Due to the hurricane, I haven't had power for the past few days and been unable to work on anything. Most of my time spent was trying to preserve frozen food. Luckily, my brother had gotten his power back after only a few days so I've moved shop to his place until the power returns at my home. I'm going to try and get things prepped for my devlog as I had a few thing I wanted to finish, but got cut off. I'll try and finish them though before then!
As for the NPC of the month, I'll be delayed on that, but after I finish up what I want to show off and do the devlog, I'll be getting right on them!
I'll also update the current NPC of the month ASAP.
Was commissioned to inflate Aria and made this animation. Then had a friend suggest I make it into a video file and decided I would also add some sound to it from my game. So here's a simple video of Aria being inflated by a helium tank!
So this past couple of weeks I worked mostly on the remaining levels to this stage. Though I did get interrupted by having to visit the doctors office and a bit of extra stress didn't help. So most of the work I have been doing is under the hood type stuff and isn't that visible to show. I spent some time working on some tiles as well for a kind of factory tileset which will help in the future and is also used in one of the secondary areas involved in this candy level. Here's most of the tiles I've gotten done.
The bottom tiles here are animated tiles. Effectively gears and little runic powered terminals. And the usual sort of tubing you'd expect in something of a factory. It's meant to have some fantasy touches of course and the platforms are intentionally quite large. They don't look it, but you can see large platforms here and small platforms that are like regular steps. This is just purely some world oriented stuff. Thay'valay being as large as they are it makes sense for them to need separate staircases for example. And for those you will have to hop up them. As I had said before,, in the current builds you can climb normal staircases by holding up while doing so.
At some point I would like to go back and actually fix the way the staircase system works so it's not so 'loose'. As it currently is, I do worry about how you can hold up and 'catch' platforms and such, but I've been designing with it in mind most of the time.
As far as the factory itself goes, well of course there are factories in this world and they're powered by runic energy and crystals.
As far as other work, I have been trying to program Aria's full body inflation, though got stuck trying to implement it so you can't get locked into inflating repeatedly after getting hit. I'll be working on the sprites and I think I will do popping for her full body inflation. The punishment will be a big chunk of damage and a mild stun making you plummet straight down afterward. After I release the next build I'll monitor this and take feedback on whether or not this feels like it's too punishing or not.
Also for the popping, even if you 'die' from it, you will still just do the collapsing animation instead.
I have started on the enemies, but like I said I want to avoid showing them and let you discover them in the next build. Though I did mess up here and decided on a few enemies that will take a little longer than I intended. I think everyone will be more pleased by them though actually!
I have had some personal issues interfere a little with my time so I have a lot less to say this time than usual. This time around I've been continuing to work on the enemy designs and finishing up several stage elements. Unfortunately I have generally less to report on. Just been working slowly and filling things out and fixing a few issues. I also got some time aside to make the last NPC that you'll meet in the next update named Tafi.
This curvy gal is something of a golem, relying on a power source of sorts to function. What is that power source? Well, I'm sure you'll be able to guess if you put two and two together. Mostly, she'll just deliver some more exposition and details about the world and be another piece of eye candy to look at of course. Her actual function is meant to be a mixture of a greeter and a dock worker for the island.
As well, I would like to give her something of a little home to live in instead of a generic building preset that I have so I may spend some time doing the art for that. Though it won't really be wasted since I'll be able to reuse it elsewhere.
I haven't much else to say. I'm just generally working on things at a steady pace. The next update should be much more significant.
I'm always going over details and forgot to mention how dolder are a little more magically sensitive. More the inverse of thay'valay, they actually are more affected by magic, but the advantage to that is they are also far more magically durable. In this case, that means more stretchy!
So it seems the results have landed on thay'valay noble. However I had seen it nearly at a tie for a while with gobbo and that gave me a bit of an idea. I'm thinking that perhaps this 'unfortunate' thay'valay noble may just have been turned into a gobbo and might need your help turning back to normal. Of course things are not so simple and we can add a little 'extra' to her being transformed back.
I suppose the two things I'd debate here would be whether to express her completely as a gobbo or to make her resemble a thay'valay as a gobbo (With big ears and snow white skin for example). Also, I don't plan to have any nudity, at least none shown, but a gobbo sized thay'valay returning to normal would be... quit the difference in size especially if we add more to the end.
I'll definitely keep thinking about it, but I think this would be a fun idea.
Here is the NPC of the month Parfait! A cute lil maid with a short skirt and high stockings! To my understanding, there can be blueberries involved in Parfaits. I'm still working on this little lady's animation, but don't worry, she'll get all tight and juicy soon enough!
As I've started to give some details about races, Parfait is a dolder. These adorable little things used to be something of your standard gnome race. They used to be brilliant, eccentric, and live near to the earth. However, after a man made plague afflicted them, the vast majority of them were converted into smiling dimwits who would readily serve any master.
After many years of servitude, they were rescued indirectly by the Emerald Conventions. (A'garians, dragons, dvari) Initially seen as undesired refuges for the xenophobic nations, the dolder melded surprisingly well due to their dull, agreeable mannerisms and strange desire to work without complaint.
In spite of their former servitude being seen by all others as 'abhorrent', dolder amazingly show strange affection for their previous attire. Chains, collars, and shackles are all considered to be fashionable among their kind. In spite of this, they are especially cleanly and favor taking up jobs which involve cleaning and organization such as maids or librarians. They retain an odd affection for books even if they rarely take up reading them any longer.
It's easy to spot a dolder versus a gnome as nearly all dolder has unusual sclera and glowing eyes put on display to show they are afflicted. (This is besides the relatively mindless smile many of them sport)
Though they have lost much of their wit, it was favorably exchanged for acute senses of sight, smell, and hearing. This makes them bizarrely effective scouts and point guards. As well, they still retain a strange ability to have strokes of brilliance at the most opportune times as though something of their old selves still remain. Many consider them great listeners and long term friends.
Finally, dolder are extraordinarily polite and caring even for those they hardly know. This can make them quite susceptible to being tricked or scammed. So much so that it's considered rude to do so by all but the most vile.
I've been working steadily on expanding the new candy areas and there's still a bit to be done. I need to program the enemies and create a couple more areas.
