Not much to report this week. I've been busy wrapping up the final bits of programming and artwork in preparation for a release within the next week or so.
Some placeholders will need to be used to make the game fully playable, but aside from that, this should mark the first stable release moving forward.
On a positive note, I’ve found someone willing to create original music for the game, which means I won’t need to rely on generic music packs or AI-generated tracks anymore.
Here’s the updated battle music that will be featured in the game.
The battle system is more or less complete. Every character now has a defined role within the party, with distinct traits and abilities:
A unique skill set (e.g., Gatoraid uses Shotgun Ammo).
A singular unique ability (e.g., Horlicks regenerates MP at the cost of HP).
A character biography offering insight into their past and personality.
A Tarot sign tied to the plot, which will eventually grant a limit break during battle (this is a work in progress, but the foundational system is already in place).
A racial description and passive racial trait, providing combat bonuses (e.g., Snapple is a Powrie, so she gains limited HP regeneration at 50% HP and strength bonuses the closer she is to death).
A corporeal element, which determines how classical elemental damage affects them.
An Ascendant element, which governs how divine or unholy damage affects them.
All of these data points also apply to enemies, defining their strengths and weaknesses.
Both players and enemies have status ailment data implemented, which are passively influenced by abilities. Examples include:
Liptun’s ability to steal.
Horlicks’ lightning-based stun attack.
Gatoraid’s ability to set enemies on fire using phosphorus rounds.
Snapple’s ability to bless her mace with elemental charges to exploit enemy weaknesses.
Minothots’ ability to gore (causing bleed) and trample (causing stun).
On the Subject of Monsters:
There are plans for two types of roaming enemies...
Seduction-based encounters, featuring sexy scenes (Minothots in this case).
Standard roaming monsters, which drop crafting materials and gold used to upgrade gear, purchase trinkets, or shop for food and other essentials.
The only Minothot scene currently nearing completion is Scene One, which I’ve previewed below to demonstrate how the system functions. As players progress through the dungeon, they’ll unlock skin tones, clothing options, and hairstyles-allowing for randomly generated Minothots with each seduction.
Only the first two scenes will be available in this release. Further scenes are unlocked by how many times a player seduces or woos them after defeating them.
It’s taken a lot of wrangling with the data systems, but now that the foundations are solid, I can finally update the story at a steady pace (if you’re religious, please pray for this). The next update is hopefully dropping around the end of this month.
Whilst writing the latest questline, I encountered a problem regarding dialogue. In the current release of the game, the first party member you can recruit—Snapple—is optional, with almost no dialogue of hers appearing in any quests (kind of boring, really).
My intention was to create a system wherein dialogue routes would open up during scenarios if certain members were present—or absent—in the party. This, however, proved to be a massive headache due to the sheer number of possible combinations such a system would require. It also meant that none of these conversations could include crucial information, since players without a specific character in their party might miss something important.
The only viable option was to rewrite this portion of the game to improve the overall flow. As a result, the party system has been completely overhauled. Rather than beginning quests and recruiting along the way, the player is now required to find three additional party members before questing begins.
These mini-quests—featuring the nurse, the thief, and the nun—are small interactions that introduce each character’s personality prior to them joining the party. Afterward, the player selects the party formation (order) from within their home. This mechanic also lays the foundation for the party romance system, which is currently in early planning with a solid framework for future implementation.
The formation system affects dialogue variations among the characters in the third to fifth party slots. New dialogue has been added to existing quests, which have also been slightly expanded or modified.
The next hurdle I'm tackling is the battle system—making the numbers make sense and getting the cast members to behave in battle the way I want them to. Each character has a unique role that brings something different to the party dynamic. Liptun, for example, can steal.
As more recruitable characters are added to the roster in future updates, my goal is to allow players to recruit them early in the game, enabling more interactions with their favourite characters throughout the main story. Of course, this will depend on how it impacts the core narrative—but here's hoping!
Multiple dialogue variants depending on party order.
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