Major Update Release v0.0.5.0
Hello guys! We're finally releasing the next build for the game therefore; I'd like to start by apologizing for the wait!
This update has been a huge technical undertaking, but we think it's been worth the effort.
We also initially wanted to release it along with some more scenes and dialogues but due to the sheer scale of technical stuff that went into it, we decided it's best for you to feel it out before we dive deeper.
So, that's good news for the next upcoming update! It will also be a pretty big one in terms of actual content and we're already making solid advances on it, definitely look forward to it!
That's it from me! Here are the notes:
Systems & Mechanics
- Added New Feature: Relationships & Bond Tracking. A new Relationships screen shows a card per character — their portrait, the hearts you've earned, and a hint toward the next one.
- Forming a first bond plays a one-off "New relationship formed!" card, and each new heart plays "Relationship Level Increased!".
- Added New Mechanic: Cooking. At a kitchen — her house or the merc camp — the Cook button opens a new menu. Click ingredients to add them, click a known recipe to fill it in one go, then Make Dish. Cooking costs no time, and dishes stack in a new inventory tab.
- Recipes are taught by books bought at the market. Only the Basic Food Ration is known from the start.
- Ingredients matching a recipe Maleena doesn't know produce an improvised version — a tier lower, weaker, and it never earns a favorite bonus. Recipes are worth finding on your own; the book is worth buying to cook them properly.
- (Dev Note: shops no longer sell cooked dishes — only the Basic Food Ration)
- Added New Mechanic: Eat alone, or share. Eating alone is free and unlimited. Sharing costs one time-block, is capped at one meal per person per day, and is only offered for characters Maleena has met (and formed a relationship with).
- A shared meal pays bonding points by dish quality, 2 to 5. Each character has a favorite meal worth +2.
- Serving someone the same dish twice in a row gives fewer bonding points. Their favorite is exempt.
- Added New Mechanic: Meals buy a morning-after bonus. Eating stages a flat stat bonus that lands at the next day-roll and lasts one day, so you have to keep eating to keep it. Quality sets the payout, 0 to +3 — a plain ration fills her up but pays nothing. The best meal of the day counts. (Dev Note: being Full or Healthy no longer hands out a free +2 / +1 to every stat — that bonus is now earned with a meal.)
- A new game starts with food. Maleena begins with five rations' worth of ingredients.
- Implemented new popup system for tips and warnings.
- New tip comes up the first time Maleena becomes hungry.
Story & Quests
- Kael now has a full portrait. More dialogue with him is in the works.
- Added New Scenes: Shared meals. The first meal Maleena cooks for Kael and the first for Karie each plays their own scene. Every meal after that plays a short one naming who she ate with and how much the bond moved.
Bug Fixes
- Popups wait for the screen to finish fading in. Quest and warning notices could appear mid-fade on arriving somewhere new.