v0.35 Devlog #6

Howdy howdy! We’ve been working on more than a few things for the next build of Futariuum’s Gate, and it’s once again time to update y’all with a nifty development log!

On the coding side with AB:

• Card battles:

  • Experience, cards and money are now correctly rewarded after winning a battle.

  • Both experience and money distributions dynamically check for updates, preventing the need to restart the game to apply code changes for player saves.

  • Money earned now appears on the rewards screen.

  • The battle code has been restructured to prevent bugs and save-breaking issues.

  • Fixed two major breaking bugs: The game now continues from where the player left off instead of jumping back to a previous battle, and decks are now properly saved, preventing the reset of all variables after reopening the game.

  • Completely removed the old battle code. Ship of Theseus, woo!

  • Minion #2’s special “Unplayable” card: Introduced a system where Minion #2 attacks and adds a temporary, unplayable card to Maya's hand. Any temporary card is removed after battles - it’s just to throw you for a loop and hamstring you. Very appropriate, given the binding vines she has.

  • Minion #2’s Unplayable card is given its own transition.

  • Properly re-positioned the money in the rewards screen.

  • Fixed damage and other transitions showing up after the battle ends.

  • Skipping the game now will give the cards for each battle skipped (story only).

  • Added a red flash effect when using Belial’s special boss card - Sanguination.

  • Added the last of the necessary combat transitions - player turn, enemy turn, victory and whatnot.

  • All enemies' stats are now correctly placed, and some of them have exclusive attack, block and actions.

  • Updated the code to improve enemy behavior by removing the possibility of repetitive actions. This enhancement ensures that all enemies will no longer perform the same action repeatedly for more than three consecutive turns.

  • Added card: “Bonecrusher” - Deals 30 damage, costs 3 vigor and applies exhaust.

  • Added the function to randomly add cards by rarity to the game. This function selects a certain number of cards, each with an 80% chance of being 'Rare' and a 20% chance of being 'Epic'. For each card, the rarity is determined independently based on these probabilities, and then a card is randomly chosen from the available pool of cards within that rarity.

  • Maya's Special Attack card now correctly replenishes the missing cards in her hand.

  • Added a screen that allows the player to skip, start the battle, and view information about the enemy Maya is fighting.

  • Maya's Deck has been added to the player's inventory for quicker access to her cards.

• Miscellaneous:

  • Partially reworked the gallery code.

  • Fully reworked the inventory code.

  • Removed randomly chosen scenes for the minions and added the Lesser Demons Gallery. Now, after winning a battle with a minion, you can choose the scenes you want to see or skip them entirely.

  • Reworked all Lesser Demons scenes with extended effects and transitions.

  • Fully reworked and implemented the map code.

  • Corrected portraits from older versions.

  • Added: "You can't save while you are in a battle or on the rewards screen." for the save screen, to prevent bugs.

  • Fully reworked all bad endings.

  • Reorganized the game folders.

  • Numerous bug fixes have been applied throughout the game.

As for the art side with Nethuum:

• Cards:

  • Added the art for “Bonecrusher”, the new card mentioned above.

  • Replaced the placeholder for Maya's special attack card with a final refined design.

• UI:

  • Finished the design of the Lesser Demons Gallery, including buttons, thumbnails and background.

  • Finished the design for the "choose your potion" screen. 

  • Added a completely reworked inventory screen and a brand-new stats screen.

  • The inventory is now sorted into 4 categories: Equipment, Consumables, Materials & Key Items.

  • Added 4 slots for equipable items.

  • A stats screen with Maya attributes: health, mana, vigor, energy, critical damage and critical rate.

  • The player level has also been added to the inventory screen.

  • Added resources information for money and crystals.

  • Added item description box.

  • Finished the design for 2 enemy encounter screens and a boss scene (before starting the battle), containing the enemy name, description and threat level.

• Backgrounds:

  • Finished the lineart for 3 variations of the dungeon background, where most of the combat will take place for v0.35.

• Characters:

  • Finished working on the linework, polishing and rough colors of Violet, Aubrey and Chime, preparing them for the final rendering phase. 

• Misc:

  • The "skipping" frame has been improved.

  • Finished all of the requirements for the game’s incoming Steam page.
    

And finally, the writing side with TeraWatt:

• Steam:

  • The Steam page has been written from start to finish, including all descriptions and features lists.

• Game script:

  • More banter lines added for Chime.

  • Preparations have been made for future content with Chime after she has been met.

  • Future interactions with Violet and Aubrey have been written.

  • Outlines for future Maya’s Sphere interactions beyond v0.35 have been written.
    

As you can see, we’ve been working on a hell of a lot of new and interesting stuff for our next build. This one is shaping up to be pretty ambitious, and we’re being a lot braver now in what we’re trying to accomplish. It’s weird to think that we’re coming up on the year anniversary of the release of v0.10 and it’s been a wild ride! We can’t wait to show you what’s next!