Summary
It’s been almost one year since we released our graphical overhaul demo! This demo was really big since not only did we redo a TON of assets, we also switched game engines to Gamemaker, adjusted story content, and addressed a lot of feedback.
We’ve been working hard on development since then, and decided to release an update to the demo with all of the improvements we’ve made! We hope you all enjoy it, and maybe find some requested features down below!
It is available to download on Itch, Gamejolt and Steam.
We recommend making a copy of your save files (the .sqlite files) in your game directory before continuing. There should be no issues, but we do upgrade the files in this release.
If you come across any issues, feel free to send us a Tweet or DM, message on the Discord Server, or shoot us an email. Bug reports and feature requests can also be logged here.
Highlights
Status Point Shortcut
We often watch people who post Let’s Plays or do live streams of the game, and something we noticed a LOT was that people would often forget to use their status points they gained when levelling up.
Generally speaking, setting one or two points can make a very big difference in battle, so after going through a whole area, and then facing a boss, you might find yourself in a lot of trouble. In fact, lots of people failed when fighting the first boss battle because they forgot to set points.
Although we have a reminder in the main menu screen, it wasn’t enough, and we wanted to provide an unobtrusive way to remind you about it. So now when you have status points to spend, you will have a shortcut on the HUD to the skills screen beside the main menu icon!
Full Screen Support
Something that was highly requested was the ability to fullscreen the game. A big reason why we haven’t supported it thus far is that Gataela’s UI is not pixelated, while the game itself is. This means that either the pixel art is blurry or the UI is pixelated when scaling.
We took the first step to add this to the game, and it’s now available in the demo!
Please keep in mind this is more “experimental” and will be improved over time, but we hope that this will help those who had difficulty with the smaller windowed size of the game.
Difficulty Options
We’ve started to add difficulty options! Two options that are now available in the demo is “Enemy HP Multiplier” and “Enemy EXP Multiplier”.
If you’re finding turn-based battles take too long, try decreasing the amount of HP the enemies have. If you dislike grinding, increase the amount of EXP you get from battles! These options can be changed at any time while playing, so we hope you can tweak the game to your preferences!
Battle Improvements
We have made a TON of battle improvements within this release such as displaying levels, adding criticals and misses, adding chances to fail escaping from battles among other fixes such as fixing the block and dodge skills, and how stats are used during battle!
Please see the release notes for full details on what sort of changes we’ve made!
Release Notes
Added
- Added a block animation for when the Block skill plays
- Added a dodge animation for when the Dodge skill plays
- Added swapping party members
- Added a level indicator to enemies in turn-based battles
- Added NPCs in the market when coming back from Cole’s encounter
- Added a number of enemy, player, and equipment name strings to the translation file
- Added new debate facts
- Added an animation to text boxes when they appear
- Added Battle Critical Font
- Added load from save on the game over screen
- Added color variations for Bandit Girl and Bandit Boy characters
- Added the ability for enemies to have randomized color variations & ensured they matched the overworld when engaging with them
- Added dialogue to man outside Vuni’s inn
- Added a blocker to Wiska Forest to prevent early entry
- Added a chance to fail escaping
- Added max and min inventory item counts
- HP bars will now change color to better reflect remaining percents
- Added gameover modals
- Added a short input delay when a text box appears to prevent spamming the button and missing key dialogue
- When a character levels up, they will gain new skills if appropriate
- Added a shortcut to adding points to your character’s stats
- Added Criticals and Misses to battles
- Added confirm changes modal to a number of menu screens
- Added new difficulty options: modify the enemy’s EXP and HP values using a multiplier.
- Skills can level up after use
- Added first pass of fullscreen mode
Fixed
- Fixed UI briefly appearing after transitioning screens before an event plays
- Fixed camera abruptly jumping to follow Rob in opening cutscene
- Fixed crash in inventory when no items exist
- Fixed camera during Cole’s encounter from having a tangent with the outside wall
- Fixed lists accidentally cutting off Text
- Fixed player sprite ordering issue in mountains near border with chimney
- Fixed transition bug to the north east of Pharyon
- Fixed missing boundaries near the mountain flower field
- Fixed transition bug when heading between the Villa and the Town in Wynoa
- Fixed main menu opening with interact key
- Fixed text for post-Wiska Forest quest to be clear where to go in Wynoa
- Fixed being unable to interact with the innkeep npc or use the inn in Vuni
- Fixed learned recipes not being saved properly
- Fixed crafting resulting in the wrong learned recipe
- Fixed key items not being readded to the crafting grid after experimenting
- Fixed a bug where you could accidentally soft-lock the game by interacting with the minimap just after starting a cutscene
- Fixed typo in opening cutscene
- Fixed player getting stuck when transitioning in to western Wynoa
- Fixed sprite overlay issue in eastern Wynoa
- Fixed character walking in place after battles
- Fixed ambience audio blipping out when transitioning screens
- Fixed area name continuously appearing when standing on a trigger
- Fixed hidden collidable objects being interactable
- Fixed transition bug in mountains
- Fixed a HMS format bug when playing for over 10 hours
- Fixed Big Meanie skit not being removed after the relevant quests
- Fixed Block and Dodge to now work correctly
- Fixed skill information not being included when calculating battle damage
- Fixed equipment information not being included when calculating battle stats
- Fixed boss battles being marked as being escape-able
- Fixed line beside skit button on the HUD
- Fixed party members not correctly executing their actions in the right order during battles
- Fixed shadow appearing wrong in Vuni behind a house
- Fixed a number of bugs in the Equipment Screen
- Fixed tile checking for water was incorrect
- Fixed a potential save crash
- Fixed flashing when starting a cutscene
- Fixed flashing when changing maps during a cutscene
- Fixed actors during cutscenes sometimes not appearing
Other
- Replaced Battle Damage Font
- Made running children unstoppable
- Refactored how quests are stored and loaded
- Made the Turn Based & Debate Battle Results Screen show all characters that leveled up
- Updated cutscenes and overworld NPCs to use the new bandit color variations
- Adjusted some dialogue during the flower hunt quest
- Upgraded saved files to gain facts in previous cutscenes
- Upgraded to Gamemaker 2.3
- Converted & consolidated all of the cutscenes to a new system
October 2020 Progress Update