Devlog No.055

Time has seemed to go rather quick these past couple weeks. I didn't even realize how much I'd spent until I checked what day it was. Well, I have spent the last couple weeks working on the game quite a bit. I added three new rooms that will appear as a side passage for Avlon. You'll need to find a key to get in there and you'll find a few unlockables in there too. And there is a very brief puzzle shrine in there as well more so meant as a quick way to show you that you need to have beaten the 2nd boss in order to get through it than anything.

Aside from those three rooms, I made some adjustments to few NPC dialogues just to make things a little less 'smacking you in the face' with information thanks to advice from patrons. I also fixed several small bugs and adjusted some of the hints for finding unlockables. Also I changed some issues that might cause soft-locking if you're persistent. Now above the Ninestep shrine you may notice a strong breeze that blows you (and any unfortunate gobbo balloons) to one direction. This is really just meant to prevent said soft-locking, but you may also find it entertaining. I'll likely add this in at a few later sections just as a bit of a joke and also to avoid soft locking too.

I've also adjusted the teleporters to be more obvious which ones are active now. And in addition, you'll be able to walk back out of some areas without needing the new unlockable. Of course, once you have the unlockable that allows you to backtrack, you can also backtrack through most other areas too.

Also some seem rather eager to see NPC tfs implemented so I may go ahead and start to add those in small batches once the next build is out, or as part of it.

In regards to the progress into the next build, I've gotten a little work done on the environment and I've been working on the new weapon too. Ran into a small snag with how to program it exactly, but I think I've worked that all out. I'll be starting the animation for that soon, though it probably won't be nearly as complex as the wind blade animation. Just a simple bow draw and fire and an air version. A few of the FX are done for it, but I need to fix them since they use a similar particle system to the phantom blaster and I would like the trail of the arrows have a snowy/frosty feeling to it as well.

In regards to the functionality of it, I finally decided on something more concrete. With the whole supercombine effect being a thing with a minimum required being four and the max being eight. Though as I had said previously, I want to give it a synergy with the wind force spell so after you cast it, your next attack will inflate a target. And yes, for now, that's how it will work. But in the future I was thinking that you would get a duration buff that makes it so your supercombine instead inflates the target and getting a higher value would inflate the target to blimp status, or if you went even higher, to make them pop and damage nearby opponents or even make them inflate too.

Of course, as I said before, that's something requiring a lot more sprite work and animation. If I do do that, it will likely end up being somewhat specific as recommended to me by a patron. Example being that gobbos become blimps in the second inflation state and filimuri booba just get even more huge. So depending on the enemy, they inflate differently.

But for now, I am going to keep working on just getting the basic implementation down with the explosion effect, then work toward the infusion, and then if things go well, maybe I'll add the extra inflation and bursting. Though it's more likely I will add more Aria stuff first before that. I'd say don't expect to see it before the next build comes out bare minimum. Just a fun idea for now.

Anyway, sorry I don't have more to show. Sildiscia's inflation is in the works. I'll go ahead and show her portrait as I reworked it.

I've also slightly changed her clothing/armor too. Though she will still be covered up when her booba go 'fwoompf!'.

That's all for now!