So you may have noticed that we’ve been working on normalizing all the chapter 1 and chapter 5 art. But what does that mean? Well, it means making them look better, you goober!
So I had Chicken “Chickenwhite” White pick out some of the images that improved the most. And uh, here they are.
Alraunes were one of the first designs we made, before we had figured out the shading style we were going for.
Cultists were actually literally the first enemy design we made. The texture on the book looks a lot better.
Best Friend is an enemy type that will be appearing in chapter 2. It didn’t appear in chapter 1 because its job was taken by those damn skullcrawlers.
Fun fact: Best Friend was originally designed for a game we decided not to make: Patron Saint. Maybe we’ll get to see it get made someday. Maybe sooner than you think.
And then we come to slimes, who have a much more vibrant color selection and texturing in the new version. Lovely!
Curious Cat
Changelog
Version 3.15 Fixed a crash in the inventory handler.
Version 3.16 Fixed a crash in the load handler.
Version 3.17 *Finished (most of) chapter 1’s journal handlers.
The journal is a WIP in this version. It’s not complete, but the baseline code is all in place. All we need to do is write all the entries.
The bestiary tracks which enemies you’ve defeated. If you defeat them enough, their stats and resists will appear in their information pane. You can also push the Z key to see the full combat portrait.
The profiles tab keeps track of the characters you’ve met and gives you a quick description in case you forgot something. It even updates for some characters, particularly the very transformable ones.
The quest tracker keeps track of the quests you’re on, including what you should do next or where you should go. It doesn’t necessarily track everything you can do in the chapter, just the major things.
And here we have the location tab, showing the areas you’ve visitd and giving a rundown of them.
Finally, the combat glossary. It details the minutiae of combat, detailing mechanics that are a bit harder to describe in the tutorial or character text.
I hope to have the journal completed for both chapters within the coming weeks. In addition to other backend changes, of course.
Curious Cat
Changelog
Major Changes
Added Gravemarker TF Images!
Added (woefully incomplete) Journal, WIP.
Minor Changes
Chapter 5 jobs should now show which abilities are on their job bars.
Changed a deadnaming part in chapter 5.
JX-101 has a diagonal loading frame now.
Combat Balance
Increased JX-101’s attack power so she’s more useful during her section.
*Disruptor Blast should deal the predicted damage amount.
55’s Implosion Grenade now deals less damage than Wide-Lens Shot for 2-3 targets but more damage at 4 or more targets.
55’s Implosion Grenade should now correctly show damage prediction.
55’s Power Jump should show the MP increase.
Christine’s Supernova should do flame instead of slash damage.
55’s Nanite Cloud icon now has the CP requirement indicator.
55’s Psyche Out now deals 10% of her max HP instead of 20%.
Christine’s Overclock should show the correct icons.
Christine’s Beyond Sight show show the correct icons.
Christine’s Grounded now correctly shows prediction.
Christine should now correctly get Bloodboil for her last skillbook ability as a Steam Droid.
Christine’s Quickdry Splash should show the correct damage type.
Christine’s Oblierate shows the correct CP requirement indicator.
Christine’s Scavenge shows the correct CP requirement indicator, which is none.
Christine’s Seen Worse should show the correct description in the combat inspector.
Christine’s Embolden should show the correct icons.
JX-101’s Thunderbolt Slug shows the correct CP requirement indicator.
All chapter 5 in-combat items should benefit from 55’s User Manuals.
Christine’s Grasp of the Void DoT type changed to Obscuring.
Bugfixes
Fixed a missing wall collision in the LRT Facility.
Fixed the ‘Neutronium Vest’ bug in the Biolabs.
Fixed Electrosprite appearing on Christine’s form list when she’s already an Electrosprite.
Fixed wrong sound effect playing when opening the door to SX-399’s room.
Catalysts should now correctly apply when loading a game.
Corrected the catalyst bonus indicators on the main menu.
Should no longer be able to be a non-human during the Black Site.
Fixed a number of enemies not matching their overworld sprite.
Void Rifts now have a defeated sprite.
Fixed Latex Drones not having a wounded frame.
Fixed several abilities not showing their hit rate in prediction boxes.
Ability description text in the combat inspector should line up correctly.
