Urimas is working on a 3D sampler so we can figure out physical proportions for a future project. I finished my Pairanormal work and am working on the next balance/bugfix patch for Pandemonium. Chicken will be getting you some more updated enemy art and it looks so pretty you guys.
Koops made some robits.
Stinkehund Made Some Logos
We’re changing out studio name to Bottled Starlight, so check out these adorable designs which you can get on stuff via RedBubble!
16 responses. Let’s go through this question by agonizing question.
Most people reacted favourably to the tutorial. I should probably move it a bit to make it more apparent that a hole in the wall is the tutorial, but I also don’t want to force the player to go through it.
As long as the general public enjoy it more than the last one, it was alllllll worth it. But seriously, this upgrade was long in coming.
Fortunately, the skill system is not too confusing for people to handle. The UI needs a lot of improvements but the overall complexity isn’t too much.
HIT THE SWEET SPOT!
Okay, leave the game’s overall balance where it is and up the boss difficulty a bit, and things will be fine.
Surprise surprise, people like the new content, but they love Polaris and her dog the most. Impressively, Share;Lock is also popular. Good job, me (and to Anai who spent the FAT STACKS necessary to get her in the game).
People seem to like characters more than rough areas, like St. Fora’s. I like exploring myself, but talking to people who have interesting things to say is *in*.
The rubber thing is fairly polarizing. Luckily, it’s also optional.
WOO, ABOVE AVERAGE. The sequence was written by Chickenwhite and edited by myself and MarioneTTe, so good job, Chicken.
About as expected, people fight periodically but not constantly. This is why you can run by monsters and get XP from chests and whatnot, and why you can mug them now.
Generally, the “Tough” areas are a bit too easy, but people think the whole thing is easy, so that’s expected. One must bear in mind that most players who pick up a game for the first time suck, and so in the future, first-timers will think the game is tough even if you vets think it’s easy. So I don’t want to change things much.
It was eight months of staring at a wall for you, but I killed myself making it.
See what I said about polarizing? People like the rubber baddies and hate the rubber sequence – making this rough on me guys! Mushraunes, surprisingly, are also well-liked. Good job on the art, Chicken.
Yeah, better get to work on this sooner rather than later.
Now for the Patron Pal Poll
Why is there a poll for patrons? Simple – their opinion counts for more.
Nailed it.
As long as patrons are entertained, the artists get to keep eating. Good job, artists.
Patrons want to see more weird expansive subquests. You got it.
Patrons like wacky stupid drinking contests.
Good job, Chicken! People like the updated art!
Why did two people vote against that? What are you going to do, tell me your plans – OH WAIT YOU CAN’T, THAT’S WHAT THE FORUMS ARE FOR.
We are currently working our way through our large backlog of images that need to be updated. Chicken has made some good progress. Koops, meanwhile, is designing the handful of new robots for chapter 5. Patrons will get to see them starting next week.
Curious Cat
When I started curious catting, I figured it was just a forum for people to send me pictures of their cats. I was wrong.
Download it here (Mediafire / Mega.nz) (Contains Windows and OSX version)
This version contains all the stuff we’ve been working on for the last eight months. More on that later, go play it!
Feedback Poll
Go here, there’s a public feedback poll. You should probably play it first because there’s spoilers y’all.
Picture of a Cat
Other Stuff
There will be patches and balance changes over the next few weeks. Chicken is going to continue updating the art to the new style. I also need to spend some time on Pairanormal.
Public Version of Chapter 1 BBP / Enhanced is next week
That’s right, one week to go and then all the cheapskates get to play the new chapter 1 stuff and the big balance patch.
Patrons, of course, get to play it today. They’re just better like that.
Coding Stuff
All the new stuff is done and receiving “testing” from our “testers” and also “patrons”. I have a couple bugs to fix and a few more assets are on the way.
Art
The coders are working on the assets. Hund got us a new map for the western part of chapter 1, Urimas made many sprites, and maybe there was even a guest artist for chapter 1. Who could it be? Find out!
Only one major section of new content left to go, and chapter 1’s expansion is all done. The patch patrons get to play adds the missing area and new TF, there’s just one quest to go!
Artistry
The artists are doing their thing again, but amazingly, Hund has actually totally finished his to-do list and you better believe I ain’t giving him more to do. Urimas – GET ME MY SPRITES.
There will be a patch for patrons shortly. This is mostly a bugfix and convenience patch, fixing every bug that had been reported and a few more besides. There is also the new mediator cutscene in Arbonne. The new forms will be added later this week, along with a new sidequest if I have time.
A patreon update will follow when I have uploaded the patched version.
Vote Pls
Certain yankee doodles in the audience can vote tomorrow. I recommend doing so. There, leave me alone, Aaaac.
