Demo Update Release Notes

November 1st 2019 | Release

It’s here! It’s out! The graphical overhaul demo is complete!

Estimated Play Time: 3-5 hours

Download: Itch.io or Gamejolt or SteamN

Demo Summary

As I’m sure everyone following around is aware, we’ve been working hard on this demo for the past 1.5 – 2 years. When we released the previous demo we got A LOT of feedback from people. Most of the feedback focused on the art and how the game played.

The art feedback focused on the overworld sprites and how the battles played. The low frame count, and the design of the sprites were not appealing. For the battles, a lot of people were not fans of the vertical battle style, and preferred to have something more classically horizontal.

The game feedback was less on the story or characters but on the game engine itself. People found the collisions too floaty and bouncy, it was easy to clip through them if you tried, some people ran into crashes that was hard to reproduce, and others had some issues with how the levels were designed.

We took all of this feedback and decided to invest in getting this stuff right, but it was no easy feat. It required essentially redoing the whole game. So, yes, this last 1.5 years or so have been spent redoing the game.

We redid all of the overworld sprites, the title screen, added new battle animations, new UI, new game engine, more music, and new story.

We hope everyone enjoys the changes that we’ve made!

Release Notes

Due to the sheer number of changes (over 1000) the following release notes will be light on details, but will highlight some of the more important differences between this demo and the previous version. Note that major changes will be bolded.

Added

  • Added running and a run button
  • Added new Title Screen Illustration
  • Added new character specific themes and battle specific themes
  • Added a popup when you enter into a named area
  • Added a popup when you gain a new quest
  • Added a Statement Screen, which displays all gained testimonies, facts and evidence gathered
  • Added a new boss battle
  • Added sunset and nighttime shaders for select areas
  • Added a map screen showing the whole map of Gataela
  • Added new battle animation states for Idle, Attack, Damage, Death and Revive
  • Added a victory screen when winning battles
  • Added new options to the debate battles
  • Added a grass effect to look like objects are walking through tall grass
  • Added mountain TTBattle background
  • Added screen transition effects for battles
  • Added all of the NPC dialogue to the translation files
  • Added new endings for some of the debate battles
  • Added an indicator in the main menu to remind that some characters may have status points to be spent

Removed

  • Removed charisma stat and charisma bar from debate battles
  • Temporarily removed most crafted items from being usable in battle
  • Temporarily removed some enemy types from the maps
  • Removed one of the NPCs that provides bread during the second quest
  • Removed some homes and NPCs from the overworld

Other

  • Changed game engines from Cocos2dx to Gamemaker Studio 2
  • Redid the UI
  • Redid the opening sequence
  • Redid the portraits for all of the skits and debate battles
  • Redid all of the overworld human and animal sprites
  • Frame count for animations changed from 4 to at least 8
  • Redid all of the battle animations for enemies and party members and skills
  • Battles changed from vertical layout to horizontal layout
  • Rewrote the Klatchez main story quest
  • Rewrote almost all of the debate battles
  • Adjusted all of the skits and cutscene dialogue
  • Reset the version numbering to 0.1.0
  • Debate facts have been changed from being single statements gathered from one NPC to being divided into testimonies (gathered from many NPCs), facts (gathered from one NPC) and evidence (gathered from interacting with objects).
  • Changed being able to escape from encounters with patrol events to make Wiska Forest more palatable. May be changed to an option to toggle in the future.
  • Reduced game download size
  • The game should now run much smoother on lower-end devices and take up less RAM
  • Adjusted percentages of battle items. To be adjusted as more feedback given.
  • Simplified finding the NPCs needed to get bread from during the second quest
  • Removed most of the inaccessible houses from Vuni.
  • Changed Vuni’s layout for the market zone. This should make exiting the city easier.
  • Changed Pharyon’s layout
  • Changed Klatchez’s layout
  • Changed Vischet’s layout
  • Adjusted the western mountains layout
  • Adjusted some home designs in Wynoa