So for my first progress report of 2024 I'd like to start off with my progress on finishing up Valeria's skills and my plans for the next release thus far.

Talking about combat skills in a sexual dungeon crawler is probably not the most intriguing topic, and Valeria's defensive archetype is fairly straightforward so I won't spend too much time here.

Valeria's skill tree will focus on bolstering her defensive abilities, physical resistances and her crowd harassment proficiency. One of the unique abilities Valeria can gain is the option to call her partner Frei into battle with her, provided the party isn't full.

Frei is a character Valeria "rescues" over the course of the story in her original game that comes to operate as a sort of partner for Valeria.

Her personality is completely opposite of Valeria, she's a kindhearted, moral girl at heart which contrasts well I think. The good cop, bad cop dynamic is a classic trope and her dialogue in battle will reflect her relationship with Valeria and reacting according to what happens in battle.

Frei will be a computer controlled character, like Samara's Articulate fighter summon. If she falls in battle however Valeria will still be able to call Frei back in the next fight.

Frei's character level will scale directly to Valeria's so she won't need to accumulate exp. While in battle, Frei will focus on dealing instances of AOE damage to inflict statuses to enemy groups and pick off weakened enemies.
I'm intending to design her to be adapt at making powerful enemy groups more manageable in challenging encounters and generally weaken enemies overall.

Now the rules for challengers in The Serferus Realm are the same for Frei. In battles she'll be susceptible to Sexual attacks from common enemies and unique H-grabs from special foes such as The Dithonion.

Unlike the Articulate Fighter, Frei has no support abilities that can heal or buff the party, she'll also be fairly vulnerable to sexual attacks which could result in a quick defeat if the opponent specializes in them. Frei's a sensitive woman.

I unfortunately don't have any WIP art to share of this final detail, but if Valeria is defeated and captured with Frei, during the resulting H-battles, Frei will also be present in the scene as extra plunder for the victorious faction/enemy. She'll be visible in the Common H-battles, Bath scene, Wall-Duress and Dithonion H-scenes.

I'd again like to thank my friend over at the development of Valeria The Pagan Priestess. If their game or characters interest you please considering taking a look at their patreon, they also occasional commission nsfw art of the characters to share with the community.

Frei's inclusion in Valeria's skill tree is the last remaining complex component of her core character, after this is done Valeria will be considered a complete character like Journey and the others.

Over the course of February, aside from finishing that task I'll be working on Valeria and Brigit's Dithonion Subjugation, starting with the art for their H-battles and sprite animations.

I've done some rough sketches to figure out the poses, starting with Brigit. A new sub area will be added to the Waxing Peaks as well, similar to the expansion for Dr.Midday and Treu. 

I think I'll wrap up this progress update here, there's more I want to discuss in the next progress report so I've just got to pace myself for now. I can see the finish line for Version C in sight. The Dithonion subjugation has been the biggest commitment in this update so far but for me it's been completely worth the effort as I want subjugations to be a big part of the core experience in Lilith Descent.

So until next time, thank you for your very helpful support and feedback everyone, I'll see you again soon!

(づ｡ ◕ u◕｡) づ

With November coming to a close I've spent the last few weeks adding the remaining mechanics for the Dithonion hatchlings and finishing up Dr.Midday and Treu's Dithonion subjugation.

I'll be posting the next test version right after this update! There's a list of details about this release and my plans for December I'd like to cover.

With both of their H-battles and capture scenes for the Dithonion done, Dr.Midday and Treu can now fully interact with this subjugation scenario. Working on the both of them really helped bolster my confidence in initial characters I create scenarios for laying the groundwork for characters that follow after.

At that point it really is primarily down to creating the art for what's needed, with the scripts and events already laid out and tested.

If either or both of the ladies are caught by The Dithonion they can be found and rescued in the western area of the Waxing Peaks caves. The waxing peaks still aren't quite finished as there's still additional detail and interactables I want to add to tell a story about this area.

In the hud there's two new elements present as well. The first is a simple gauge that'll display the current health of the character(s) in the party, I added this primarily for the chase behavior of the Dithonion hatchlings that I'll elaborate on shortly. The second is a detection bar primarily for the Waxing peaks location.

