, maybe it's just me but I feel the autosave could be a bit more liberal. That or it's bugged. I thought at first it was autosaving at the start of every day but I was a few days into Month 2 when I realized it was still autosaved in the middle of Month 1. Also, is there a way to Transio back to your Commons from the school or save while in the school and away from the Record Keeper? Have I just not unlocked either yet? (I know there's the crystal outside the Headmaster's office but that's kind of out of the way.) I understand if you wanna keep manual saves scarce to discourage save scumming, but perhaps a Record Keeper or save crystal near the entrance would make it less tedious to get around the school, or just more liberal autosaving.

Besides those two things I've been enjoying the game a lot! I really am enjoying the exploration and learning about the world, talking to the characters, the strategic combat focusing on elemental weaknesses (I love the SMT/Persona games so I'm right at home), and the actual weight decisions have. It's made me question everything I do in the game and I even initially missed out on the Thesis of Organs book because I was worried going into the cave before helping Uni might mess things up with her lol. There were a couple more things I had thought about that I'd like to ask:

-Regarding challenge runs like the Soloist run, have you thought about enabling a level 1 run too? Some way like an accessory you can equip to characters to prevent them from gaining any EXP, for example. I know this is kind of breaking with the theme of earning grades in a school but I personally love challenge runs and I just thought a Grade 1 Soloist run would be really interesting, especially since there's a greater emphasis on crafting to boost stats rather than leveling up. Not a suggestion, just something I wondered about!
-You've said Houses will have some exclusive stuff such as items and such, I was wondering is there going to be some kind of House Point system or competitions in the full game? Or are you going for something different than competition between the Houses? Again not a suggestion, I understand you're already putting a lot into this game, it was just something I was wondering about.

At the moment I'm at the intro to crystals class with Uni. She was asking me about what happened with Fejora's crystal and I was about to respond when the game screen froze unfortunately but the anxiety behind that question is real. Since I broke it despite her instructions and promised her I'd be truthful with her, it's making me sweat a little. Do I stay true to my word and tell her, potentially getting in trouble, or do I go against my word and lie to her, potentially saving my butt in the short term but maybe not the long term? There's no easy answer! I love it!

Good luck with finishing the game! I look forward to buying it day one of release! I have a long history with RPG Maker so seeing games like this come out for it makes me really happy. :) (And sorry for the really long message.)

This game rules!

On another note, I experienced a bug in the fight with the blue slime boss. I was unable to use items or healing on any character but Lunelle, in the second slot down.

You know the game seems rather interesting, but I would like to know what effects being in one of the houses are.

So I came back to this game after 0.8 dropped and I have to say that it was probably my best run.

I decided to take up the challenge of soloing the game and needless to say, I wasn't disappointed.

In case that anyone wants to know, I went for a Mag/Def build, Soulstice for the MP tea and got Earth as my primary magic. If anyone's interested, I can post a more in-depth soloing guide below.

Considering that the game shoves friends down your throat, I was still able to do goofy things like stealing Ein's spear before the first field class because I didn't want to use my staff or helping Alyssa and then straight up robbing her for her sword and never talking to her again.

After I finished soloing Xoclat during the Aura Breaks class, Ein and Alyssa (whom I never invited) magically appeared to drop off some words of concern. How nice of them.

The Mentor mission was really easy but it was still fun to learn the boss' patterns. I'd say that the toughest challenge I faced were the flowery fucks that poison you in Arashiya.

I grinded a ton because Arashiya easly gave you 300 EXP if you solo'd it and Xoclat gave up to 500 I think. At the end of my run, I managed to reach Grade 25 which was the highest my mental state could take.

Fun update, not very noticable changes 7/10.

I have uploaded 2 videos of Lawmage Academt (0.7.8) on YouTube which can be viewed on my Playlist, Lawmage Academy (0.7). Here I'll play Lawmage Academy and maybe do other videos such as the game I'm working on. Here are the first two videos:

Part 1

Was on this all night. I just didn't know it was a demo:( usually I don't play games like these.. but yeah it was really fun to play. There are a lot of things to do. I also like that you can "socialise" with teammates. I loved Jin the most<3 he's really cool :3 hopefully in the future maybe you can romance characters. 