New this time around, I added a couple of NPCs for the boat that you can talk to before and after the boat scene. (They're just props while on the boat though. This is because there is intended to be Illaria and Milan talking) Anyway, they aren't meant to be super important NPCs, but they still have some things to say if you want to talk to them.
There is one more NPC that I will add in a similar vein to these, however I am keeping that under wraps as I want it to be a surprise.
In the news of other things, this area will have the first max mana gem you can find. I'm going to limit the max MP you can get in the game to ten total (so four mana gems in the world). This is mostly because I don't want spells to become too imbalanced and also because I don't want the MP HUD to go off screen.
In regards to that, previously I'd used a set of raw UI elements and it was very inefficient. Effectively having three separate sprites for the hud, then several different sub images which were all huge. So having tons of empty space taken up on a sprite sheet by just the MP HUD segment.
Now the HUD is a lot more dynamic and the MP and spell cost sprites are tiny and thus will take up far less space on the texture sheet. The only drawback to this is that I increased the number of HUD images for the raw spell frame. I could probably do this one dynamically too so I might adjust it later, but for now, the trade off is fine I'd say. Much better than previously where I would have had to add effectively thrice the sprites and take up thrice the space on the texture sheet.
You shouldn't be able to even see a difference in the new HUD to the old one. Just that now you can extend the bar when you get a mana gem.
Finally, I finished up all the story elements for this particular part of the story. Realistically I should say that the next portion of the game is mostly story with light enemy presence to start, then builds back into normal gameplay.
I have also started on the visuals of the enemies for this area. I decided on something fitting to the zone, though I'm going to keep it semi-under wraps here. As I had previously said, I wanted to avoid heavy complexity for these enemies. Instead the environment is more so meant to be the hazard here with the enemies being more of a hindrance or slightly harder to hit.
Though I suppose I could say that I want to add something of a mini-obstacle enemy type that you have to inflate by pumping them up. My only issue with this is just that I haven't fully figured how to do this in a fashion that is fun and not just hitting a button and FWOOMPF enemy puff up. As suggested by a patron, I want to have an object that inflates anyone it touches which would include Aria. So I figured that I could introduce this, then have an enemy type you have to hit with this object multiple times to defeat them. I just want to figure a way to make it fun to do is all. (I mean, of course inflating them will be fun, but I mean getting the object to hit them)
Worth noting, but this first object would only have the regular inflate effect for enemies and Aria it would do her boob inflation form, but if you get hit by one while boob inflated, it would make you swell into the full body inflated form. So I will be working on some animations soon to allow her to puff up between those two. (I also have to adjust the current full body inflation animation to account for boob sizes) I'm still considering allowing Aria to pop, but good chance I will do it and make it a simple non-lethal quick pop that just does a lot of damage to Aria. So you'll have to be careful not to get hit while full inflated, but also not to touch another of the inflation objects. (I'll also have to add in a brief inflation immunity afterward to avoid any potential future inflation locking that might occur)
Though for now I am not going to go back and add different inflation types for enemies. If we're finishing up the game and I can continue to sustain development, I'll ask near the end if adding in more inflation forms for pre-existing enemies is desired. (Obviously this would extend development to do so)
Finally, I forget if I said anything about it, but I added zone text that pops up briefly when you enter into a new area. This is affected directly by where the players has and hasn't been already, so it'll only pop up in an area until you hit the next zone progress area. Then you won't see it pop up anymore when you revisit that area. If it's desired I can change this pretty easily of course. I'm not sure if it's more desirable to have the popup show up every single time or only to let you know the name of the new zone with a little flourish. It's mostly just flavor though, but might help in recognizing where you are.
Which I may add something to the menus to tel you where you are currently located. I'm considering adding a 'status' menu option and then moving extraneous information there such as zone info, time of day, playtime, times inflated, etc.
And that's all for this devlog! Thank you all for supporting me! It means so much that I'm able to work on this game thanks to you!
Here is the general candy tileset theme! This will be used for the upcoming area and some other candy themed areas I have planned. I gave the direction for this one of something swing themed. Hopefully everyone likes it as much as I do.
I want to briefly mention that I'm modifying the description of the Ample Apprentice tier to reflect the fact it gives you access to patron only posts. It's really just a clarity change and doesn't affect any access or anything like that. I'm just mentioning it so no one is surprised by the additional bullet point I added.
Another couple weeks and more work done. This time I've been working on the story a bit and also the intro to the next level. I spent quite a bit of time working on a boat sprite to use and it should be fairly interchangeable in the future for any other boat sprites I do. So some heavy lifting in the spriting department that should scale pretty well. The biggest flaw I ran into was having insufficient layers to work with when implementing the boat and dock. I went and did a rare thing deciding to take the easy way out here and just created a couple of room specific layers. Which isn't a great thing for the long run, but also not really a bad thing as I added those layers into all new templates I make. Unless I decide to retroactively go back and add boats into earlier room (doubtful) then it shouldn't ever be a problem.
I also ran into another layer related issue for a boat ride sequence that I decided to do where I was in need of one additional foreground layer. In these cases I really thought I had created enough layers (Almost 30) but apparently I should've listened to myself a while back and just created six groups of three layers of each type.
Anyway, it's a unique issue to the way I wanted to do the boat with it having an underlayer as well as a kind of foreground 'deck' which Aria would appear behind. It needs some adjustment as her chest peeks through the side at one area, but it should all be working out fine without much extra work. It's just one of those things where you think you have plenty of space to work with, but later down the line you realize that the extra space you set aside isn't suited to some of your plans and can't even be used. Thankfully the issue can be sidestepped in this case.
Here's a couple pictures.
As I had said, I also wanted a little boat ride between these sections. Mostly just for atmosphere's sake, but also to add a little more story that I have had planned. The way I set it up allows you to move around a bit, but I have barriers to prevent you from falling off.
Though again, I have had some difficulties in that department. Really just in making the boat FEEL like it's really moving. I tried to make it actually bob up and down, but that had some issues with Aria's movement and just didn't work out. Instead I decided to go with the illusion of movement like you'd expect in a game where the boat remains completely still, but the environment around her moves. I also added a slight back and forth sway to the camera which I am a bit worried it might make viewers feel a bit sick, but at the same time, it's only a brief effect so I'm hopeful it's not too heavy to ruin the experience.