Fixed a bug where enemies using buffs on their allies would spit debug text if all their allies were dead.
Added Raiju Christine to the inventory face table.
Bloody Mirror should appear in the portraits box.
Golems and Geishas should also appear in the portraits box.
Engine Upgrades
Generalized the ‘Madness’ type tables.
Updated all DoT effects to use the new standard.
Updated all effects to have standardized factory function.
Restructured ability and effect folder tree to be per-character.
Check out this lovely Sanya geisha doll done by Levvd Peep. Thanks, Peep!
Code!
I’ve modernized a lot of code and am working on adding a prototype bestiary and basic journal functionality. It’s not quite ready yet, so it will be released next week for player feedback and testing. There will be a bunch of new bugs due to me having to update a LOT of code, so v3.14 will be an “unstable” build and v3.13 will be the recommended build for new players.
Art!
Chicken believes she can have the last of the chapter 1 shading done by next week. Koops is working on getting the chapter 1 intro image done, but that probably won’t be ready. The other artists are doing god knows what.
I have finished my work on Pairanormal (which is going to public beta soon!) and am fixing up various bugs leftover in Pandemonium. There will be another patch soon with the accumulated bugfixes. After I have all the reported bugs cleaned up, it’ll be on to the UI and Mechanical patches.
Artistry
Chicken is finishing up some leftover chapter 1 images that haven’t been upgraded to the new shading system yet. Koops is doing some character concepts for chapter 2 and is also going to be doing intro images for all the chapters, starting with Mei entering a spooky alleyway at night.
Urimas and Hund are doing secret stuff which will be announced in a few months.
Koops was commissioned to draw this lovely ballerina dancer doll. I love it so much I asked if I could post it so feast your damn eyes on it.
Version 3.13 Released
Pandemonium v3.13 is out. It’s mostly a bugfix and image improvement release, with some new icons and loading image. Changelog is at the bottom of the post.
Last week, we revealed the steering survey results. Surprisingly, the patrons voted to give us discretion on what to do next, and by god did we exercise it. I called a meeting and everything.
At the meeting, we decided the following: We will implement the UI Patch first, because it’s the smallest and will take the least amount of time. After that is the Mechanical Patch, which won’t require any additional artist assets (except maybe some sprites) so Chicken can catch up on the remaining chapter 5 art.
At that point, if Chicken has finished polishing up the chapter 5 art, we will move on to chapter 2. Otherwise, I will work on the Editorial Patch while she does that. I can’t set any hard dates for any of these, my estimates are always way off because coding is hard.
Other Art Stuff
Koops is going to be making some chapter-intro images so you don’t just have to stare at a black screen while the game tells you what is going on. Chicken has also finished all of the Gravemarker TF images, but those came in too late to make it into v3.13 so they will be released next week.
Curious Cat
Version 3.13 Changelog
Major *Hopefully fixed that really annoying bug which would cause assorted images to appear in the image-string text. *Added region markers for chapter 5 areas. *Added new item icons for most items, with emphasis being on the character weapons.
Minor *Added the new loading images made by Stinkehund. *Septima is now 8-directional. *JX-101 is now 8-directional.
Combat Balance *Christine’s ‘Cover’ should no longer take hits when she’s KO’d, despite the incredibly bravery of it. *Some other abilities which should be removed on KO will now correctly do so. *Christine’s Raiju ‘Fireworks’ now deals the correct damage type, and is listed as always hitting. *Christine’s Raiju ‘Fireworks’ now shows the correct damage icons. *Christine’s Raiju ‘Polarity’ will now show its hit rate, and correctly lists its predicted damage over time. *Christine’s Electrosprite ‘Chain Zap’ now lists 50 stun and deals 50 stun. *Christine’s Raiju ‘Embolden’ now works properly. *Christine’s Raiju ‘Battery Drainer’ now correctly consumes DoTs and lists its predicted damage. *55’s ‘Target Optics’ detailed description now correctly indicates it hits one enemy. *55’s ‘Laser Pulse’ detailed description indicates the correct MP cost. *55’s ‘Coolant Coagulant’ detailed description indicates the correct damage type. *55’s ‘Sabotage Wiring’ detailed description indicates the correct damage type. *55’s ‘Conductive Spray’ detailed description shows the correct effect type. *55’s ‘Full Auto’ now drains 10% HP per missing CP instead of 5%.
