Quick Words on Ophiucus
Project Ophiuchus is intended to be released in 2027 as “Strings of Eternity”. It will be a 10 dollar game on Itch.io and Steam. We are going to finish the game and rework it a bit to be shorter so it has a satisfying narrative completion. The original game was intended to be about three times longer, but there is an upcoming great depression so reworking the game to be shorter and faster to release it probably a good idea.
The game will feature four main transformations, lots of puzzles, a few hours of gameplay, a simple-but-effective RPG combat system, and probably a bonus boss and bonus TF. If it does well, maybe we’ll rework it, make a DLC, or release a sequel that shows more of the original vision.
The artists are presently working on Ophiucus to get it ready while I’ve been doing Witches of Ravenbrook work. With the new scope of the game I see a few more months of programming work for Ophiucus, particularly on necessary story reworks. Most of the puzzles are ready, the sketchwork for the entire manor is complete, and we’d need some more combat frames since Mei will have playable transformations in the game now.
Witches of Ravenbrook Update
Some of these were posted in other places but I’m reporting them to have them a bit more centralized. Chris-Maid-Doll is getting a slight update to her hairstyle, and a character who is high-influence will have a spiral behind their portrait during combat. This might also appear during mind-control temporary TFs, as a way of indicating the character might ignore commands.
When you meet the witches, there will be a 3D scene where you can talk to them in person, rather than the previous normal dialogue system. This is a visual concept. You’ll have the chance to talk to all the witches in their “lairs” before eventually fighting them. After, a group of mortals could be useful for more than just new servants, and they have plans for you.
This will probably be developed fairly late, as 3D world design takes precedence. It’ll look really cool when it’s complete, of course.
Better watch what you say to the witches. If you really set them off, they might teleport you to a part of the maze your party is not ready for!
(Yes this was discussed in the last update post, but the concept art is now further along)
Plans for Demo 2
So our current goal is to work towards Demo 2. Demo 2 will star Alia, Clover, and Penny, and will take place in the Honeybunns area.
Naturally, it will include bad-ends for the new enemy types. (Can I just say how much I love that the drink machine has a bee hive on top).
Inky has some ideas for house texture concepts and layouts. She’s mostly been focused on character art as I’m still working on the editor. More on that later. I want the Honeybunns area to have streets, restaurants, kitchens areas, and maybe a farm area with hucow TFs. That should give a good area variety for the demo.
I don’t know exactly how big the demo will be. Probably the same rough size as the first one, with a few areas to explore and a few bosses.
Momentum System
This hasn’t been implemented yet but it’s something I wanted to put in the game. I believe I have discussed this a bit on Discord but it’s not an update post yet. Here we go!
In the game, classes are typically divided into three types. Physical, Magical, and Agility. Physical is your knights, magical is your wizards, and agility is your thieves and loners. The first two are pretty easy to figure out, and you can make a simple and fun game with just those two types. I wanted to have a more dynamic combat system to really make the game stand out, but it also had to be something fairly intuitive. There’s already a lot going on in WoR’s combat, though it’s largely from prep work you’ve done (picked classes, picked characters, picked equipment).
The Momentum system gives your party a Momentum score. When combat begins, it’s 1. All of your characters’ abilities except Attack and Defend have a Momentum score to them, with higher-power skills typically having higher Momentum values.
For example, the basic Scorch skill is now Scorch (M1). If you use it at Momentum 1, then your Momentum score goes to 2, the skill deals an extra 30% damage, and costs 30% less MP to use. Momentum is party-wide, and this also changes the initiative system. Your characters now always act from left to right in the party order, and enemies act between character actions or at the end of the turn. Initiative scores now just determine if your entire party acts first, allowing you to take out enemies before they have a chance to attack.
This allows a lot of strategy. Your leftmost character will always act first and you want to build your Momentum score up higher, since it allows you to use more powerful abilities for a reduced cost and to do extra damage. However: Momentum is Physical, or Magical. If you use a skill from the opposite type, it resets the Momentum value back to 1. That sounds bad!
So naturally, Agility classes like the Thief or the Loner have special properties, like a Magic skill that acts as both Physical and Magical, or a skill that switches which type the Momentum is, or a skill that ignores Momentum entirely and always gets the bonuses.
Enemies are going to try to mess with your plans. Hypnotizing or transforming your party means they might ignore commands and use the wrong skill, resetting your Momentum and making it harder to land big spells. Having Agility type classes on your roster can mitigate these effects, or you can just spend the extra MP to use powerful spells and try to ignore the system.
You can, of course, play the game entirely ignoring Momentum. It gives bonuses to damage and reduces spell costs, but with enough levels or equipment, you can overcome this. It gives you a new and interesting set of decisions to make and allows you to build your characters around it. Do you make sure each character has a skill at each Momentum level? Do you put a lot of Agility classes in so you can dance freely between the types, even if their total stats are a bit lower? Or do you make everyone a Physical character and ignore Magical Momentum entirely?