I almost discarded the sway effect because I ran into some issues with the lighting surface. In fact I actually deleted all the code for it once, then had a new idea and rewrote it again only to resort to changing how much area the surface covers so the camera doesn't tilt out of the surface. Very much a cobbled together solution, but I think it looks good and helps to maintain the illusion of movement.
Though sadly I don't think I can slow the sway down any or the actual view doesn't feel like swaying because of how the pixels begin to look. Instead it has a strange squaring effect. So if you view it and you think it's really awful, then let me know. I might just have to remove it in the end.
I've also considered some other ways to enhance the little boat ride, but I don't want to spend too much time on it. As of right now it works just fine and I think it looks fairly good. So I'm just going to finish the story elements to it, hook it into the next area properly, then move onto the next story elements and the black licorice.
I'll upload a little video of the boat ride for patrons without the story elements. So no worries about being spoiled on the small story elements here, though you will be spoiled on the boat ride itself of course.
The ship currently lacks a captain and any crew, but I will remedy that in the future.
I will likely have at lest one more boat ride later down the line, though any more than that will depend on the reaction to it. I would kind of like to have a boat section where some monsters jump on board and you have to fight them off, but that won't happen for this first one. Consider this more of a test run.
Another little thing, I got another track from my composer for candy levels and I'll upload that for patrons as well! I will also probably upload another art piece I have sitting around.
And here is Alvanei's transformation. A little potion plumping and pumping preg and booba. She also shares some 'face obscuring' booba so I made sure to give her a portrait to fit that.
Here is last month's lady, Alvanei. (Or Alva and Nei) With so much going on, I sometimes forget exactly what I say, though I do recall she was meant to be a mix of an astralmancer and an alchemist. Considering the two, I tried to give her a 'starry sky' look to her hair while also mixing her hair color as most shripe have. Clothes are a harder mix I'd say so they do feel a bit on the generic side, but I tried to add in an alchemy bench for her to work at to help with that. I also decided on her drinking a potion for her tf and going for preg similar to Rue. Still working on the animation, but it should be up soon.
Shripe are a unique race. Once gobbo emnei, they were infested with souls and over time it caused them to transform dramatically to the point that they can no longer survive without a soul. So while they do appear rather similar to gobbos, there are several key differences.
The first of these is that they possess a soul and need one to live. Without it, the body cannot properly operate. (Though shripe survive significantly longer than other races and can continue to live in certain extenuating circumstances due to the way their extra personalities work) For any creature relying on a soul, losing it is a game over. For a shripe with an extra personality though, it is not a death sentence in of itself. Instead though the extra personality will degrade until it loses it's ability to function and will then die. There are methods of preventing this, one being the 'sharing' of a soul with another shripe (typically a loved one). Another being that a daemon or tem'lora invades their body. (Undesirable in most circumstances)
The second difference is that they frequently possess more than one personality. Though oddly enough, these two or more personalities typically work together and aren't always obvious. They are much more like having actual multiple persons in a single mind than extra personalities. Quite frequently they even have similar names or share a combined name between them and only recognize one another internally. (Though if you ask directly about it, they will give you some way to refer to either of them) And these two personalities operate as similar to being two whole individuals working in one body so they also have different knowledge. One may be an alchemist while the other is an astralmancer for example.
Due to this, they frequently have a wealth of knowledge between them even if they are no more intelligent than other species. They are, most definitely, more peaceful than gobbos though.
Finally, some shripe believe that they are born from the stars (literally) owing due to the fact that their existence was caused by a god. This can result in further eccentric behavior especially if one personality is logical while the other is creative.
So last month's pick appears to be another pretty fitting combination of dolder and maid. In this particular case I kind of feel like something blueberry oriented will fit the smaller lady most. We have a really huge species turning into a blueberry so why not a smaller one too? Unless something else comes to me between now and when I do her, that will likely be the result.
I've talked about needing sounds before I'm sure, but I don't think I've mentioned just how difficult it can be at times. (And very time consuming) It's not so much that it's hard to find sounds, but the sounds that I think are appropriate. Usually I have to take a sound that's been combined with others and just tightly crop it to get the desired sfx. There are a few sounds in the game which are like this and there will definitely be more.
So with that said, I'm happy to say that watching sites like humble bundle for really cheap software is pretty good I'd say. Currently Ovani has a bundle up for a couple more days which was very cheap for a lot of sounds and that's very helpful for me to keep building out my sound library. Though honestly, good transformation/inflation/expansion SFX are quite hard to come by. Thankfully I do have a decent sum set aside.
Unfortunately I didn't find a really good jelly bounce sound so I may need to come back to the sound itself. For now it does have a SFX which should be good enough unless I can find something better
But back on the game, I got a surprisingly good amount of stuff done these couple weeks. That's in spite of updating the game and patching it repeatedly and working a bit on a commission. I managed to develop quite a LOT of the candy tileset and several objects as well as their background variants.
But that's not everything. I also managed to program in crumbling platforms (Crumbling cookies to be specific) and destructible cookies that have 3hp. The destructible cookies are more like square cookies so they would look good stacked on top of each other. The platform cookies that crumble are more like chocolate chip cookies!
The functionality of the square destructible cookie is basically like the cracked dirt/stone pieces. The difference is that its sprite is set to just 3 to show its HP. So each hit damages it. Also, if you are a blueberry on top of this cookie, it will rapidly degrade and break under you so you need to be quick.
The crumbling cookie platforms though will be destroyed immediately by her blueberry form and you will plummet. Otherwise, the crumbling cookie platforms get a bit more damaged when you stand on them as regular Aria. Eventually they collapse and you will fall down to whatever pit is below.
But not all cookies are crumbling cookies. Some of them are normal cookie platforms that you can just stand on. I tend to have some decoration on these cookies to show they are safe. I'll try to find a way to make it more obvious which is which, but for now, it's mostly in the sound and the effect.