Bugs *Fixed a bug where SX-399 was added to the party after completing the Raibie quest without actually having done her quest to begin with. *Changing jobs in combat should no longer cause all charge-using items to be unavailable until combat ends.
There will be a patch a bit later this week, fixing some nasty stuff like that weird loading bug. This patch also updates the loading screen images and finally adds the area overlays to chapter 5. I need to fix up a few more combat bugs before it’s ready for prime time.
Artistry
Those troublesome artists are still at it. Urimas finished his assignments, Hund finished her assignments (shakes fist angrily), Chicken is working on a TF, and Koops is drawing girls with fox tails.
Big Balance Feedback
Let’s go over that poll!
Overall positive response. Keep in mind that people who respond to an online poll are self-selected in favour of that poll (which for a video game means they tend to like it more) but this is still a good reply. People enjoy all the hard work we put in.
Another positive response, so the people who like the game think it was worth it to improve it. Which means you all just backhandedly said the old version sucked! How mean!
The first few responses but Drone in first place, but over time Repair Unit took the lead. There is some bias here towards forms that are mandatory (human/golem/handmaiden) and the game forces you into golem a lot for plot reasons, but the poll makes no distinction as to reason. Maybe golem Christine just looks the cutest!
At some point I’ll have to figure out which forms people think are weaker than others and give them buffs and balancing passes. For now, I’ll just presume the balance is fine and people just like robot girls in dresses.
Wow, almost uniformly doing all the sidequests. Expected from a self-selected group, but encouraging. Exactly what this means in terms of people finding the game too easy but also doing all the side content (which generally makes you overleveled) is left to statisticians and wild-guessers.
A slight preference towards hard, but most people think it’s in the middle.
Prestige sections are parts of the game that break the usual fight/search/loot/level routine. I try to include them whenever I can because they’re a lot of fun to make.
I really didn’t expect the Steam-Christine sequence to take the lead, but hey it did. So in the future, subterfuge will top dating your girlfriend. Noted.
The Important Steering Poll
$5+ patrons got to vote in the poll to decide what we do next. A staggering 84 people voted, which is the biggest response to one of these polls ever.
And they didn’t even give us a multi-way tie like they usually do! The studio will now have a meeting to choose what we’ll do next, based on the weight of how difficult each part is to do versus how much the public supports doing it.
That’s right, chapter 5’s big balance patch is now public. You can get it right here (Mediafire / Mega.nz) or via our downloads page.
If you’re a patron and have been playing it for two weeks, a changelog has been posted on the patreon. If you’re not: All of chapter 5 has been updated and rebalanced with new classes, abilities, enemies, and items to find.
Otherwise, there is currently a $5+ patron pal poll going on to select our next objective. It’s neck and neck, who will win? Who knows! But the poll closes next Monday.
That’s right, v3.11 is out. This is a bugfix patch, sorting out lots of typos, cutscene errors, and the like. A full changelog will be posted to patreon since it’d be nonsense to people who haven’t played the game.
Voting Time for $5 Patrons
Today, $5+ patrons get to vote on what we’re going to do next. But what are the options? Rather than try to shove them onto google’s (abhorrent) voting software, I’m posting them here! So you can read them here, and then vote!