I'm really sad it finished at the judges underground meeting. I'll check on this once in a while for updates:) 

Exciting project.

I just saw this news from RPG Maker MV's Steam page, Regarding future macOS support, meaning RPG Maker MV may have problems with later macOS versions due to the deprecation of OpenGL support, removal of 32-bit support since macOS Catalina, and possibly Apple moving from Intel Core to ARM M1. So far Windows and Linux (and possibly iOS and Android) aren't affected and should continue to work but it could affect RPG Maker MV games including Lawmage Academy on macOS especially on M1 Macs and/or Macs upgraded to macOS 11 Big Sur.

I suppose using RPG Maker MZ could be an option to support future macOS versions but it's not simple. While many graphical assets and most DLC for MV work in MZ, plugins for MV may not be compatible with MZ due to code changes. Additionally, some plugins like the ones from Fallen Angel Olivia are not available on MZ and although the VisuStella plugins could be used as a substitute for the Yanfly plugins, the VS plugins lack some of the features from the Yanfly plugins for example, VS Save Core doesn't have options to show Gold, Time, and Variables that Yanfly Save Core can.

Maybe sometime I might do a video playthrough of Lawmage Academy. I had played it twice (0.6 and 0.7) and it wouldn't hurt to play it a third time.

Great work on the game.

The Story is very interesting and had me going, the music & sounds are good, and the limited Voice-Acting was handled very well. Choices was very satisfying & having secret consequences for certain actions really made the world feel more alive.

Because the character I created and was playing as is a un-sociable, lonewolf who values wisdom & honor. I liked to do my missions solo unless the quest is to great for my character to handle alone. And because of this I noticed that many cutscenes and NPC dialogue was buggy as the game expected for me to have party members. 

For example: When my character has a bubble sometimes the other events who would normally be my other party members would also have bubbles even though no-one is there. And this is small & isn't very important but a lot of NPC's talk as if I have party members when in reality I'm alone.

One other big bug I encountered (It might just be my potato PC...) was that the screen would have this large yellow ball covering the entire screen it would never go away after it comes and it doesn't allow me to see anything, I opened the game with RPG Maker MV to investigate and I fixed the bug by disabling all of your Lighting Plugins. This isn't very important if the game works well on other PC's and this only happens to me.

I cant wait for full release & I'll want to buy the full version when it comes out. And I would like to have the permission to play the game on my YouTube Channel if you would like.

I've just started playing today and have only gotten as far the Combat Basics class, but I already love this game. The story is gripping from the start, the gameplay is a mix of a lot of the things I love from different RPGs but at the same time like nothing I've ever experienced before, and definitely has the potential to be a world-class game.

I don't know how far the demo is from the final product, but I'd like to back your game up with user research, at no cost, should you be open to this kind of support. Please don't hesitate to reach out to me if you'd like some help on this end.

Good luck and congratulations so far on the game's development! I hope Lawmage Academy gets the recognition it deserves as a masterpiece.

no issues or bugs on my end played through it for 4 hours and got to the end of the demo awesome work i do wish i had more options for my character and i do wish depending on grade level i could have a choice of a different color robe or uniform but still awesome story so far and what a cliffhanger!! lol

So this has happened numerous times where it sounds like there's dialogue, but it's not appearing, I can open the menu(it doesn't actually show up), but I then get suck in it, I can't move and all its showing is my character standing in place. Basically I can hear sounds, but I can't move or do anything at all, only thing that's fixed this is closing the game and opening again which means I have to start at my last save.

can play with only mouse?

I saw some comments about the game crashing when Syle confronts the first Fairy during the Aura Breaks class and I think I know why what it happens. In RPG Maker MV, the game keeps track of what images are used for the Face, Character, and [SV] Battler for the Actors which can be changed through the Change Actor Images command. When a new game is started, it loads the images as defined in the Actors database (data/Actors.json) to use as a default which it will also default to when Initialize is checked in the Change Party Member command. The purpose of this behavior is so the game keeps the images used for that actor for instances where the character may use a different graphic other than the default such as school/academy or wedding so that loading the game will use that graphic rather than default images.