I've also added in molten chocolate milk (Or hot cocoa if you prefer). If you stand in it, you will lose energy like being hit. The upside to this is that you don't get stunned by the damage and you can keep moving freely. It's also an opaque liquid which means you'll vanish 'into' it if you move into too deep of liquid. I'll be careful not to let you get stuck without being able to see Aria of course, but that does also mean that if you see a pit of molten chocolate milk filled to the brim that it's likely just a pit that will burn a safe fall charge or knock you out.
Again, that's not everything though! I also programmed in a new type of switch that'd dedicated to Aria in blueberry form. This can act as a bit of a challenge timer to get from point a to b while still being a blueberry. It won't be too prominent just yet, but it'll show back up again later too.
And finally, the last thing to mention is the jelly bouncers. These act a bit like a trampoline, though you don't need to hold down your jump button for it to go higher. Instead it does it automatically. If you want to slow your bounce, you can attack while you are still falling and lower your bounce velocity. As well, you can get bounced up and down directly, but from the side you will just get gently pushed. And you do need to land fairly accurately on the top middle of the jellyblock or you will do a weaker side jiggle bounce.
Oddly enough, the one feature I didn't get to was the black licorice candy which stuns you. That'll be next on my list though, and then I will design some more levels and see about starting on the enemies for the area. Like I said before, most candy island enemies will be a bit more simplistic to compensate for the more hazardous stages.
Ah! Something I DID forget to mention is that for a while now (And in the last build) you're able to walk up stairs by holding down the UP button while moving horizontally. Currently you can ALSO use this to hook yourself onto some platforms you can't fully reach (But you have to be moving horizontally and holding up) which I am not sure if I should leave in or go back over the code to remove it. I'll keep my eye on it.
And that's really all to discuss now. I do have a little video that I'm going to post for patrons just to show some off. (there is no music, but I will get a new track when I can. ) Feel free to comment your thoughts on these new additions!
I have less to say this time around, but that would be because I just released a build and a lot of the information about it is in there. Though that doesn't mean there isn't stuff to say, just that most of the good stuff is in the build post.
One thing I do want to mention is that I didn't get to add in any new trinkets which I very much wanted to do. I was working on the grappler enemy a lot longer than I thought I would have to. Several hours of just troubleshooting on her and the interaction with Aria. Mostly having to do with how she would grab Aria and hold her. It was going on so long I was considering just abandoning allowing the grappler to grab Aria while she was turned into a blueberry due to a lot of cross state scripts and whatnot. I THINK I got it all worked out to the point where I'll even be able to add new enemies who can grab Aria too.
Another problem with this programming was with how the grappler interacts with Aria and solid obstacles. If you get grabbed right into a wall shortly after turning into a blueberry then it can act really buggy and jerk around for example. It's quite sensitive. Though I did work with it until the grappler could push and shove up and down hills just fine. (Though it can be janky if she pushes Aria off a steep ledge on their way to the nest area)
But only more troubleshooting will tell and if there's one thing I have learned about this kind of code it's that later down the line I will suddenly discover some kind of game breaking bug that has to do with it and have to patch it. There was even a bug in the game right up until shortly before I released the demo that would cause Aria's orb flame to trigger her invincibility code and make the next damage source she took do no damage. So you could potentially spam fire and run into it to prevent damage. Fortunately I knew there was something odd about the hit indicator popping up randomly when no enemies were around and fixed it before the demo released.
I have a feeling I'll have something weird like that with the grappler AI in some form.
Ah, but in regards to the progress of the game, it's now in version 0.5 and it will be until the next boss is finished. That will be when it goes into 0.6. I feel comfortable talking a bit about what I want to add between those two points so why not, I'll do it here. (Though I did talk about this somewhat in the last devlog)
I want to add a new candy island tileset, but I also want to add an autumn fields recolor area. That will likely come after the candy island zones and be more of a 'remix' area that isn't too long. Without spoiling my plans for the boss, I will say that I have a partially done recolor of the forest and that will be where the next boss is located. So I will likely have the candy island zone, an autumn field zone, and then a dark forest zone. I'm not promising the autumn field one as I may change my mind on where to put that one, but I do want to put it in the game. It's really more of a question of whether or not it's a good idea to have the tone shift so dramatically or not. (I mean the game literally has dissonance in the title so it would fit)
In terms of other new content, I have the 'negative' candy that I will be experimenting with and figuring out how best to add it. I will also add in at least a couple more power shrines and I am going to add, bare minimum, one more puzzle shrine.
And I've shown off a couple of forms for Aria that haven't made it in the game yet. I am going to have one of those added.
It feels like quite a bit since I've added any story elements, but that will change here as well. I have one story point that I am going to be working on even before candy island levels come about. Then I will also have a couple more main story points.
In terms of new enemies, I'm going to take it a bit easy for candy island. Not to say I am not adding new enemies, but you can look forward to a few enemies that are a bit more abstract and simple. I won't have a more complex enemy type until the dark forest area and even that will have a few new enemies that are more simple in design. This version will have more of a larger volume of enemies, but they will mostly be simplistic in both sprite design and AI. Not to say that I am trying to avoid the same complexity as the filimuri, but more that I want to have a good variety.
I'll also say that the filimuri will get at least one recolor down the line too, but that won't be in the next version.
I would like to avoid having so many zones without any new weapons or spells so I will likely add at least one of them in there.
Back to story, I will say that I think some of you know that the shop keeper has at least one other form considering the art collection here. Well, I'll be adding that little plot as well in this version.
So that's most of the plan for the next build. I do still have a big commission that I need to finish and since I just completed this build, I am going to try and focus on that as I need to finish it and then get back to making some money to stay afloat.
Which actually reminds me of an idea I had. Similar to my idea of offering to add OC NPCs to the game for a premium price, I was also considering offering a shrine slot for a premium too. So you'd get to have an OC of yours added as one of the boob shrines that you unlock for more power. If there is interest of course. Though the prices on this kind of stuff would be like 300 for one. I think I talked about this before too, though not the shrines. Anything to keep afloat and developing the game!
Anyway, that's it for this devlog! I am going to go ahead and take my rest now.
Update: I moved all the extra info about the patches down to the bottom of this. So if you want to see what I changed then scroll all the way to the bottom.
