MUGENlinkWorks

Map menu

This week's update highlights a new useful gameplay feature: the map screen.

Although it may look simple, it's taken many hours to create this screen (and is still a WIP). Some useful things to note are how the map reveals itself as you explore more areas, markers for save points, side-events, and entrances to sub-areas, and how main story objectives are marked, even if you haven't explored that area.

Additional features that we plan to implement include:

• Exploratio...

  2024-03-28 20:23:33 +0000 UTC View Post

Many layers

We revealed Lily's "Cheerful Bandit" outfit a few weeks ago. Today, we're showing it again, but the underlying code has changed significantly. The number of removable layers will now dynamically change according to the outfit the player chooses. Lily's sprite will also change depending on which layers the player has equipped.

Fun fact: in order to support all the clothing and restraints the game has to offer, the character portrait consists of 40+ layers. Lily's sprite also consi...

More vines

The second stratum is comprised of several distinct areas. In earlier screenshots of the forest outskirts, bandits were the main threat. However, once they tread deeper in the forest, players should exercise caution around vegetation--the environment is more dangerous than you think.

Witch

The next demo for Crimson Moon supporters, 'Wood Cabin' is expected to release by April 5th.

Additionally, here's another small update for this week: the sprite for an enemy found in the second stratum, a 'Green Witch'. She attacks from a distance and is considered to be more dangerous than most enemies in this stratum.

...And yet, more threatening enemies lurk

Cheerful bandit

This week’s update features Lily’s “Cheerful Bandit” outfit—of which its sprite was shown in a past update. We’ve implemented her portrait into the game, and it'll be usable in the next Crimson Moon supporter demo, available in April. 

This outfit comes with many accessories, like gloves and earrings, meaning there’ll be more layers to play with compared to her default outfit, “Urban Angel”.

As a small aside—moving forward, the weekly updates will be happe...

Genius scientist

Thanks to our patrons' support, we're now able to add more art to the game than originally planned. 🥳

Secunda, the featured character in the recently released Patreon demo 'Role Reversal' will now have portraits with a wide variety of expressions. She may be silly, but her intelligence is the real deal--having made numerous groundbreaking discoveries. However, she has a bad tendency of involving unsuspecting victims in her crazy experiments, as Crimson Moon supporters have come to le...

Cabin in the woods

The second stratum is the largest stratum in the Prison. This also creates plenty of room for interesting side-events. One of these is found in this lone cabin in the woods.

Who or what lives here, and how will they interact with Lily?

Hint: the event in the cabin will be different if Lily is wearing a specific outfit. Of course, if you don't trigger that special event, you will always have another chance by entering again later.

Patreon early access: Role Reversal

The second content for Patreon supporters of the Crimson Moon tier has now been released! 🥳

The main focus this time is the minigame 'Role Reversal' which becomes accessible after clearing the side event in this demo. In this minigame, the player will control the enemy and attempt to capture Lily within a time limit.

Depending on the difficulty you play on, Lily's actions will vary. On easy, she'll only attempt to run away, while on higher difficulties she'll fight back. As you...

Secunda

A genius scientist who Lily encounters in the Prison: Secunda. She is also related to the minigame that Crimson Moon supporters will be able to play tomorrow evening (Central European Time).

Thanks to the support provided by patrons, Secunda will receive a unique character portrait in the future. As this was not initially planned, her art will not be in the demo yet tomorrow, but we hope to add it later in an update.

Once again thank you for your support and I hope you'll look for...

Vines

The next early-access demo for Crimson Moon patrons, 'Role Reversal', is almost ready. We're aiming to release it by February 8th.

In addition, we've been working on other parts of the game. We've been asked a few times if there will be binding materials other than rope, and we are pleased to announce: Yes!

For example, certain enemies in the second stratum can bind Lily with magical vines, which are more durable than the ropes from the first stratum. As a result, Lily ...

Role reversal, now with video

Here's a gameplay video of the minigame demo available to Crimson Moon patrons in February. As previously mentioned, in this minigame, the player will control the enemy and attempt to capture Lily within a time limit.

Depending on the difficulty you play on, Lily's actions will vary. On easy, she'll only attempt to run away, while on higher difficulties she'll fight back. As you increase the difficulty, she'll gain additional abilities and fight back more aggressively. If you run out of...

Reversal

Here's a sneak peek of a minigame in the next upcoming early access demo available to Crimson Moon supporters.

In this minigame, players will control the enemy and must capture Lily within the time limit. We will also include a practice mode for players who wish to tie up Lily under less stressful circumstances by removing the time limit and making her struggle less.

A certain workshop

The setting of the upcoming demo for Crimson Moon supporters: a strange workshop in the first stratum. I don't want to spoil too much yet, but let's say that in this area players will have the opportunity to experience Lily getting tied up without being sent to an escape sequence.

Currently I am finishing the last parts of the implementation of this side-event/minigame, after which it will move to testing and more bug fixing, so we hope to have it ready in the first week of February. &n...

Bizarre lifeform

Not much of a visual this week since I've mostly been working on enemy behavior. People who played the XI.Justice demo might have noticed that enemies have more interesting behavior than the enemies in the pre-alpha demo (for example the purple bandit regularly shouts, alerting other nearby enemies).

One of these new enemies is the mysterious lifeform in this post. It looks perfect for some combat training. However, under certain circumstances, it might get angry:

2024-01-03 21:36:47 +0000 UTC View Post

Payback time

It was teased slightly in the pre-alpha demo: Lily can indeed bind some enemies.

Unlike the shadows in the first stratum, enemies such as the bandits have more complex behavior. Reducing their HP to 0 will knock them out, but after some time they will wake up again.

To prevent this, Lily can tie them up with their own bindings:

2023-12-27 22:59:09 +0000 UTC View Post

Not a bandit

I mentioned before that the game will have multiple outfits besides Lily's standard outfit. Here's an early sneak-peek at the sprite of an outfit that can be obtained in the second stratum. Unlike the bandit sprites though, the player character has way more frames, Besides all the extra frames, each part of the clothing has a separate layer. So it will still take quite some time before the full spriteset is done.

 And yes, that's a ponytail. Even her hairstyle changes with this out...

Patreon early access: XI.Justice

The first content for Patreon supporters of the Crimson Moon tier has finally been released! 🥳 

The content of this early-access demo is an escape sequence of the second stratum: XI.Justice. In the game this sequence will occur when Lily is captured in the forest area.

The escape sequence can be completed in 1~3 minutes if you play it perfectly, but there are quite a bit of things that can happen, so I hope you will enjoy exploring the possibilities . 👀

Lily Kick!

Since it seems I can't directly upload a video to Patreon, I have converted it to an animated gif instead. On Discord I have uploaded a video version with higher quality.

In the gif below you can see one possible way to escape the tent in the escape sequence XI.Justice. After escaping the tent, the player still needs to sneak out of the camp safely.

Currently we are making the last adjustments, as well as tweaking the difficulty settings and testing.

This escape sequence rea...