January progress

In December I already mentioned planning to do bigger changes in the game. In January I got to making some of these changes and testing them out. I've been narrowing in on what my new vision for the game is.

Broader gameplay direction

Based on player feedback, general gamer interests, the adult game market position and my own preferences I decided to make these changes.

Larger explorable zones work well into two aspects. Firstly the open world feel. Allows for some exploration, more fluid combat situations and potentially some light storytelling. Secondly it works as a bit of a character / game progression element. Certain areas of the map could be limited off due to tough enemies or some abilities or girls could be only unlocked by finding them on the map.

The game wouldn't be pure open world due to performance and development reasons. Instead different zones would be connected by doors / gates / portals / whatever.

Skill trees would primarily add character progression to the game. Depending on implementation, skill trees might also provide nice combat complexity. I still have many open questions on how exactly it would work. For example:

• Should the skill tree only contain abilities or also contain some basic stat boosts like +1HP?
• How exactly are skill points obtained?
• Do the skill unlocks modify the look of the characters at all?
• How many unlocks should there be?
• How should the unlocks depend on each other?
• Would all skills be unlocked by spending skill points or should some unlock by doing certain actions in game?
• Should all unlocks be related to combat or should some be non-combat unlocks too?
• And much more ...

It's in my opinion really interesting stuff, a nice replacement for the old card system. There still is a lot of work until any of that gets into the actual game. The image showing the skill tree is just a visualization on how I imagine it right now.

Non-tile combat

I also decided to make the switch to completely free form combat. The closest example for it would be Divinity: Original Sin 2 I think. The player can make really small movements to get the character in perfect position for a certain ability. Or they can just define end point and the character goes there in as straight of a line as possible.

My main reasons to get rid of tile combat:

• The tiles often didn't work well with the maps I created, leaving a lot of empty space around blocking objects. Alternative workaround would have been to make the levels properly match the grid, like in X-com.
• Tiles work better for smaller maps. For better exploration elements, more fluid movement makes more sense. Invisible grid might have worked too.
• It felt like relying so heavily on tiles made certain ability types difficult to create. It boxed my thinking in. It's not purely tile fault, but it's a part.

It technically wasn't necessary to make the switch, but I felt like trying it out and I like it. It would still be possible to switch back to other types if some major issues come up. 

Next version

It's planned for end of February, but I might not get it done quite for that moment. We'll see. Also, this version would only focus on the non-tile combat aspect. Something for you guys to try and test out.