Making Chrono Break!

[ANLevant]

Hey Guys! I've bee n following Chrono Compendium since I was 10, and now I'm 27. I finally decided to create an account in the forums! I wanted to chat, and get to know other Chrono Lovers, but I also have another objective in mind, which you may want to hear about.

I want to make chrono break.

I'll write my story here so you guys can see why I'm capable of tackling such endeavor. If you're just interested in reading my idea, skip my personal story and jump right to the end of the post.
 
-----MY STORY-----

I was born in Colombia to a middle class family, and I had several problems in school because it was hard for me to find my place there. Everyone had to fit the mold, in Colombia religion is a most in schools, and all of this didn't quite fit with me, so while others were out doing friends and kid's life, I was inside playing videogames. I started playing on the SNES, but oddly enough, I didn't got to know the Chrono series until I had a PSOne, with Chrono Cross, and after with the Chrono Trigger Remaster, and it changed my life. Chrono cross became my favorite game ever, and since it was in english, which was not my mother language, I learned english to be able to enjoy it even more, and I'd set up every month to finish the game once again, just to keep the fond memories in my heart.
The dialogs with NPCs, the tone of the game, the beautiful landscapes, the amount of secrets and characters, it really inspired me. And it actually changed me as a person: I tried to go outside more, see this world with my own eyes, make friends, get to know people.
Once I finished school and went to the university at the age of 15, i didn't had any second thoughts on what I wanted to do: To make a living on making videogames.
But this is not something you can just do in Colombia, in fact, this is kinda only an option in rich countries, so I created this elaborate plan: I figured if I could become a programmer and become skilled enough, I would be able to get out of the country and switch industries to finally become a videogame designer. And that's what I setted myself to do.
It's been 12 years now, but the plan worked: I live now in Canada. I'm a videogame developper working for Beenox, and I have a couple of game jam games under my belt, and I run a small hobby game dev team. After all these years, I think I've finally prepared myself for the next challenge, something that has been on the back of my head for quite some years.

-----CHRONO BREAK-----

So this is the stuff: Chrono Break (or Chrono Brake) was supposed to be the next game of the franchise (this is speculation) since a mark was registered in the Us and Japan, but both of those are long since expired and the project is abandoned. since they expired, this means that anyone can now go ahead and use these names. Which is where us, the Chrono community, come in.
I think we can make the third game we've all been waiting for, we can co-write the story with all the community and lead a game design project, as long as we avoid touching the Square Enix registered trademarks or anything that would be a copyright infringement. That means we can't use names, or direct references in the game to characters, but this doesn't mean we can't  do indirect references, in fact, Chrono Cross did pretty much that almost all of the game with Chrono Trigger.
I'm looking for people with the expertise and will to join the dev team to tackle this project! please do write if you're interested on the topic, and just wanna discuss, or if you want to involve directly and you're a:

- Lawyer Proficient in USA or Japan Laws
- 3D Modeler
- C++ Developer
- Concept Artist
- Writer
- UI Artist
- Game Designer
- Musician

Thanks for your attention guys, keep dreaming!

[Beach Bum]

A necro that nobody will probably ever read, but I feel like you deserve some clarification as to why this post got almost a 1000 views but no replies.

People have tried to make Chrono Break in the past, some of them probably more talented than you (no offense).

There was a guy called Chains of Fate (I forget his real name) who probably came closest with his project called Chrono Crisis. Despite it being called that, it was pretty much what he thought Chrono Break would have been. He had some pretty talented people working on that, but eventually, it still went nowhere. See, making a game like this takes years. It takes more than that rush of passion you feel at the beginning. It requires people that can deal with the grind, with doing the most boring mindless tasks day after day. That might be fine if you get a paycheck for it. But doing it for free, and combining it with your personal life and actual career? It's insurmountable. It's definitely not something one, or two, or five people can do.

Anyway, Crisis went nowhere and some of the people who still had some passion for the project split off into something called Chrono Ark. This didn't get anywhere near as far as Crisis did before it died, because once again, the insurmountable task that is making a game like this + personal life + career.

I think many people have wanted to make Chrono Break in this community at some point or another. Some of them probably made an attempt. But pretty much all of them realize how nigh-impossible it is to do before getting anything significant done.

Then there's the legal trouble. There's no way you could make a game like this without getting sued. You could make it devoid of any references to prior games, but then nobody would care about it. If you did use characters or locations from prior games, you'd definitely be ordered to cease and desist.

Now let's say everything above would not be a problem. Your Chrono Break would still never be actually Chrono Break. That's because only the series' writer, Masato Kato, knows what he wanted to do with Chrono Break. Only he knows the story he was going to tell. If the writing comes from anyone's fingers but his, it will never be Chrono Break. Even if you're the most hardcore group of fans out there, a lot of it will still simply feel like fanfiction (see Crimson Echoes).

You've made a few gamejam games? That's cool. So did I when I was in school. It's nowhere near what you would need to take on a project like this. And anybody who has the skills required to pull it off isn't gonna spend their time on something like this when they have themselves and probably a family to sustain.

Keep dreaming, but give up on the idea of ever making Chrono Break. Maybe Square Enix / Masato Kato will revisit the Chrono franchise at some point.

[metaphysical]

If it's your dream project, which it sounds like it is, then you should do it! But the name "Chrono Break" poses several problems:

• Chrono fans will expect a Chrono game. They'll want to see their favorite characters, or some tie-in to CT/CC. And you can't do that without potentially getting shut down by Square Enix
• I don't think that Chrono Break/Brake ever had a definite design. In interviews, devs say that some features made it into other games, like Final Fantasy Dimensions II. But they also say that the dev team had competing versions of the plot, and that Square management didn't approve their script. Basically, why Break/Brake failed to materialize in the first place. And if the original devs couldn't make a coherent sequel, it's going to be even harder for a single writer.

My advice is to strike out, make your own game, try to outdo Chrono Trigger itself. Try to make the best game of all time. Don't limit yourself to something as narrow as a CT/CC sequel.

Now the real question is, do you want to make money from this? If no, then your best bet is to just write the story/plot/setting and hope to inspire programmers and maybe some artists to follow you.

[Redline57]

Always remember you cant get blood from a stone. even if they sue you, if your broke, nothing changes really. i for one wouldnt worry about Square, theyre not Colt.