Corruption of Champions – Xianxia
Did you know there’s a CoC mod called Xianxia which expands on the original in every way, has a character viewer and lots of monstergirls, and is free and you can get it right now? Neither did I until one of the devs showed up and told me. Let’s remedy that.
Holy cow, after like 10 years* the first patron release of the Big Balance Patch is out! Patrons can go get it over on patreon, and if you’re not a patron: It’s really easy. Costs like a dollar. Seriously, easy.
A linux build is in the works, I need to set up my Linux environment on the new SSD. OSX and Windows users can get right into the action.
But wait, it’s not done? Of course, nothing is ever done. Here’s what needs to be completed in the coming months: Chapter 5 implemented The rest of the river wilds (western most part of chapter 1) A new playable form in chapter 1 A new “playable” form in chapter 1 The mediator cutscene New volunteer slime cutscene under the Quantir manor Lots of balance tweaks Lots of bugfixes You people will probably suggest good things on the forums
I hope to have Chapter 5 rebalanced and ready to go before the end of the year, as well as the remaining bits of chapter 1.
I was going to get a prototype sent to testers by the end of the day, but I got called into work. I have to place treasure and finish a few enemy abilities.
Tentative objective is to have a prototype for patrons by next Monday. Let’s see if we can make it.
Artistry
Chicken is working away on the Mei bouncy animation. We’ll be getting one more enemy concept out of her relatively soon, and then that damned animation.
Koops is drawing pumpkin people. She hisses at me when I get close.
Urimas did a heroism and got me all the remaining sprites and almost all the tiles in one week. Good job, Urimas.
Hund is almost done the region overlays.
Musicing
DrDissonance has made two new music tracks for the new areas. Patrons get to hear the second one today, hooray!
Had to finish up some maps that Pyxxis won’t have time to get to, finished up all the major scenes (still a few minor ones to go), and took a bite out of the bug list. Some more bugs to go, more scenario, and of course, balance testing.
Artistry
Chicken has one enemy concept left (we forgot about it, oh no!) and a few miscellaneous bits floating around. Koops is making some new characters. Hund has two more region animations, Urimas is spriting his little heart out.
String Tyrant Sequel is Yes
We passed the 2k threshold and I asked the team, they said yes. String Tyrant 2 will happen eventually, someday, but I’d like to at least have chapter 2 out before then.
BBP Launch Objective
I want to have chapter 1 of the Big Balance Patch sent off to patrons before the end of October. It will likely be missing some features because there’s a rather large segment that I don’t have the art for, but it’ll be functional. Look forward to it.
I got a lot done last week, finishing up the remaining maps (though I might have to finish the stuff Pyxxis isn’t done) and writing 3/4ths of the major scenes that needed to be written. I am hoping to have the last major scene done and be able to begin balance testing this week, but no guarantees.
Chicken got me a scene that needs to be edited, Hund is almost done the inks, Koops got me some monsters, and Urimas got me tiles and sprites, which is what he does. For money.
What the hell are you posting, Salty?
I asked last week if people wanted to see a list of all the features in the Big Balance Patch, and at least one patron said yes, while none said no. That’s a supermajority! So now you all get to read what’s coming up.
The UI is a WIP
I’m still using the old UI pieces with a few modifications. Naturally, this means stuff doesn’t look so great. The UI will be getting changed much later on, so everything you see is still a prototype.
Let’s look at skills!
You now have a set of classes or jobs that have a bunch of skills associated with them. You can buy the skills with JP you get, which can be gotten from doing quests or beating up enemies. Once purchased, you can equip the ability on the rightmost box on the bottom.
Most enemies drop 10JP, pending balance feedback, so you’ll get a steady drip of new abilities. The JP is given to whatever job you happen to be in, but if you have mastered the job, then it goes to the global JP pool and can be spent on any job.
What are those locked abilities there? Well, find a skillbook…
And you unlock the next slot. Finding a skillbook also grants 100 global JP, and the slots unlocked unlock for every job.
Each job has six abilities pre-equipped, plus the CP ability (next to Parry), but four are locked behind skillbooks. The abilities are unlocked in order, meaning you no longer have to find a specific skillbook to get a specific skill. This means the chapter can be approached even less linearly than before, since in the current version, you really need to find skillbooks to help with certain enemies and that railroads you to certain areas.
For Mei, all of her playable forms have their own skill lists. You can equip abilities from any job in the eight slots on the right side, allowing a ton of variability in playstyle. You’ll be expected to adapt your ability selection to the enemies you encounter!
Florentina has two new jobs, Treasure Hunter and Mediator, and follows the same rules of skillbooks. Florentina can’t change jobs in-battle, but Mei actually can thanks to her runestone. However, Mei reverts to her previous job when the battle ends (because otherwise some of the chapter scripts would break since there are places you’re not supposed to be in one form since you lack access to a save point).