I've noticed the addition of gauges and trackers can affect performance if they're too many, so I tested it repeatedly to try and find a balance. I originally wanted to display the Power and Resolve as well but I'll settle on just Energy for now.

Each time you're spotted by an enemy in that area, the bar will gradually rise, culminating in the alerting of the Dithonion. Causing the creature and any hatchlings to spawn and begin searching for you.

The hatchlings spawn based on how many are currently active, and should the Spawn mechanic be disabled in the options, the characters will not be impregnated by the Dithonion at all.

The hatchlings have the sight range of The fully grown Dithonion and will chase the player down and attempt to bite you. If they're successful, you're character will be held in place for a few moments and take a notable amount of damage, alerting the Dithonion at the same time, regardless of where it may be on the map.

If a character is currently captured by the creature while you continue to explore the dungeons and story. You may receive non-invasive notifications that appear when they're impregnated as the days add up.

You can of course decide not to rescue the character, which will allow the Dithonion ample time to populate and grow stronger. While there isn't a direct gameplay advantage just yet for doing this. A higher level Dithonion will offer more exp, and special item drops will be added to The Dithonion and The Hatchlings in the next update.

This year seemed like it flew by honestly. We're a few days shy of December but I do have plans to complete one more update release for next month essentially finishing Valeria's common H-battle, Wall-Duress H-battle and her Baths scene.

If things go smoothly I'd like to complete her skill tree as well. Starting January next year I should be gearing up to finish Brigit and Valeria's Dithonion subjugation, which will mark the last Dithonion test release.

After that point I'll turn my attention to the next floor story, enemies, boss and the animation update for the playable characters.

I'm really excited, Lilith Descent is steadily shaping into the small game I originally set out to create.

I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who's come along over the course of this year. I never honestly expected my little perverted game to interest half as many people as it has. It's goddamn wild to me but I'll always be grateful for this experience, long after the game is completed.

I'll keep putting my heart into this game until I can call it a full release. Thank you for your support throughout this year! 
(づ｡ ◕ u◕｡) づ

Over the course of October I've reached the last portion of tasks for the next version I plan to release November that'll include Treu and Dr.Midday's Dithonion Subjugation, as well as a few other additions.

I'd like to go over everything coming within this update post.

All of Dr.Midday and Treu's CG art for the Dithonion H-battle is complete at last, in fact the last piece of "art" relevant to them is their captured Sprite Art.

As we can see, the good Doctor and Treu have fairly different reactions to the big lizard. The juxtaposition is always a highlight for me. Now with that being said I'd like to get into the game's performance in battle.

I've gone about the systems and eventing to optimize the scripting and clean out redundant calls and checks that have smoothed out the system performance, so I'm hoping the change will be noticeable on your end as well.

I've include an awesome new plugin that's allowed me to extend the options menu in the game. I'll be using it to give more customization over certain aspects of the gameplay that should make the experience more comfortable.

The first gameplay setting I've included relates to "spawns". I've talked about it in passing before but impregnation will play a role in gameplay, starting with the November release.

Currently only the Dithonion will have a chance to impregnate a captured character during instances of time passing, such as traversing the dungeon chambers and floors.

Each character has a unique, currently static fertility stat that's rolled against the Dithonion's impregnation check to determine if Hatchlings will be produced. There's no visual aspect to this occurrence right now and it'll occur entirely off screen. I'm still trying to determine if I could possibly implement a visual element of any kind.

When a hatchling is spawned, they'll then join the Dithonion in hunting and battle. The amount of active hatchlings will be tracked in the background and their numbers can be thinned out by defeating them in battle or snatching eggs from the waxing peaks.

As an extra mischievous little addition, currently for each single existing Hatchling, The Dithonion will gain one extra level in battle.

This entire mechanic can be toggled on or off in the new options menu at anytime.

That just about covers this update. With October drawing to a close, my next update in November will be the next test release. I'll be jumping back to the pixel art for the sprites and finalized Waxing Peaks zone.

