It's Already Past August Update

It's been so long since I made a devlog... 

Sorry for not being able to release an update on Mask of Majiatros by August this year as said in the post! While I do have other personal matters to tend to, the game has been making steady progress. The story has been changed to a whole new (hopefully better) story while the combat system has been optimized and cleaned up. I can not guarantee when the final ROM will be released. However, it may release in the upcoming summer.

Since the game is undergoing changes, the game is currently unstable and I can not share the ROM just yet. Since I wasn't able to reach the goal to finish the game by August, the other games' updates I have lying around are going to be released. Specifically, Exploding Colors and Goober and the Dolphins. So if you want to play a game while waiting for the next stable update to come out, maybe try one of these.

For this update, I'll be also talking about what happened after since the release of Mask of Majiatros. First of all, it's my top played game so thank you so much for playing! As I mentioned earlier, the game's combat system has been optimized and cleaned up allowing for me to spot any bugs and tweak difficulty settings more easily. While re-doing the combat system, I was planning to add special effects when doing moves because wouldn't that be cool???? However after thinking about it for so long, I realized I shouldn't really spend all my time on this game especially since I'm running out of time. I really have to leave this project behind so I can work on other more interesting concepts and learn Godot so I can start making bigger games. 

One comment I got on the game was that when roaming around in the city or forest, the game would be really laggy especially with a lot of the monsters. Before the game was even made, it was originally supposed to act more like turn-based roguelikes where there was no wandering. Also in general, it was really boring. Below is the image that would have been showed while travelling.

Though after thinking more about why I did it (which I did a lot throughout the production of the game), I came to the conclusion that the area wandering is still a good concept but needs better execution. The section can be fixed by 1) Adding more Exploration and 2) Adding more Interesting Choices and Branching Paths. I can easily fix the lag by splitting up the sections or using the same actors for multiple monsters moving their location once they are out of sight.

To add more interesting choices, I decided to change the Pon and Pan quest. Like I said, originally, it was supposed to be like turn-based roguelike battles. In these games, you'd often have no choice but to fight them with no way to run away. So in the game, the areas were tight making it difficult to run away. However, some people found the game too difficult restricting them to progress in the story. While I do think difficulty is necessary, I didn't want it to stop them from reaching the Destroyer. Therefore, the scaring mechanic was made last minute. But with the mechanic, those who were not challenged would have no incentive to not use the scare mechanic. That was when I remembered XP points exist. After wasting all of my time spent on grinding in games, I have sort of promised myself not to use XP points, coins or anything similar. But when used correctly, these mechanics are important to encouraging players to engage with the ideal mechanics. Since I felt the quests of Pon and Pan are uninteresting especially since it is difficult to avoid enemies, I decided to give them a different mechanic. Pon will instead create a system called Pon Points which you can trade in for a new move (something I've always felt made RPGs fun and tactical but I wasn't able to implement). The new move is called Crystalized Memory Beam. This will allow the player to make all enemies one type of their choice provided they have the memory corresponding to the type. These memories are given out by Pon but can also be given in special events  or by certain NPCs.

Lastly, the story has been changed completely. While I think the previous one was decent, I felt it was too confusing and you don't really empathize with the characters as much. Now, I have this list of themes and topics I always wanted to write about. For most of these, I'm waiting for the perfect game that will fit nicely with the idea. That's when I realized that one of these topics aligns perfectly with the mechanics of succumbing to a power. The new story hopefully is a bit more interesting, more emotional and poses a unique perspective. There are a bunch of other changes not mentioned or else this devlog will be too long (and mostly because I forgot what those changes are). Anyways, thanks for reading until the end! Hopefully, you'll be able to play the game soon...