I guess when you worked on 0.6, Uni was set to use Actor2_6.png (I guess it was a placeholder until Uni's graphic was done) which wouldn't be a problem since the player was only meant to use Syle, Ein, and Alyssa as well as Jin for one battle. However, 0.7 had Uni use a different graphic which Lawmage Academy should use but the problem is that 0.6 had her still use Actor2_6.png as the SV Battler so when you confront the Fairy, the game displays a Loading Error since Lawmage Academy is looking for Actor2_6.png. That's why starting a new game in 0.7 doesn't cause this error since Uni will use her proper graphic.

I tested this behavior by editing Actor 4 (who I named also Alyssa) of my project to use Alyssa.png as the Character, starting a new game and saving, changing Actor 4's Character back to the original, and removing the Alyssa.png file. By loading the save I made earlier, the game generated an error when I added Actor 4 which I could click Retry until the game crashed when I changed maps. If I Initialized Actor 4 (Alyssa) instead (or changed her graphics through the Change Actor Images before adding her), she would use graphic defined in the database thus the error doesn't occur.

When you start after the demo was left off and you go to the first battle (the Fairy) the screen pops up for meThe music just keeps playing and I've hit retry many times. Other than this problem, the parts of the game I've played are pretty good. I'm also very sorry that this problem for me is just now being spoken about but I stopped playing video games for a while because of school.

Thank you for making such an amazing game:)

I really like the learning system you made. The side characters are amazing too, with their unique personalities. I really think about how to spend the days in the Lawmage Academy, if I should go to sleep or study or work or which lesson should I attend. Very few games have made me really think about passing of time in the story. To tell the truth, it is a bit motivational for real life study, but I am not really sure how to explain why. 

(also what @chariotenjoyer said about being caught for stealing from villagers, really creative and I felt bad for it during the trial xD)

Also, I am happy to see that you are making the game better and better, played it some time ago and now came back to see the updates. There are many visual additions. Going to replay the game yet again to see the new stuff. The ability to make choices and rich story is everything to me, and this game gives it to me.

Thank you for your hard work and keep it up:)

I recently started playing the game and I have to say, I really like it so far. One of my favourite parts of the game was when the villagers caught me stealing potions during the exam. I never actually expected there to be consequences for taking the potions and it made me paranoid whenever I saw a chest.

One thing that somewhat bothers me is that so far I have never had any reason to put Lunelle in my team since she joins the player's team fairly late and I usually always pick Enheal for Syle in order to grind early game which makes her even less useful for me (This is already a problem without even mentioning the Enheal crystal you get from the donation quest later on). I won't disagree that the only reason I have this problem is because of my spell preference but I'm still hoping that Lunelle will have something that makes her more unique and more likely to be used in parties.

I liked discovering all the small things this game has to offer. For example, I was really surprised when I started the Lost ring quest because at the time I just wanted to browse shards while I had the ring equipped.

The only real problem I have is the fact that there is only one mission in the game right now but I guess it can't be helped since the game is still in development and putting in another mission in the 2nd month would probably mess up the time frame a bit.

Overall, the game is very good and I'm actually surprised that not many people know about it. Keep up the good work!

Right! I finished the demo a few days ago and that I REALLY enjoyed it! I'd been waiting to not play it until this recent update happened, and it was great! I love the feeling of the game, and how I can have each day play out different (I actually liked when I had a certain plan set for the day, and then I got curious about the person selling books outside of the main building which ended up taking my whole day's plans lmao). Battles are fun, and I'm excited to see what team compositions I can make in the future.

I've seen people point out the fairy shop error so I'll skip past that (especially if it's already been addressed ever since I played), but there is a name error where Jin seems to call you "Syle" no matter what (if that's also been solved... well ignore these observations).

...Also I love the gnome NPC's design, looks preeety familiar (in a good way)!

I just got into the fairy forest (I think), after falling down the bridge. and when I get into the fight with a fairy, I got this. :(

Hi, I played your game and really love it! Overall since I'm an architecture graduatee myself, I loved your chosen style and secret room.. somehow it's kinda clicked with their structure building. Your interior choice also really good, I must say they have a lot of clever motive too. 