Latest ver - 0.5.0.5 (0.5.0.6 Devbuild only)
Last updated - 07/17/24
Make sure you delete your own config file before using this build!
So we're officially moving into 0.5 now. I was hoping to have gone back and finished up the gargoyle death cinematic, but I just kept putting it off. (For some odd reason. It's not like it will take a ton of time to do even...) I will get to it eventually, possibly as something I do now that 0.5 has been released. The game will remain in 0.5 until after the next boss is done and then it'll progress into 0.6 as I had said previously.
But I'll save chitchat for the devlog which I'll write after this. Here's all the usual build information.
You can find your save game and settings at %localappdata%/Aria_s_Dreamland_Dissonance
You can also type %localappdata% into your file browser and it should take you to the folder before that if the above doesn't work
If you are having difficulty locating this folder after that, then here are some manual instructions:
1. In the bottom search bar, type in 'this pc' and click on the item that comes up. (If you have an older computer, you will need to go to 'my computer' instead)
2. Find your local disk drive (It will usually be C: and show up as 'Local Disk (C:)' )
3. Find the folder 'Users'
4. Locate the folder with the name of your PC. It will be different for each person but it will likely be the name of your windows login username.
5. Find the 'AppData' folder. It might be a hidden folder and you will have to right click and go to properties to display it.
6. Find the folder named 'Local'
7. Find the folder named 'Aria_s_Dreamland_Dissonance' Ensure you aren't going into the demo folder.
Here is a link to the dev build(Which if you're worried about screwing up your save file, I recommend making a backup of your save before using this build): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wQkBc0HSItSZOuJZ_HwPc_tmGlOaxzN9/view?usp=sharing (Also there is a small bug that I know about in this build I didn't spot before making it that makes charge cards appear as a flame icon in the menus. It's nothing to worry about though, just a display error on my part. It shouldn't be there in the normal build though.)
As before, there is a text document with attached information in the zip file.
And now I'll write everything I can remember adding. (I should start writing this stuff down as actual patch notes just to get used to being professional about it) If you don't want to be spoiled, then don't read any of this.
New:
Fall forgiveness system - Throughout the world there are a small number of wing artifacts which will permanently grant you a charge of fall forgiveness. You can see how many charges you have by the wing icon on your Energy bar. (After you unlock one) Once the wing icon vanishes from your energy bar, the next fall will be lethal. Every time you enter, or stand outside the door of, your cabin, you'll restore all charges.
Currently there is only one wing artifact in the game. It's located in the first mountain area so you'll have to revisit it if your save is far past it.
Aesthetic Power Level system - You can now go past just 3 symbols, but you'll need to find a shrine and donate some of your power in order to get a higher level of max power. Right now there are only two in the game and only one of them can be unlocked. The second one has too high a power requirement to unlock. The first is in the first forest stretch and you can't miss it.
I will be adding more shrines as we go. Any shrine that I put in the main road that you can't possibly miss will follow sequential power level requirement increases. That way you will always be able to unlock the main path shrines as you go. It's the hidden ones that will have higher requirements so you may not be able to unlock them immediately as you find them.
With that said, I also added in a door unlock system which costs a small amount of power to unlock them. These will let you bypass the challenge associated with unlocking that particular shrine when you return. You just have to go back and so long as you unlocked the passage you can go right in and try the shrine again when you have the required power. (Symbol count)
Speaking of, you can now view how many symbols you have(and your max) in the pause menu.
There is also a hidden shrine somewhere that is under construction. You'll know it if you find it. Just step on the teleporter to leave since right now you can't actually do anything there. It's pretty well hidden though. I'll add an NPC later on that hints at it's location though.
As for raw content, I added in the crystalline beach called Telumur. (I want to add one of those fancy area text intros you get when you come to a new zone in some games) This area has two major branch paths with an intervening path if you decide you don't want to go into the depths. It's a relatively large pair of paths and I spent a lot of time trying to pretty them up, but not as much time balancing. So if they feel poorly balanced, that's definitely something I'd enjoy feedback on. I also mixed up the filimuri enemies with gobbos to hopefully keep things fresh. Though the filimuri enemies are pretty unique and I'm really happy with how they came out, they don't apply nearly as much pressure as the gobbos rushing you does. So a mix seems optimal.
There is one 'not so hidden' unlockable max energy gem along one of the paths. (Also there is a hidden poison resistance amulet unlockable somewhere.)
On the subject of poison, it's now in the game fully implemented. Your energy bar will turn green when you are poisoned and drain pretty quickly. Picking up any candy, or using the new heal spell, will cure it. All of the new enemies will apply poison to you if you touch them. (The grappler enemy only does so if you break her armor though) But yes, poison is fairly dangerous actually and the poison res amulet only mitigates it a bit. I will have probably a couple more poison res items later on to unlock too. Make sure you don't greedily gobble up all the nearby candy! (I tried to be lenient and put candy in the air slightly so you could avoid it while you're learning the enemy)
For the new enemies, they're pretty much how I said they would be, though the grappler enemy will be a bit rare in this build. She'll show up more when I add a few more levels.
Filimuri Lion Piken - You'll encounter quite a lot of these. They keep their distance from you for the most part and will block your attacks from a distance. They stay tethered to an area and won't pursue you beyond a certain range. They also will only run so far from you before their leash runs out.
I added in a kind of 'block durability' for them, which I think I haven't expressed very well since they use the same guard indication as the golem. The golem's block never runs out, but the Piken's block has durability. If you keep hammering away at their guard, their spear will eventually break and they'll be vulnerable. Though during this time, the caster, or another piken, might attack you from behind their ally. They will also block Magic Star damage, but it hits their block MUCH harder than others.
If you don't like the 'bullet spongy' feel of chipping away at their block, then move in quite close and look for them to ready an attack. At this point they won't guard and you can get off a free series of hits. You can also just attack them at very close range and they won't block. (And the blade will destroy their spear instantly too)
As well, if you stand away from them long enough, they'll throw a poisoned dagger at you. (You can also hit them during this) They will still throw the dagger at you if you destroy their spear and will continue to try and maintain distance from you. (Like a lot of projectiles, the blade can destroy the dagger mid flight)
Filimuri Mystic - There's a good amount of them. Like the Piken, they keep their distance, but they won't block you. They're easy prey if there is no one to guard them. However if you don't make quick work of them, they can be quite dangerous.
