v0.28.1 Game Status

Evening all, time for our second release for the month! This month includes a new background for Octo's hangout, seen above, as well as a new Schen random encounter scene. Mostly, however, this release focused on code work. As I discussed in the post here, this month was focused on the 'core functionality' of Exploration Missions. 

I'm glad to say most of that is in, with the exception of Specialist special abilities, single-use-per-mission abilities which alter your team's stats in some way for a single encounter. Without this in, the one mission currently available may be somewhat more difficult for some team compositions than it will be a month from now. However, to give you a bit of a mission design hint - since I can only take for granted that a player has a Terran Overseer, Hellfire, and the particular Specialist for a loyalty mission available, it'll be difficult to go too far wrong with that setup.

There is one other design note I want to put out there, though. Each encounter in a mission will have an 'Easy Way' and a 'Hard Way', based on the stat requirements to choose that option. I do want to be clear that this is not a Bad Way/Good Way decision. For right now, the only difference between them is the text that comes after, so you can feel free to treat it as a roleplay choice for how you'd do things. Even after I start adding in rewards for different options though, Hard won't always mean better rewards. Sometimes the hard way just represents dumb brute force, which is required because your team lacks the more subtle skills of the 'easier' way. So if your team does have both options available, feel free to decide based on what you think about the situation and your Specialist advice. And if your team doesn't cut it for either option....well, the Abandon Mission button awaits you. Also, just to be clear, this is still a very early state for Missions, expect changes to the UI and such to come.

Our next free release is planned for tomorrow, as well as our main monthly status update. Til then, patch notes below, game links to follow:

v0.28.1 Change Log

Game Functions:

• Some basic Exploration Mission functionality added. Only Grunt's loyalty mission exists at this time.
  • The mission selection screen can now pull relevant information from mission sets.
  • When choosing a loyalty mission, the relevant Specialist will be locked in on the Specialist selection screen.
  • Advancing through a mission will pull encounters, displaying the encounter text and an enemy NPC profile. Special abilities not yet implemented.
  • Each encounter has an 'Easy Way' and a 'Hard Way', stat requirements are now shown on the selection buttons, and buttons will be disabled if team stats are not high enough for that option. If both options are too difficult, fleeing and trying with another team composition may be required.

Scene Content:

• Random Encounter - Schen Sex Toys (no unlock requirements)

Art Content:

• Octo Hangout Background added to Scenes and Gallery.

Codex Entries:

• None

Bug Fixes:

• None

Known Issues:

• TTS dialogue cannot be interrupted once begun. May have issues if triggered on multiple screens at once. TTS support is 64-bit Windows only.
• WebGL Issues: Be warned that save game data in WebGL mode is less permanent than PC standalone. May also be more prone to memory and other issues.
• If trying to quit with the options screen up, the Quit window appears behind the Options window.