The colors of the background and borders of the ability suggest what it does. There are now lots of passive abilities and support abilities to pick from. Passive abilities only work when equipped in your custom slots, but some jobs already have a passive equipped. If two of the same ability are equipped, their effects stack together.
While the combat interface looks pretty similar, it has a lot of small changes. For example, you will notice that characters now have an MP bar. Most abilities don’t use cooldowns anymore, instead, characters generate 10 MP per turn and start the battle with half of their maximum. You can equip abilities that increase MP generation and some abilities may restore it on use.
Your “Cooldown” is therefore how much MP you have. You don’t get to keep it when the battle ends, so you may as well go all out.
Yes, the UI sucks, I’m working on it.
Here you can see some new symbols. These are shields (the blue one) and adrenaline (the orange one). These are usually zero, but some characters and jobs make more extensive use of these. They basically are extra health bars that take damage in place of your health until they run out. Damage-over-time attacks bypass shields entirely, but shields are lost when combat ends. Adrenaline has no special properties, but 50% of adrenaline is added to your health when combat ends, so Mei’s werecat abilities can actually heal her as she deals damage.
Retreating is now no longer effectively the same as defeat. Instead, it allows you to actually properly run from a fight.
But after using it, enemies have extended sight cones and will spot you faster. You also won’t be able to ambush enemies for 20 seconds, and if you get into another fight, you won’t be able to retreat at all!
Defeated enemies also appear on the map instead of vanishing with a poof. Really helps immersion, I’ve been told.
You may have noticed the top right corner has a little scroll. This is to help keep you oriented. When you enter a new area, you’ll see a little overlay telling you where you are, and it will remain in the top right as a reminder.
As part of the Big Balance Patch is Chapter 1 Expanded. Chapter 1 now has a bunch of new areas and people to talk to. These new areas are to the west of the existing world, and are preludes to chapter 3 which needs them more extensively.
There are a couple of new dungeons, some new outdoor areas, a new village, several new major characters and events, and even a new transformation sequence and playable form for Mei!
Some NPCs speak fascinating wisdom.
While others are a bit more knowledgeable.
And some are crossover characters we put in as part of a fundraiser.
Let’s talk about gems.
Gems now have one of six cuttable-colors, Grey, Red, Blue, Orange, Violet, and Yellow. There are also other colors of gems, such as Green, but those cannot be cut.
Once you are the owner of two gems of different colors, you can take them to a gemcutter (Alicia in chapter 1) who can merge the gems together.
When two gems are merged, the new gem has the properties of both, including its colors. Since two gems that share colors cannot be merged together, this means a Red/Grey gem like this can be merged with a Yellow, Blue, Violet, or Orange gem. You can thus make custom gems to fit in your equipment.
Most gems provide simple stat bonuses, but some change a character’s weapon damage (special abilities may also benefit from this!), provide passive effects, or generate extra MP or CP for use in combat.
The interface may not look all that nice at the moment, but it’s a lot better at showing what gems you have equipped. You can also see that you can equip backup weapons. You can swap to these weapons in battle for the cost of a free action, which can be very helpful if you have a weapon that deals a different damage type.
An early example is Mei’s Serrated Katana, which now deals damage as Bleeding instead of Slashing.
Speaking of, resistances are now a bit easier to understand. Resistances now stack with protection against direct-damage attacks, while resistances are used for DoTs (which bypass protection). The formula is 1.0 – 0.95^Resistance, but you can see the actual values on the stats screen.
The prediction window is now more robust than a toolbox, showing the percentage chance of an effect applying in addition to accuracy and damage. The prediction window is also manually programmable, meaning I can jam all kinds of stuff in there.
Remember how I said Mei can change jobs in mid battle? That means Zombee is now a playable form! It’s expensive to use, but has incredibly powerful abilities and greatly increased stats.
Some jobs also have abilities you can purchase that can’t be used in combat. These are called Field Abilities, and appear in the top left. These include abilities to get the jump on enemies, go invisible and run right past them, or just show more of the map.
These get used a lot more extensively in chapter 2, as Sanya gets puzzle abilities like firing her gun to shoot switches or dropping bombs to clear rubble.
That’s most of the new stuff, though I will point out that a lot of the various bugs left over in chapter 1 are being addressed. Combat also flows a bit smoother and has a much more powerful engine under the hood, allowing for all kinds of wacky abilities. In future chapters (and somewhat in chapter 1 already!), you’ll be able to have party members be transformed in battle and join the enemy team, be able to force enemies to join YOUR team, use exotic abilities like guaranteeing crits for the next attack, abilities that strike 3 turns after being used, and more!
There are other feature I haven’t mentioned yet, but this is enough for now. You’ll have to wait for the BBP to come out to see what they are.
So that’s enough of that. Back to work on the kistune booze scenes.
Pandemonium Development 