Most of the time they will wait for you to be standing on the ground and attempt to strike you with a bolt of lightning. There is a charge up time and rolling thunder to warn you it's about to hit. (I also have a small spinning circle appear at your feet, but it's not as noticeable as the faded lightning) If you stand between the two end points, you'll get zapped just as bad as if you didn't move at all. If you barely avoid it, you'll be thrown upward.
If you run off, they will attempt to cast a ball of lightning your way, which will endlessly pursue you until you stand on ground and let it deploy.
Finally, if you rush them down, they can squirt water at you and shove you back pretty hard. You can avoid this by attacking at mid range, or by jumping and trying to swipe at their head.
Also, I didn't mention it for the piken, but both the piken and mystic will go back to idling if you leave them be long enough out of their sight.
Filimuri Grappler - There are very few of them in the current levels. I tried to really emphasize giving them a nice intro. I will avoid spoiling how I tried to do that though.
The grappler hides while having an item as a lure (usually a gummy worm). If you take that item, then she'll jump out and attack you. While hiding, you can't hit her or inflate her or anything of the sort. But you can just not take the bait and avoid her ambush. (Most of the time)
The grappler is armored and won't suffer stuns until you break her armor. She will also soak quite a bit of damage before going down. To balance this out a bit, she doesn't actually do any direct damage to you. (Though you can get poisoned by touching her after her armor is broken)
The grappler is a bully however and will spend her time trying to grab you and take you to a 'nest' location. (I manually define these) When she grabs you, you'll get a little button popup showing buttons to press. (Basically left and right which you need to press back and forth) You will need to struggle to escape her grip otherwise she'll slowly push/pull you to the nest location. To make matters worse, if you get hurt, she won't let go of you. (You still get iframes though)
Once at the nest, she'll release you. Then she'll occasionally shove you (quite hard). If you go outside the nest, she'll pursue you and try to bring you back to bully you more.
And this is a good time to mention that while the other two filimuri can be squished by blueberry form, (You will need to jump to do so) the grappler can't be. In fact, she will still grab you and roll you toward the nest. (Or fling you over her shoulder if the nest is behind her) Worse than that, you can't struggle while you're a blueberry. (Though you will still squish enemies if the grappler rolls you over them) You just have to hope the blueberry form wears off before the grappler decides to shove you off a cliff. (She will release you anytime a TF form ends. She can also grab you while your boobs are inflated if you lower yourself down to her level. She won't touch you while you inflate/transform, but the animation lock can mean she'll be readying up a grab just as you finish pumping up.)
Ah! But I almost forgot fatty ratty! There's only a few instances of him in the game right now, but he'll be sprinkled across the game and I will even likely have a couple stronger recolors of him later down the line.
He works very simply. He will chase you down and hit you with his bag, stunning you for a long time and stealing your spell. If you don't have a spell, he steals golden candy from you.
After pinching your pennies (or spell), he'll run away to a designated spot and attempt to jump into a cartoon hole. If you hit him before this, he'll drop your stolen goods, and usually a little bonus. If you fail to stop him, then your stuff is gone for good.
Also I wouldn't bother trying to inflate him. This fatty ratty is inflation immune and will only giggle at you for trying.
One other thing to mention is that there is a new silence mechanic too. Though the silence mechanic is localized to shadow crystals. Currently there's only a few situations where you'll encounter them. Silence just prevents you from casting a spell. It's indicated by a big blue X over your spell icon and will make a fizzle sound if you try to cast while it's on you.
Oh and I added a menu item which lets you select what you want your max boob size to be in case you want to limit it. Currently you can't get boob size too big so it's somewhat irrelevant, but it'll be there in case you want to limit the size later on down the line.
And that's pretty much it. I have a devlog to write as well so I'll do that and then I am going to go to bed as I have been up way too long trying to make sure things are as polished as can be. If you've read this far then please accept my thanks for both your interest and support!
Edit: I completely forgot to mention that you will have to delete your config file to run this build since it has new options in the menus! Sorry about that!
Edit 2: 0.5.0.3 Fixed up some small issues. Fatty Ratty was only giving back windforce spells regardless of what he stole. I also made a slight adjustment to the filimuri behavior as they were getting stuck on edges. And I modified a couple of areas just a bit because the intended effects there were not working. (Silencer not being obvious and also making it so you couldn't even use your spell on the balloon. Also a couple areas where filimuri would move in a way to make it so they couldn't see you and be easy prey for the player.) Also a few menu display issues. (Though I didn't fix a small bug where your max power doesn't show as increased until after you pick up a symbol. It doesn't affect the actual cap, just makes it so you have to pick up a symbol to see how many your max is)
Edit 3: 0.5.0.4 I fixed up some more small issues. I fixed a crash on enemy dying under rare circumstance. I tuned the gargoyle boss slightly so now she shouldn't be able to get stuck in or on solid objects. I also fixed Aria's chest still showing after perishing. And I modified the menu text to say 'aspect ratio' instead of resolution. There are a few other tweaks too, but nothing noteworthy.
Edit 4: Updating to 0.5.0.5, added in a retaliate mechanic for the filimuri piken. Now when you pressure them with attacks, they will move into their attack stance forcibly (even if blocking) and attack at a faster rate (and recover quite a bit faster too). During this 'retaliation attack' they will take half damage and you'll be notified they are retaliating via a pop up icon and SFX similar to the block icon. I also nerfed the shuriken damage at max power level by 25% and boosted the damage of the level beneath it to the same amount as max level, just with only 4 shurikens.
I have also changed the block icon for breakable blocks to a wooden shield icon to let you know that it's breakable. Though now that they retaliate, it's unlikely you will need to break their block anymore. I lowered their max block health by a modest chunk. (And I slightly increased magstar damage so now it should bust their block in just 3 hits while still only raising their retaliation counter by 1. So you can break their spear with magstar and not trigger retaliate for example.)
I have modified the weather so now all weather should last almost double the duration it did before with the exception of clear weather which should be more than 3x the duration than it was before. It does still pick the weather randomly though with the exception of stormy weather which it attempts to avoid storming after it's already stormed. I may adjust it further though, but this should definitely result in more clear weather.
