Progress Report 2022.01.11

Hi friends,

Happy January! I hope everyone had a good holiday and a good New Year’s.

Game Updates

The month is really flying by for me. I’ve been a bit quiet since getting the alpha build update out as soon as possible is my number one priority right now. I finished drafting the party sequence a few days into January. Since then, I’ve done most of my personal edits, the draft has been proofread by my editor, and I’ve started coding. Currently, I have about 60% of the new material coded. It’s taking a lot longer to code this section than I anticipated, but this section is extremely content dense and some of its code is more complex than usual because of the way the non-linear sections overlap.

[New Exploration map for Episode 2]

In addition to the new content, I’ve fixed a couple of small bugs/errors and I am working on a number of UI edits and revisiting some mechanics

• Chapters are now called “Episodes”
• Light mode has been updated with a slightly different colour scheme
• Made a few minor changes to the new game screen
• Added a toggleable autoname system for save files which will state the player character’s name, their current chapter, and their current location in the chapter (if you’re playing on the itch.io app, you’ll be able to use the browser saves now)
• Level ups are still determined by your health status at the end of the chapter, but the RNG factor has been removed. Full Health will receive 3 skill points and Injured/Healing/Recovering will received 2 skill points.
• Replaced the Skill progress bars with badges that show your skill’s current level number

[Dark mode skills]

[Light mode skills]

I am working on a refresh of the status effect system. While some of the seeds for this were in place before with the Poison status, I’ve finally worked out a way to implement buffs and debuffs. Buffs and debuffs will be applied to the player’s stats when they reach different story outcomes, and they will also be used to track different flavour text relating to the buff/debuff.

There are five buffs (called Vitalities) and debuffs (called Ailments). These status effects are temporary and will wear off either with time (usually indicated by a chapter change) or if the player locates the correct item to remove the effect (as in the case of Poison). Status effects are triggered by story moments and outcomes.

Vitalities

• Contented: +2 to all skills
• Tenacious: +2 to strength, +2 to agility
• Confident: +2 to strength, +2 to persuasion
• Well-Rested: +2 to agility, +2 to perception
• Focused: +2 to perception, +2 to persuasion

Ailments

• Poisoned: -2 to all skills
• Intoxicated: -2 to agility, -2 to perception
• Fractured Bones: -2 to strength, -2 to agility
• Hungover: -2 to perception, -2 to persuasion
• Fatigued: -2 to strength, -2 to persuasion

Active status effects will be recorded in the Status page of the Journal, alongside health and action points. I will be redoing this page with a new design, probably something similar to the skill badges.

On the Ability page of the Journal, skills affected by status effects will be indicated by their colour. Gold/blue (depending on dark/light mode) for normal, green for Vitalities, red for Ailments, and purple for skills affected by both. If you click on the skill’s label, the popup will tell you what the skill is, what it affects, and it will list any status effects current applied to that skill.

I want to get this system and all of its design elements in place before I update. I also want to redesign the companion/faction profile pages, but I might have to save that for later, depending on how long it takes to code the rest of the material.

I will likely release a public build patch shortly after the alpha build updates since this change will affect players’ playthroughs going into Episode 2.

Patreon Updates

Thank you to everyone who participated in the WIP poll. Going forwards, all Patreon-exclusive WIP previews will be posted on Patreon under the tag “wip”. The wip channel will stay open on the patron Discord server so you can discuss any previews you want there, but I won’t be posting WIPs in Discord anymore.

I was hoping to release Wayfarer’s 2022 roadmap this week, but everything else is on hold until coding the next update is finished.

Thank you all so much for your support! 💕