Devlog No.059

Another couple of weeks and though I'm still coming down from the holidays I've already been quite active. I've finished up the new Shiver Bow, though I have to admit that the last few bits of it were surprisingly taxing to finish. (Mostly to do with all the extra little bits) Also I'm still a bit unsure of some elements that might cause performance issues. At some point I am going to have to go over the entire game and severely optimize it. (Price you pay for deciding to go for 60fps instead of 30 I suppose! No regrets!)

But instead of just chatting about it, I've got an updated demo for it so you can see it in action! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttSYP_0wjTA

Here is the completed shiver bow. There may be a few small changes made to the SFX (mostly the arrow release sfx) if they are too harsh or too loud. Also the weapon is a bit on the overpowered side in it's current form and will receive a small nerf and some of the elements presented here will be pushed into upgrade items too. (like the shards bursting off during a supercombine and the number of arrows in the quiver)

The weapon effectively functions as quick and easy to use with its primary drawback being that it does not stun on impact. To remedy this, you can jump to keep mobility while continuing to fire. (There is greater friction when you are on the ground) However, there is a max number of arrows in the quiver that you can see on the energy bar. When you are on the ground, the ammo is infinite. However, while you are in the air, it regenerates very slowly.

When shooting arrows into a target, they build up one by one. After hitting 4, ice will begin to crystallize on the target. After hitting 6, it will supercombine and auto destruct after a short delay. The stacks also auto destruct if the target perishes from initial damage. At less than 4, the damage only affects the target. Above four, it creates a small aoe and a big chunk of damage. At 6 the AOE is significant and the damage much larger too. Damage to block is very high at 4+. The large glowing chunks that come off during a super combine can also deal damage to enemies. I still need to do recolors for each power level so here you only see the weapon at it's max power. At lower power it will be weaker too. Just needs some balancing right now.

Of course, that's not all I have done. I've also gone ahead and created an unlock in the game a 'Windforce Artifact' that Shopia will sell you and tell you how it functions. (I'll tell you here too)

~Reverse Windforce Artifact~

Here's a quick little demo of it in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMp0P-ITTR0

After purchasing it, you can then charge up your windforce spell by holding down the button. A small cyan meter will fill up and then flash and make a sound when it has charged. Release the cast button and you'll inflate like a blimp! But if you continue to charge it, instead you will forcibly inflate and pop! (Which will hurt you) This will allow you to inflate yourself like a blimp when you like at the cost of the windforce spell. (It's still 4 MP to use it though!) As of right now I still need to run it through full testing just to see if there is any area I need to carefully block off to prevent you from reaching something you shouldn't be able to with it, but otherwise it seems to be completely done. Well, there is a leftover mechanical issue with spell casting using grounded spells which currently allows you to cast a spell while walking off a ledge and that could be exploited so I will be fixing that at some point. It's fine to cast most spells while walking off a ledge, but in this case, I can see it being very exploitable. (There is one area I already went to and patched it up just in case...)

Anywho, you'll be able to buy it from Shopia like I said after you find the Silver Crystal Coin along with a couple of other new upgrades that I believe I have talked about in the past.

I would say these are the two main pieces that I've worked on. Xazelle will be up next. (Just a little bit more tweaking on the Shiver Bow and I'll start working on her) Then I will jump back and forth between working on the game and the other NPC tfs I need to catch up on. (A shripe belly dancer and filimuri in the falling stars ceremony and a small little area dedicated to the holiday!)

I do have a few other things I have been working on too. The first is just a new enemy type for the next area. Ghosts!

These nuisances will be all over the place in the next area, threatening to help you along to your doom a little quicker. Though I'm showing two of them, I'd like to create a few appearances for each. In fact, I've been debating offering to allow Patrons who have been donating a lot and over a long time to have a little ghostie design added. These enemies will only have two real animations. This idle animation you see above and an inflation/popping animation. As you can imagine, ghosts manifesting themselves into some kind of physical force can be taxing! So much so that keeping themselves corporeal is difficult! Adding some wind to them will make them inflate rather big and then pop!

Unfortunately this means that you cannot use them as a platform, but maybe some of you will find watching them inflate and pop satisfying. The only additional animation will be a generic 'poof' when you defeat them like normal. There will be quite a few of them to chase you down and I plan to have an area where they continuously respawn. (Though they will also have a small chance of dropping candy so hopefully that will balance it out) Really they are one-two shot enemies so they're more so intended to overwhelm you. I may also add a small bit of acceleration to their speed or some kind of pause then charge that they will sometimes do. I'll decide once I actually sit down to program them.

As I said though, I'd like to be able to offer something to those of you who have been pretty dedicated, though I am still debating it and if you'd like to, please comment about your thoughts on it. I would likely aim to make it so that if you have given at least 150$USD then you'd be allowed to make a ghostie. (And one time per account)

My plan for this would be to make it mostly stock standard to cut back on the work load. So both the idle and inflation animation would be the same for all of the ghostie girls. It would mostly be face, hair, curvature shape, colors, and clothes. I do plan on having a few more ghostie types added (Elf, a'garian, dolder, dvari, filimuri) so the body types will have a little more variety available to them, but be generally uniform in nature. (Also if you don't want your ghostie to pop, I can have them fade out instead. Just let me know) I will say that I am thinking that I will go with a 3Bs inflation look so if you are curious what the inflation is likely to look like, then I would recommend checking out the NPC Ridra's tf.

Also I won't have a restriction on what the character looks like. Meaning you don't have to fit your character into one of the species molds at all. Though I will require mandatory pointy ears for all! (I jest. Any will be fine) My only requirements will be no nudity and no male characters unless the inflation includes tfing into a girl.

If I do this, then I will add a tier to the patron just so that it's public knowledge that you can be eligible for it and not just have it buried in a post.

And that's mostly it. Though I do have one other thing to show and it's the spell that I will be working on. As I said, I was going to add a new form of sorts that was more mobile. Well, this will be a transformation spell that you can find. (Well not transformation, but summoning) By using her superior magical capabilities, Aria will be able to forcibly summon and merge with a demon changing her into a four arm, four booba demon version of herself.

~Special idle animation for this form~

My plan for this will be that you can cast the spell for a small up front cost. Something like 2-3mp. Then, while you are transformed, your energy drain pauses. Instead of taking damage to your energy, instead hits will remove two mp from you. If you don't have two mp left over, then you'll transform back. The transformation doesn't have a duration and you can turn it off at any time. (I will likely make this that you have to hold down and then press and hold the cast key for a brief moment, but not 100% just yet)

While in this form, your weapon will be replaced with a wide claw attack and combo. So it will be a little like the wind blade weapon, but faster and probably slightly weaker. I will decide more on it when I'm actually programming it.

Pressing the magic cast key will throw out a small projectile along a horizontal path and then pressing it again will teleport you to it. With a short cooldown. A kind of 'blink' ability that you can use to go through some walls.

And, of course, you'll have the ability to double jump, something that's been requested for a while. Aria will still be able to hold ledges too so you can use it to drop and then jump or jump twice, though the height of the second jump will be a little bit shorter.

For her booba though I have to say that sadly I am going to limit how many variations there are. It's a lot more likely that I will make it part of an upgrade that will give some variance and then just have one or two extra sizes or something of the sort, but make those extra sizes quite the difference!

As well, Aria won't be able to pickup any powerups in this form. So again, sorry, but no inflatable demon form Aria. (At least not for now) The demon inside her protects her against it!

Ok, so now that's all I really have to say. Of course, comment your thoughts and such if you have any!