Until then, take care and thank you for your support and feedback!  (づ｡ ◕ u◕｡) づ

So I'd like to pin this week with a small update on my progress so far in the Dithonion Test builds phase. The next build I'm planning to release hopefully next week will contain some smaller fixes and additions I've worked on over the course of the last week

I'll briefly cover that and my plan toward the next test build after that.

I've discovered from some players and personal testing that enemy skills in H-Battles were being spammed without any mix up or variety, which was definitely caused by my mistakes setting up the give-in command with the H-Battle system. Additionally, giving in will greatly increase the odds that enemies and partners won't reward exp at the battle's conclusion.

That was first thing I worked because it led to all kinds of odd behaviors if the battles lasted long enough so now that shouldn't be a problem any longer. I'm also working on numbers adjustments to increase sexual grapples in regular combat so I've increased the min and max length for enemies to hold the 'Horny' status.

The larger addition I've been working on for this update however was recommended to me by JustABrowser.

Essentially this addition has 3 small parts. If the battle is lost or you've escaped and a party member is still standing and others are captured, provided you've met Madam Cartigi, you'll receive the option to immediately plan their rescue or transition into their escape.

Also after finishing a Subjugation H-Battle, in this case The Dithonion's, you'll receive the option to give up on the character for the time being or switch to another character. You can even switch to the same character again, causing a day to pass.

Now if a character is Broken, they will no longer be able to escape on their own although you can continue to experience their sex scene for as long as their captor has them.

After I release this next test build I'm going to begin adding the additional details and spaces for the Dithonion's area. I intend for it to be maze like and not all characters will be held in the same area. That's when I plan to include Treu and Dr.Midday's subjugation scenes and then after them I plan to finish up with Brigit and finally Valeria who'll be in a more complete state like the others to play test.

While I've been focusing on the Subjugation mechanic I planned to save Valeria for the very end of these updates but she has been in a playable state for sometime now so I think I'll include an option in next week's update to play test with her for anyone willing to try her incomplete state missing her H-Battles and Skill Tree.

And if like Valeria's design and character, please consider visiting the creator's Patreon or twitter if you'd like to support them!

https://www.patreon.com/ValeriathePaganPriestess/about

https://twitter.com/ValeriaPriestes

That's all I have for this week's progress update. I'm beginning to pick up more momentum as I go along thanks to everyone's help and support. So thank you as always and I'll see you next week! 
(づ｡ ◕ u◕｡) づ

I'm finally able to release the first test build for the Dithonion roaming boss, which includes the first iteration of the Subjugation capture system and other additions and changes I've been working on, so let's get right to it.

I'd like to explain a few things about this first build that I've covered previously at different times. Essentially this build is laying the ground work for what is one of Lilith Descent's last main pillars of gameplay I wanted to include without compromise, that being the Subjugation System and to a lesser extent, roaming bosses.

With this I can comfortably plan out things like brands and subjugations by factions like bandits for an example.

This build centers around the inclusion of the Dithonion and it's Subjugation area, The Waxing Peaks. Although I don't consider the waxing peaks finished, there's still plenty of details I have in progress to include for the final build of version.c, what's presented serves more as a base line of sorts.

Now for a small list of things to look out for in this test build.

There's more I'm going to include within the change log of the build release post but that should cover the main things I'm looking out for. If everything works dynamically without any errors cropping up I'll be getting to work on Treu, Dr.Midday and Brigit's Subjugation scenes.

With that, thank you for being patient with the release delay and I hope you'll have fun with the new build! I'll be back later next week with a follow up post. (づ｡ ◕ u◕｡) づ

I'd like to apologize firstly for failing to meet the mark I set for myself this month as I'll unfortunately have to delay the release of the Dithonion test build for a few days.
While I was checking the build I found that some of the last new area visuals were not up to a quality I'm comfortable with.

All of the art for Samara and Journey's H-Battle, The Special battle Sex grapple art for the girls and Samara's broken state dialogue variations are completed along with the mapping of the new area.

I'll be using these days to clean up the map art and finalize any smaller details that need another pass over this weekend so a hopefully stable and presentable build will be ready for release next week. 

Thank you as always for your support everyone, I've got a bit more work that needs tending to!