November Update (Combat UI, Chibi's and more!)

Hey all, wanted to put out an update for the month.

First I want to start by saying I had a serious problem early in the month that took out about two weeks worth of development time. For whatever reason the rpg maker program decided to ramp up the memory catch which would crash the program while I was working on it. This was a serious issue because if it crashed while I was saving the project then it could corrupt files which would lead to more problems. I worked with "Otro", a fellow dev and programmer on the seeds project and we were able to narrow it down to a likely gpu issue. Once that was solved, then the program wouldn't allow me to launch the play test mode in the dev program. After some problem solving, I was able to fix the issue by updating the nwjs files to the most up to date for rpg maker mv. With that in mind, I was really frustrated and lost some dev time so we will see how December goes.

Once that was fixed, I was finally able to continue as usual. My main focus continues to be around the combat updates. While there is still a lot to be done, I can share some insights on some of the changes that have occurred and still plan to make. One of the most recent and largest changes is the switch to the front view combat perspective. This means that the side battler sprites won't be present for the default combat settings. (I am adding an option for those who enjoy the side battlers to enable them so they aren't going away entirely.) The purpose of the front view is mainly down to two reasons, first the side battlers sort of locked me into only having the three main characters as the only actors in battle and secondly I wanted to show the character bust art more as pregnancy progression in battle.

As shown above you can see how that will look. The bust art will show the character when their turn arrives and will show them at what ever pregnancy stage they are currently in. I'm still making some adjustments to the UI but overall I feel like this is a clean and better way to show the characters in combat. The other aspect about this as shown above is that I can add in additional characters which makes it easier to "add" party members going forward. With that in mind, I want to talk about the summoning system. While still early, I plan to add in a special summon skill that will fall under damia's blessings. With this a character can be summoned to aid you in combat. The cost will likely be a divine seed to summon said character to prevent it from being used all the time but you can have special characters aid you in difficult battles. When the summon character reaches 0 hp or the battle ends, the character is removed from your party. Summons can be gained from completing parts of the main story or finishing side quests. Now if you have the side battler option enabled, you won't see the summons as a side battler. The amount of time and effort to create a side battler for each unique summon is difficult and honestly don't really want to go down that road, in which case they will be present in battle but without a battle sprite as the compromise. Again when starting a new game, the front view battle will be enabled by default.

Also as you can see in the image above, I am updating enemy combat art. Looking to do some fun chibi designs with Luna. These characters will have a normal and preg version should you use the blessing skill on them.

I am also updating how skills are acquired in game. No longer do you passively gain new skills upon leveling up. In fact new skills will be sort of rare and unique. Ideally Leah, Valorie, and Sanura will be able to earn 4 different skills throughout the game. One unique skill found in each chapter. I want to keep the skill count low, mostly for balance purposes in combat encounters. To make up for the skill deficit, I'm looking to also add unique skills to weapons in the game. This will give you incentive to possibly craft some of the unique weapons for not only their stats but unique skills the weapons come with.

Finally, I am also updating how gathering materials works. Mostly it will stay the same, just some back end changes to how gathering nodes work. In the past the goal was that the nodes would respawn after sleeping. While effective, the code was clunky and it was easy to forget to update some gathering nodes to that system. If the nodes were not on that system, they instead would revert to a refresh on map changes so you may have noticed a few gathering nodes that would re-appear when entering and leaving a house. Currently with the changes, gathering nodes will refresh when you enter the world map or possibly the teleport room.

Figured I'd update everyone here on progress and changes. With the delay, we will see if the December release can happen, will likely let you know more in a few weeks. Thank you again for your support for this project. Also since it's that time of year to be thankful, if you have a chance be sure to compliment the artists and fellow devs who have assisted with this project. While I've done a lot, they are the ones who have really made this game unique with their skills!