I also added in a new item somewhere in the beach area which functions like the weirdbox in that it allows you to buy a couple more items from Shopia.
There were also several fixes to systems which would've caused crashing when more unlocks came about, but thankfully the problem was spotted early and fixed. (It was a stupid problem I should've seen when I was programming it too)
And one final note, I finished the gargoyle death animation and her dialogue for if you beat her while she's hypercharged. (Though she only speaks to you if you beat her after hypercharging her)
Lute loves to read new and exotic books. Though she's not much of one for understanding magic. Naturally she's also a bit clumsy and avoiding booby trapped tomes isn't something she's very good at. She is a succubus though so she could always transform back. If she wants to that is. Maybe she'd entertain the shape more often too.
Also forgot to mention, but the speech bubbles won't be in the game. I might do a dialogue box popup during her tf though.
Here is our succubus NPC Lute! I decided to go with a bit more of a uneasy succubus. A cuter looking gal who isn't so sure of herself. And certainly expanding won't make that any better.
I'm not quite finished with Lute's expansion yet, but I'm certainly not as far behind on this one as I was with Ven'drothe. The tf will be hourglass expansion, but I've got her turning around as her butt grows and then forward as her chest grows. Otherwise though it's pretty simple this time.
As I said, I'm just trying to work on the filimuri and get this build wrapped up so I can get it out to everyone to play around with.
Seems the poll results came in with shripe and a split on alchemist and astralmancer. It works out well as they have split personalities more often than most other species. Also, astralmancer is very fitting for a shripe as they are very oriented with the cosmos. So we just need to mix that with alchemy. I think, perhaps, this may end up with some cosmic preg or possibly blueberry oriented. There are quite a lot of options when alchemy is involved though!
Another piece of artwork I have kicking around. One of the little thaery in game getting inflated. I also included the actual sprite being inflated because why not?
The first part here shows her without the combat AI and just how she responds to your movement. I also showed how she will poison you if you touch her, but she won't do so otherwise. Only on contact. So no just shoving through her without getting punished. (Though you can phoenix dash through her just fine)
Here you can see the unlock system in action for the statues and how they react to being filled with power. I also made a slight modification to charge cards to where they will penetrate all destructibles when charged up. I did this specifically so that you can hit treasure chests with charged shots and decided that it would make sense to just let you demolish destructibles with the charged element.
I forgot to mention in the devlog, but I did also get a flashy teleport animation working too.
Well, I certainly didn't get as much done as I would've liked, but I also did kind of get more done than I thought I would at the same time. I have a bigger comm I need to finish, but even then I will likely just have to take more so things will be slow unless I can get more reliable income.
I think I'll start off by outlining what I got done:
Almost completely finished the current levels. (They're like 95% complete, just need enemies, a couple trinkets, and a once over) Completely finished the Filimuri Caster Completely finished the shrine and boob power levels system as well as the statue visuals (Statues just need to be placed and tagged which will occur over the course of development)
So while I had been working on the filimuri, I did get sidetracked into completing something else that I also had to do. So now we completely have the power level and shrine system done for boob power levels. I also added in a pause menu UI so you can see how much power level you have currently.
The statue system will also now record any statues you unlock from this point forward. (No save wipe as I have said in the past)
The unlock system I put in I made a nice big buffer on them so I really can't imagine it ever being a problem. Unless the game gets really really popular and I make enough to completely fund the game monthly I seriously doubt there will be anything to worry about.
And even if after the game releases we keep adding content, not only is there plenty of space in the base game, but I could always add a second mode with parallel progression/saves for example.
But back to the more juicy stuff and that's the statue system! Like I said I got it all done! And that means a nice little video showing it off! I'll upload that for members to view.
Though how about the filimuri?
Unfortunately I only finished the caster. I had an issue where I basically spent almost an entire day just studying code to get her lightning to work. It was one of those issues where I am sometimes just kind of dumb and the answer is sitting in front of my face. I'm happy with how she came out though for sure! But what's more important is how the people playing the game feels about it.
How about a view of her functionality? I'll upload a public video showing her off after this.
I did pretty much exactly how I said I would with her. She tries to stay at mid range with you and won't pursue you endlessly. In fact, if you leave her alone and stay away long enough, she'll go back to idling. As well, I even gave her a short little idle animation too. (Which up until this point, none of the enemies in the game had.)
After some time, she'll attempt to strike you with lightning. I used a very audible sound cue of crackling lightning. As well the lightning path is very animated and there is also a small ground effect just in case all of that isn't enough to show you that you need to move.
If you stand still, you'll get hit HARD and bounced up and away from the point of impact. If you stand in the 'line' of lightning, it will also hit you. So she's surprisingly dangerous from mid to short range if you let her fire off her attacks.
Of course, she's not a real threat on her own due to being able to just fire off attacks at her from mid range. But if you close with her and remain 'on level' with her, she'll squirt water at you and knock you far back. Right now the interval for doing this lets her keep doing it while retreating, but you should be able to close in for a blade attack once she reaches her leash point. But I made sure that you can also just JUMP and hit her in the face. She won't squirt water at you if you are above head level. So even though she can keep you back from being really close to her pretty easily, you should still be able to take care of her without too much trouble so long as you jump (and aren't being bullied by the grappler).
If you get out of range of her (or line of sight her), she will cast the same ball of lightning from the golem encounter which will chase you down. (It DOES have a max range, but it's quite long) You can of course just keep out of her line of sight, or very far away, and she'll go back to her idle after some time.
Finally, as I had said, when you try and inflate her, she'll try and counter the magic, resisting it and eventually becoming exhausted and falling to her knees. If you just let her go, she'll get back up and resume attacking you. If you hit her while she's on her knees, she'll get knocked out immediately. If you hit her while she's resisting the inflation spell, then she'll inflate like normal and you can jump on her booba as usual.
And that's pretty much it for what I've gotten finished the past couple weeks. I'm going to try be focused heavily on getting the last two filimuri done. I feel like the spear filimuri will be much more simple to program than the caster. Though the grappler filimuri I am still debating on that since I am unsure of whether I want to go to the lengths of making them able to ACTUALLY grab Aria and throw her or if they will just shove her in the direction they want her to go and just kind of try and get in her way. Unless it's really hard or time consuming, I'll probably do grabbing.