3D And the Editor
I’ve been working hard for the last month or so designing the map editor. I tried out a lot of other editors and tools, and none of them did quite what I needed them to. Some were in beta, some were promising but hadn’t been updated in a year, and most were really just model editors and not level editors.
The editor is custom-made from scratch, by me, so I don’t owe any rights or royalties or anything. It will also be released as open-source alongside the game, with documented file types. It’s basically Minecraft, in that it’s a 3D cubic voxel geometry editor. I need to make custom geometries and collisions available, but the basic operation is: You use the Block Editor to paint a cube with textures, then put the cube on the hotbar at the bottom. Then you place the cubes in the world. You can paint textures in-world too, but I haven’t made that tool yet.
I am currently using a color picker for cube placement. I haven’t quite gotten to actually placing cubes in the world yet, that’s next on my list of things to do. I also need to handle save/load, compiling levels, undo/redo stacks, and more. I have a lot to do.
When it’s done, the game will have a proper 3D level editor and then other games will be able to use it, entirely for free.
I want to make the editor intuitive and easy to use, both because I have to use it, and because I want it to be a proper utility for other game developers. It is really weird to me that nobody has actually made a voxel editor like this that handles custom geometries and collisions yet! I found one on Itch that was just for a specific shooter game, and it had a weird control scheme. Not me! I’m gonna do this right.
Have another bad end image, this time of Beth, as a treat :3
The Next Update
I’m not sure when the next big update will be. I want to have functional 3D levels to show off, and probably have done work on the new inventory systems and the like. We’re also working on Ophiucus so I will be going back and forth between the two games. Don’t worry, the game is coming along and I’m really excited to be making a 3D exploration TF game. It’s gonna be something special!
Scribblehub Leakage: Episode 6
Hey do you like literacy? Well you better look elsewhere because this is Scribblehub Leakage, where literacy goes to die! Read it here!
We Got a Special Fan Art Section This Time Hoo Boy
Yeah that’s right we got fanfiction! That counts as fan art, shut up. You can get it as bonus material on the Their Base Material pages on Wechange and Itch.io. It’s free!
By Coco!
There was other fan art this week but since this is the big WoR post it makes sense to mostly stick to WoR stuff. Next week will have our usual fare.
So Many Links!
Where to find us:
Our Patreon and Subscribestar are great places to support development! You can also get cool bonus stuff like concept art and early releases of Pandemonium!
If you want extra pictures of cats, you can follow us on Bluesky.
And there’s always Our Discord. You can shout at Salty *in person*.
We also have a Wiki! We’d appreciate it greatly if people keep it maintained for us. :3
Bottled Starlight Games:
Runes of Pandemonium, the big adventure TF RPG, always free on Steam and Itch.io.
Witch Hunter Izana, a battle-TF RPG. Available on Steam or Itch.io.
Witches of Ravenbrook, a battle-TF dungeon-crawler. The prototype is out now and free on Itch.io.
WoR Kickstarter page (260% funded! Thanks a lot!)
String Tyrant, a survival horror game, is on Steam and Itch.io.
Upcoming Prototype for Project Ophiucus! Link will be added when it’s out.
Other Bottled Starlight Stuff
Salty writes a book series, with audiobooks and illustrations, called Tales of Strings.
Want a free introduction to the series? Check out The First Joust on Itch.io or Wechange.me.
Instruments is out now on Itch.io.
Passed Hand is now on Itch.io!
Spiderweb Theory is now on Itch.io!
Urban Explorers is now on Itch.io!
Knights of Justice: Varsity Vixens is now on Itch.io!
Knights of Justice: Crush Depth is now on Itch.io!
Knights of Justice: Three Short Steps is now on Itch.io!
Knights of Justice: Knighttime is now on Itch.io!
Knights of Justice: Sticks and Straws is now on Itch.io!
Knights of Justice: Strings Are Attached is now on Itch.io!
Knights of Justice: Only Shadows for Comfort VN Prototype on Itch.io!
Guise of the Goddess is now on Itch.io!
Knights of Justice: Actirangers, Come Forth is now on Itch.io! It’s free!
Knights of Justice: Bound by Love and Grace is now on Itch.io!
Knights of Justice: Solace of Orange is now on Itch.io!
Knights of Justice: High Lord of Dust is now on Itch.io!
Knights of Justice: Twin Jade Eyes is now on Itch.io!
Tense Wire is now on Itch.io!
Knights of Justice: Their Base Material is now on Itch.io!
Knights of Justice: Water’s Not Fine is now on Itch.io!
Knights of Justice: Until Only I Remain is now on Itch.io!
Knights of Justice: Disaffection is now on Itch.io!
The Princess and the Puppet is now on Itch.io!
The Big Halloween Collab (ft. Bottled Starlight!) is now on Wechange!
Knights of Justice: The Long Wing of the Law is now on Itch.io!
The Elites: A Knights Prequel Miniseries, is being released for free on Scribblehub. Check it out! You can also get the entire series as pdfs on Wechange.me or Itch.io.
All of the ToS books can also be found on Wechange.me!
We have some ridiculous merch on Redbubble and Teepublic if you want to be the center of conversation (derogatory / celebratory).
