Hey there, time for another General Update.

Last month, while not very focused on new content, did introduce some large changes and necessary mechanics, along with lots of bug hunting and preparation for what comes next. The largest changes were the design of the Main Menu, introducing death to the game, and of course the Gallery mode.

The introduction of a death mechanic also came with it a sense of how the game will play. So far the general consensus that I've seen is that enemies hit too hard, and that some hitboxes are rather difficult to avoid. These things, along with how combat works in general, is always going to be a work in progress, so if you experience the combat and think that it is too difficult or perhaps it doesn't flow in a way that you prefer, keep in mind that it is very subject to change depending on feedback. The next build will address these concerns, at least regarding enemy damage and hitboxes. I myself find the player's combat to be somewhat clunky but that's a different beast entirely when it comes to making changes to it, but a combat overhaul, at some point in the future, is likely going to be necessary (I just don't know when).

Looking forward there are two main tasks that I want to focus on next. The first being the creation of a tutorial system, as along with this will come some essential features like dialogue and cutscenes. It'll be a rather large undertaking, but one that needs to happen and I'd rather it be sooner than later.

The second thing I want to focus on, and something that has been brought up quite a lot, are customizable keybinds. As of this moment I'm not 100% certain on how to do it, but it is likely a simpler thing to do than I suspect. If time permits I'll also make a few different layouts for the keybinds if you'd rather use one that I design instead, and one of these will of course be a one-handed layout.

I can't speak too much of what might be beyond these two features, but there are several things I need to get done regardless. One is of course the ability for a second enemy to be able to join into a H-scene, that one however is going to be one of the largest tasks ahead of me. Though if I get the tutorial and keybinds done this month, next might just be focusing on getting new enemies into the game, some of the ones that have already been previewed here at least.

That's it for now. As always a big thank you to anyone, past or present, that supports the project!

Okay, here's the new PublicBuild. Immediately to note is that there is perhaps not as much new content in this build but a lot of bugs and features were worked on instead (it's at least coming out sooner than usual). One thing to immediately note is that your HP is no longer infinite and that you can die. Dying places you into endless H-scenes until you choose to respawn. The main menu has seen a makeover too, it's still not final but it looks a lot better now. Mashing is a little bit easier as I noted some complaints about it, please let me know if it needs a further nerf. There is a Gallery mode but I've decided to make it the sole feature that is exclusive to the MainBuild, to make up for this both builds will now always have the same amount of enemies as usually the PublicBuild has one less than the MainBuild. I'll be keeping my eye on feedback regarding this.

Several bugs were fixed, but here were the main ones; You can no longer get squished under the elevator and out of the map, H-scenes and enemies should no longer bug out if you fall down amidst more than one enemy. The mashbar should now properly reset after a H-scene. Pressing pause and then unpausing while navigating menus should no longer freeze the game for a short period. While paused and entering a different menu, the game should now remain paused.

10 enemies in total, resulting in 30 H-scenes.

Memories - These are orb-like items that can be collected. They appear in the Memories section of the pause menu. Their purpose has yet to be implemented.

Red Key - There's a red key at the top of the Servant Quarters that'll unlock a couple doors. One of these doors will open the boss room (boss not yet included), the other will open the entrance to the dungeon. There is a third door that leads to a currently unimplemented merchant room. Note that there are Purple Doors that are not in fact Red Doors.

A - Left

D - Right

W - Jump

S - Crouch/Escape

J - Scythe

K - Kick

L - Backdash

R - Pause

E - Interact

You're unable to use crouch attack while crouched under a ceiling in a tight space.
The air kick doesn't work yet.
Coins fly everywhere, it's something of a feature though, I kind of like it.
Sometimes the elevator will be off its destination by a tiny fraction.

Advice

Press R in-game, it has some handy notes and the controls are listed there.

The blue-haired maid will delete your stamina if you attack her when she's not stunned. Watch for the blue flash, and when she reaches you, press K to parry her kick with your own. She'll be vulnerable in her stunned state.

When you reach the Statue room there's a few things to note for direction. Upper left will take you to the Servant Quarters. Upper right (and upper-er right) have the save and teleport rooms. Bottom right is the entrance to the dungeon, you'll need the Red Key in the Servant Quarters to open it.

Press E on the lever next to the elevator shaft/grate to call for the elevator. Control the elevator with Up and Down respectively when it has come to a stop.

Yup, I'm on Subscribestar now thanks to some questionable decisions by Patreon on the behalf of payment processors that really have no business dictating what is and isn't allowed.

But welcome to another General Update! Well, the first here, but still. I didn't want to post anything on April 1st just in case, so it's a day late.

Last month saw the inclusion of three new enemies and 9 new H-anims to the game, and it's getting to the point now where there are quite a lot of H-anims to find throughout what is currently available for the game.

That being said, here's the plan for the coming month.

The priority for April is to get a Gallery function implemented into the game. The Gallery mode will be exclusive to the MainBuild. The Gallery will feature every H-animation currently in the game, and you won't need to unlock it. The reasoning for this is that there is quite a large amount of people that would rather just see the animations, and if I make it so you had to unlock them then the only thing that'd result in is people trading save files. Since the game is going through big changes due to still being early in development a reliance on save files isn't going to be great, so instead of giving people a headache with that I'd rather just keep the Gallery scene unlocked by default for those that just want that kind of content immediately.

The secondary priority for April is to try get some kind of Death feature functioning. Now, as much as I'd love to be able to give a detailed and nice gameover CG or the like, I'm simply not yet confident enough in my art to be able to do it justice. Currently the main idea is to have death result in being locked into an endless downed state, vulnerable to H-scenes, until the Player decides to respawn in a save room. You won't have to reload anything, so progress will be kept, but you will have to at least walk back to where you were. I think for now this is a good compromise for not punishing the player too harshly for being defeated, and in the future Death will likely be revisited for GameOvers and such.

If these two priorities are completed relatively quickly I'll see to trying to implement some kind of tutorial, as there are a number of people who are often left asking if there's any kind of goal to complete, or even just how the game works. A tutorial may help with this, but it may also include other foundational systems I'll eventually need to implement either way like some manner of cutscene function, for both tutorial, story, and dialogue with NPCs.

There is of course always a lot more planned, bug fixes included, but for the time being this is what'll be getting worked on. There's been a few mention of stuff like keybinds and the like, and I do want to include those at some point along with other options for volume and resolution and the sort, but as mentioned before this is all a first time thing for me. If ever you find yourself asking 'why is X like this?' it's either because it's not finished or simply because I haven't taken the time to figure out how to do it yet. If I want to work on a new system the first thing I do is research how other games did it, along with looking at various examples on youtube and the sort.

That's all for now. As ever, a big thank you to the supporters!