I do want to talk for a moment about the games versions though. I've written down nearly everything I want to be in the game, but I'm just not sure what will be a good/bad idea and where exactly I'll be putting it in. To give an example, I had the idea of doing cards that cycle as you throw them, but decided against it since it would feel too similar to the grahstery lantern. Instead I made charge cards which are more distinct. So I don't want to promise something that might get removed.
With that said, I will at least talk a bit more about the version numbers and what will determine them.
Technically we're in v0.5 right now. The next release will be v0.5 for the purposes of not being confusing. It'll stay that like until I finish the next boss and that will be when the game goes to v0.6. Similarly, when I finish the boss after that, the game will go into v0.7. When we hit v0.8 that's when I will do some organization to the game and we can consider that the story version as I'll make sure all the story stuff is up to date at that point. Then v0.9 is when I will implement the final boss into the game and from that point I'll start polishing and adding in any missing features. I'd say that v0.9 is likely when I will add the monthly NPCs we have been making into the game, but I could add that sooner if there is a strong demand for it to be available sooner. If you have a strong feeling of wanting to have the monthly NPC system in and a way to interact with them in game sooner then please comment or message me letting me know. The NPC system will take a bit of time to properly implement since I'd like a bit of flexibility to it and I need to make a separate shop keeper who will sell the tf items for example.
v0.9 will probably be the longest version of the game.
And v1.0 will be when the game is considered 'done' at that point.
Now I haven't gotten all the things that I'll add fully laid out for which patch and such, but right now they are planned to come as... well as they come really. Just to talk about what is in the near future, there will be a candy themed zone that's coming up next (or shortly after), but it will not be in the next release. It'll be in the release after that. The candy themed zone will be fairly short and only contain 1 new enemy, but it will also contain a new mechanic which is 'black licorice', a candy that stuns you (but restores some energy).
Now something like that might be seen as kind of annoying to deal with, just getting forcibly stunned and slowed down, so I'll try my best to make it more like land mines. It'll be up to my ability to design levels to make it so it's less annoying and more an obstacle to overcome. (I'll also specifically give it a different glow from other candy too, but I'm not sure what color would be ideal since red is the danger color and pink is the candy color and yellow is the danger color on projectiles. Probably green since green is typically poison)
I also will say that I don't think I'll do something like poison candy for example. That kind of defeats the point of candy being a cure for poison. Never say never though.
I think that's all I have to say for now. I'll get back to work now. (After I upload the vids and sleep)
So this couple of weeks spent were pretty much almost entirely focused on designing the new filimuri enemies and starting their animations. Of course, I did also spend some time on Ven'drothe as I was running late and working on commissions. Unfortunately I wouldn't say I managed my time incredibly well these two weeks and I made less progress on the game than I'd hoped for, but did manage to complete another comm.
So why not, I'll just go ahead and start off with the new filimuri!
The first one is the wizard enemy type that I had talked about before. At a friend's recommendation, I decided to theme their general appearance around lionfish. As well, I'll try to program them to have some similarities. In the wizard's case, I've animated her two casting animations. one focusing on her horn and the other aiming like a handgun. The handgun I intend to be a directed lightning bolt and the horn focus will be a long range lightning ball similar to the golem boss. I will also give her a short range knockback.
As for her animations so far, I've bundled them up into a .gif to show. I'll give a better show of them once I've actually programmed her and then you can see how they're meant to come together.
If you pay close attention you might just notice what happens when you try to inflate her. I'll likely make it so that if you interrupt her during this, that she'll lose focus and you'll get to see her puff up just like the rest of the girls.
Second on the list is the spear girl. In her case, I plan to have her guard an area (likely where she spawns) and only attack you if you get too close. She'll act kind of like a guard and be paired up with the wizard here and there. If you hang out of her max range and try to snipe her, she'll throw poisoned darts at you.
I haven't gotten too much done for her animations yet. Just getting her set up mostly and the dart toss animation.
And the third one, which I hadn't planned for originally, is the armored grappler filimuri. I designed her a bit like an angler fish. You can bet she'll be hiding and waiting for you to try and pick up the item she's got dangling and then jump out at you to grab you. She is also armored so she won't be stunnable until you break the armor. Though because of this, I'll make her a bit slow on her attacks.
I more so plan to have her try and control the player a bit. Try and grab you and put you more toward the spear filimuri and wizard. The basic idea being that I will set a point that she wants to force the player into and then program her to react based on the player's position relative to her and that point. Just grabbing you and shoving you toward that point or bullying you if you're already there. I'll have to make her moves fairly slow and have a long windup or it won't be fun to fight her though due to her armor. I will likely make it so you can jump over her as she's readying to grab you. I figure I will have her in a more wrestling 'ready' pose so she'll be lower to the ground than the other two in spite of being so tall. (Though she does have a spiked back so you'll need to be careful not to land on her)
And here is her look when you've knocked her armor off. Some spiked wrist bands and collar to give her a bit of a rebellious look. Of course you could just use the wind blade to bust it off immediately... or you can inflate her and her armor will explode off too. I think I will make the armor have quite a lot of HP, but she won't have a lot without it.
Something else to note, touching any of these enemies will poison you. Poison is already fully implemented, I just have to make it so enemies can poison you. (I also forgot to do that with the pufferfish, but the pufferfish will poison you too)
Also I may change it so when you break her armor that she has more normal looking eyes. I was thinking about making them a pink or lavender color. As I always say, I am always open to suggestions on things and hearing feedback. The whole reason I'm even able to make the game is because of supporters!
And that's what I have been up to so far. I do have one more big animation commission currently on my plate to do, but while I'm doing that I will still continue to work on the game at a nice steady pace! I do also have the elf succubus to do, but I will likely put off on doing her until after I've gotten the filimuri ladies completely animated.
The only other news for the game is that I added a bit more to the levels and added a new teleporter type (for long distance teleports specifically) and it's working. I just have to add some sound to it.
And that's all for this particular devlog! Thank you everyone!