I never thought our choice have that deep consequence, and I ended up playing both choice on the fairy village (break the crystal or not). And I must say I'm impressed! The dialogue was fun too. I kinda forget their NPC for a while~

It's really fun and I can't wait to hear the next progress soon. Thank you so much, Verinius. 

I was playing Lawmage Academy and I noticed some oddities:

• In Arashiya Forest (the area where Zelka teleports you to in Combat Basics), Syle can go through the tree on the bottom left of the map.

• In the same area where you encounter Sylvia during the first visit or the Fire Spirit (second visit), Syle can clip through the tree.

• After beating the Garuda in First Mission and talking to Lawmage Arendt (Drakewood House), there's a 0] after classes (it should say classes, not classes0]). Haven't tested with other Houses.
• You can "block" enemies from encountering you if they touch the follower but not Syle. It's actually an issue in all RPG Maker games since VX where players can use followers to block events from triggering (for example, a battle). Yanfly addressed this issue with Event Encounter Aids.
• I looked in the www folder and saw a folder named Character generator which is the JSON files for the characters you were creating. I suppose it was probably left over when you started working on Lawmage Academy. Since there's no JSON files for characters like Sylvia, I guess she and others not included were either added later in development or you moved on making your own character graphics when those characters were made. I assume the faces in early demos would use the CG faces but the current faces as of 0.6 uses the graphics from Puzxle. Also it appears that Ein was originally named Einsworth.

Loading Error At The Point Fairy Encounter 

I have played the demo of Lawmage Academy and enjoyed it, I haven't encountered any difficulties with the battles except for maybe the Golem and the final battle in Aura Breaks class which is impossible to win (interestingly, you'd still get a Game Over if you lose that battle). I like the game's tileset/graphics which stands out to other RPG Maker MV games using mostly the default assets, and I also like the idea of a magic school.

I was introduced to Sylvia in the Combat Basics class and she reminds me of Merula Snyde from Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery due to the way she views the students particularly Syle and Alyssa as weak and unworthy of being a Lawmage. Notable comparisons between Sylvia and Merula is that they have sabotaged their first classes (Combat Basics/Potions) and they want the main character (Syle & Alyssa/the player) to quit/drop out of their respective schools (Lawmage Academy/Hogwarts).

I noticed when I was doing battles is how confusing the characters' commands can be. In Lawmage Academy, the commands are issued by the order of the characters being able to act (similar to Final Fantasy X), not by the order of the party like in most RPG Maker MV games which could lead to you attacking with the "wrong" character if used to the default system. However, anyone who's played a game with a different battle system like MZ's Time Progress system will get used to the system in LA or any game using that plugin. Also for some reason, the mouse can select commands and use items/skills that target allies but it can't be used to select which enemy to attack.

Though people pointed it, I noticed there seems to be a flaw with the autosave where it can overwrite the current slot meaning you'd need to save in two slots. To be fair, RPG Maker MV doesn't have autosave out of the box and I think most autosave plugins including Yanfly's autosave plugin save in the same slot for manual saves. RPG Maker MZ does provide autosave which uses its own slot but it only autosaves on map changes and end of battles, and while MZ does allow enabling/disabling the autosave feature in the database, it doesn't (at least without plugins) provide options to enable/disable within the game similar to the Dash feature which can be disabled on maps but there's no way to disable/enable it through Events.

I also wonder if you plan on releasing Lawmage Academy on Linux because RPG Maker MV allows exporting to Linux as well as Windows and macOS, and both itch.io and Steam support Linux.

Would you be willing to put the game in early access on steam? I like to be able to buy the game without having to wait for it and support you as dev.

Or are you taking preorders that will allow users to have acces to the early builds as you make it then full game access? 

Do you know what you're pricing the game as? Like twenty or thirty bucks or so? 

I have finished the demo, and it was great! I even trying to be in each different dorms at different playthrough

I can't wait for the full game!

I love how the game is coming along keep up the great work!

I solved the problem-done worry about it! Plus I simply LOVE this game-its the best game I've ever played!