Option 1: Mechanical Patch I’ve been wanting to do lots of under-the-hood optimizations on the game for a long time. Chapter 1’s ability code needs to be modernized to use chapter 5’s format, we need a gallery to view some of the art, a bestiary, a journal, and optimizations to the loading code. All of these would take a lot of time, so they’d all be lumped into the Mechanical Patch. Estimated time: 2 Months (Bugs will likely abound)
Option 2: Editorial Patch You know how sometimes characters are slightly misaligned in cutscenes? You know how the romance between Christine and Sophie is a little rushed? You know how most NPCs stand around like lemons instead of walking around town? Yeah, I noticed that too. The Editorial Patch is me going back and updating a lot of the old cutscenes to fix all the tiny unimportant things, and then reworking parts of the game’s story to improve it. Chapter 1 gets a new quest or two (to make players more likely to find parts of the map, like the gemcutter), chapter 5’s Raibie quest gets reworked, and so on. [Edit by Mario: During the Editorial Patch, Mario will work on revamping the text for a number of the more lackluster TFs. A bit of fleshing out, a bit of polish, and a solid dash of sauce and sass when appropriate.] Estimated time: 3 Months (Bugs will *definitely* abound)
Option 3: UI Patch Now that the BBP is out, I know exactly what I need on the UI and where. Problem is, the UI is a patchwork of parts. There’s unused space on the skills UI, the combat UI is a little cluttered, there are three different cursor systems in use, and so on. With the UI patch, all of these will be unified so everything looks nice. Estimated time: 1 Month
Option 4: Plow Straight On to Chapter 2 Throw caution to the wind and start development on chapter 2, with all the minor problems like the UI and old code left callously by the roadside. Keep in mind the artists are still vainly trying to catch up on all the missing art from chapter 5 (We don’t even have an Electrosprite TF sequence!) so there will be even more placeholder art than usual! Estimated time: 1 Year (Probably)
Option 5: Let Us Choose Trust the judgement of the studio and discard your vote. If this gets the majority, then the studio will decide. And by that, I mean Chicken will decide and hold us at knifepoint until we agree. This is called “forhandling” I’m told. Estimated time: ???
If you’re not a patron, we accept poems, haikus, pictures of your dog/cat/goat/nearby animals, or heartfelt essays about what the game means to you.
As usual, the BBP goes public later. Because I really thought it’d be out in early February, the public launch day is going to be March 15th. There will also be a very important 5$ patron poll next week, in addition to the usual feedback poll. This poll will determine what our next objective as a team is. Should we do the big UI update, the big mechanical update, the big editorial update, or discard that all and plow straight on to chapter 2? You* decide!
*Offer valid only to $5+ patrons, some restrictions apply. Send a lot of cat pictures and I might consider letting you vote anyway but that cat had better be REALLY cute.
So what the hell is new in the BBP?
Chapter 5’s Big Balance Patch now provides jobs for Christine and 55. Each of Christine’s forms (except Doll) has a set of abilities that all hew to certain themes, just like chapter 1’s forms for Mei. Much like Florentina, 55 also has some jobs, though hers aren’t optional. SX-399 only has one job, to represent her inexperience.
Christine’s forms make use of some new mechanics, such as Positive/Negative electric charges for Raiju and Electrosprite forms. Golem can both repair and also deliberately take hits for her party members. All of Christine’s forms also have a purchaseable “Aura” skill that provides a buff to the entire party!
55 is a much more damage oriented character, with a few support options and far less healing than the previous version. 55 is so tactically flexible, she can change jobs in combat at any time and it doesn’t cost anything, not even an action!
All of the enemies have been rebalanced and have much better progression. All equipment has been rebalanced and there are several new pieces for you to find. Catalyst counts are now set correctly and the game’s UI will even update when you reach the biolabs so you know you’ve found them all.
All of the bosses have been updated. Some of them are going to kick your ass, unless you pay attention to your job abilities and figure out synergies to deal lots of damage.
The Tellurium Mines has had its loot and enemy tables updated. HOWEVER, the generator itself has NOT been updated (that’s part of the Mechanical Patch) so there are likely still bugs where enemies will spawn in walls and whatnot. For this reason, the debug options for the generator are still in place, so use them if you absolutely have to.
Naturally, some minor bugs have been fixed. Typos, misalignments, incorrect sprites, all that stuff. There’s still a lot of small things that will get fixed later in the Mechanical and Editorial patches.
I will be posting a poll next week, initially available to patrons, later to the public, to provide some feedback on the balance and enjoyability of the game. For now? I’m going to go not work because I’ve been busting my ass for like 6 weeks straight.
Give special attacks to the enemies that need them
Update missing enemy portraits
Finish class abilities
Add paragons
Test run with dummy bosses
Send to testers for balance feedback
Implement bosses
Redesign Raibie Christine encounter (Moved to Editorial Patch)
Send to testers for boss balance feedback
Release
I am waiting on a few icons from Urimas and some more testing of the post-gala, and then we’re ready to roll. I expect it’ll be a day or two before it’s out.
Pandemonium Development 