I said I wouldn’t make another massive level, and then I made the open plains.

The plains are a very wide open, empty space, and its rolling hills and spread out loot, is now added to the game. It FEELS like a sprawling open space, but that’s not necessarily a great feeling in this game format. Hopefully there are enough unique assets and points of interest to keep it engaging but honestly, I could double the points of interest in the future and make it feel more... WORTH exploring. It’s definitely the first area that drops big environmental story hints.

GALEM WINS the monthly monster poll. Her, and Pebs are finished in this update and will be stomping IN to the monster lineup. Pebs can only be caught in the open plains.  

MONSTER DROP: The first WIND type is swooping in, she is, predictably, a bird. She wields the first ever WIND element move: Razornado. Which is also the first move which is one word, weirdly enough. Pippin, her unevolved form can only be found in the open plains. 

NEW MONTHLY POLL:

I hope you’ve all enjoyed huge breasts and chubby monster girls because WIND type is going to get fleshed out, and these avian chicks are bringing JUSTICE. (Well maybe not vulture).

This month’s poll is between the VULTURE AND THE RAVEN, both carrion eaters, they are well suited to living in the wide open plains, which are littered with the bones of (hopefully) long dead monsters and people. The Raven wears a blindfold out of respect for the dead, and judging by vultures expression she doesn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks. I think both these turned out great, and whoever loses the election will have to be a future redemption poll challenger. 

Monster special moves damage upgraded from 20dmg base to 25dmg.

Caves are less dark. 

Fixed: In an earlier hotfix I corrected the Kihikihi fight and Mamamole fight to offer the correct monster when the fight is won. GET OUT OF HERE DRUII.

BUG: Don’t have a monster mount a scout in the stables and then pull the monster out and then jiggle them around your roster. The game gets really confused about where this monster is when you do this. 

The game also gets confused (still) in general about the party slots. If you start doing weird shit in there, I will be looking into this, and you won’t be able to mount a monster then pull them out of the stables while they are mounted in the next update.

Camping and questing is coming. It has to come at the same time, which will almost certainly be this month.

THE GOTH has won the vote to be the Fire Scout, everyone please welcome CINDER, who is now in the game, ready to lose battles and breed monsters in the new, fantastic feature...

CERBERUS, and its unevolved form: CERBERPUP, won their monster poll and are added to the game.

Voting on the fourth scout, NORMA, begins:

Voting on the January monster, the next VEG type monster begins, it is between a Cervitaur, and a Dryad. 

The Achievements script is now also tracking how many battles you lose, how many you flee, and how many you WIN. It is also tracking how many days you have survived (easy since theres no day night cycle and not obedience / calories mechanic) and its tracking how many monster births occur... So that's a hint on the next slew of Achievements coming in February. 

There is a new Zone, the bright forest. Although it isn’t loaded with brand new assets it feels good to have more than one significant area in the game. I have decided I will add the DARK FOREST, next month, the area to the LEFT of the starting zone it will be much smaller though since you won’t get the abilities needed to traverse it until later (also you might notice some closed cave looking things on the maps, strange). 

When the player resets their run the party is healed to half HP. Hopefully this ends the confusion for players who think they are getting inta-lossed after losing one scout and then NOT healing their party. 

Stables V1 are working.

Stables V1 are working.

Stables V1 are working.

Q: Why was it such a big deal for the stables to get done why couldn’t the game’s first alpha have it?

A: Pregnancy is fucking complicated. In order to support the stables a load of other systems have to exist; multiple scouts need to be in the game for it to make sense, I need to track the status of the wombs of each scout, there needs to be a clock to track the countdown to birth, there needs to be a REASON to breed the scouts, meaning genetics needs to be in play, stud monsters need to be stored in a whole new storage system. Eggs need a whole storage system and hatch time system. BASICALLY, there’s a ton of shit that needs doing and a load of new variables that need to be tracked that cannot be considered ‘normal’ monster catching boiler plate code.

 

Monster genetics V1 are now in play. There’s a 10% chance a monster may be born with GOOD genetics, and then a 10% chance that might result in EXCEPTIONAL genetics, and then a 10% chance that a monster will have PERFECT genetics. Monsters never parent monsters with worse genetics. Each of these genetics bonuses confer increasing blanket stat boosts. ALSO a monster descended from a scout will have a higher max obedience, and can EAT MORE BOOST FRUITS (not in the game yet). 

The stables still need a lot of work to be more usable, like the ability to tab over offspring and studs to see the genetic boons they have unlocked. Necessary since I know you degenerate fucks are like me and will will be farming out our heroines to create monsters with perfect genetics on a semi-industrial scale. Furthermore I think I will be introducing a new mechanic soon that will allow you to collect genetic samples and help ensure you are ALWAYS inching closer to genetic upgrades for your offspring, just by mass reproducing. Since it feels bad to lay a load of eggs, get no boosts, and then release a load of monsters. At least the BUG types (so far) have the OVIPOSITOR keyword allowing the bug type to LOAD UP your poor lost scouts with offspring. To compensate for Bugs being good early game breeders, I think they will eventually need to be a bit weaker in combat.

Loads of features I would love to add here, animated pregnant sprites, pregnant sprites of further size, pregnancy TYPES other than just eggs, and of course, animated births. So speaking of bugs, get to it, lets get to breaking this update so I can get to patching it. 

Combat now announces when a SUPER effective hits are scored, all of the future element types are included in the calculus.

The XXX animations in combat now get faster as the monster approaches climax, finishing up with a drastic jump to x3 speed. Makes the countdown feel more desperate (and the monsters more frantic to breed). I was shocked by how much I enjoy this one little change.

The Bee, Wolf, Sheep, and Cerberus monster lineages are now exclusively found in the BRIGHT FOREST area. As more areas are added the monsters will be spread out between them, but starting zones like Rosdew will always be quite populated with a diverse array of monsters so that runs will feel varied. 

Fixed Warwolf’s lore, which now displays correctly. Not bad for work done over a Christmas break. 

I want to keep a record here on Subscribestar about all the things I am adding to the game. ONE of the things I added early this month were two new monsters pictured here!

Okay here is what I have settled on for STABLES V1 (as it has developed):
Monsters have X-Stamina they regenerate some every day.
Scouts gestate and give birth to eggs exclusively for now. Eggs will remain in a hatchery for now.
You can see the first 12 studs, first 12 offspring and first 12 eggs in the stable, bunks, and hatchery respectively. You can release a creature as a stud or egg or offspring. You can move studs or offspring into your party if there's an open slot.
Eggs eventually hatch into monsters considered offspring and move into a bunk.
A day lasts about 4 minutes in EGGOMON (you will be able to alter this in future versions). For now I think pregnancies will last 1 day and eggs will remain as eggs for 2 days. So 12 minutes real time from monster banging to getting your new baby monster with better genetics.

Here is a preview of the scouts vote next month: NORMA

Using my executive powers I have decided that the first 4 scouts will all share this body shape, and the next 2 scout, (bug and rock (which are far away)), are going to have a new body shape; they will be short stacks. For now, I am showing you a preview because I wanted to ask; Do you think the visor is too much? Note; I'm not asking if the GUN is too much, my question is about the first options visor.