Castle of Vice – Development Diary #16 (New ero sequence and the Third section of the Castle)

Hello everyone! I hope you’re having a nice weekend.

As I mentioned in my Alpha 0.8 release post, update 0.9 will focus mainly on two things: adding a new ero sequence and introducing the third section of the castle, along with rank 3 enemies.

I won’t say much about the new ero sequence beyond confirming that it has been added. I would like for you to enjoy finding the sequence by yourself, so I invite you to try Alpha 0.9 (once it is out) when you get the chance :)

As for the third section of the castle, I reached out to an artist who creates great backgrounds and asked if he could design one that fits the castle’s atmosphere. Here’s the result:

I personally love how it looks, and it fits in perfectly when you compare it to the other backgrounds.

Here’s also how it looks in-game, with Annelise, the UI, and the rank 3 enemies:

By the way, I’m still running combat tests with these new enemies, but you can expect an increase in difficulty. My intention has always been for rank 1 and 2 enemies to be manageable, allowing you to build Annelise, get familiar with the items and skills, and get comfortable with combat. With rank 3 enemies, however, I want combats to put your experience to the test... We’ll see how it plays out.

Another change coming in 0.9 is the removal of the ero-trait that shows enemies’ available ero actions and their conditions. It will be replaced by a passive protection system displayed in Annelise’s Development window.

Here is the ero-trait in question, in case you’re wondering:

And here is the icon for the new passive protection:

As you can see, this passive protection— called Purity Protection —includes a description that provides a narrative explanation for why enemies don’t immediately perform more extreme lewd actions on Annelise the moment she is thrown to the ground. Leaving aside the fact that the genre usually is handled this way, I wanted to give an in-game justification for this behavior to help with the immersion, and thematically, I feel this system fits well.

Of course, this protection isn’t perfect. Just like the ero-trait it replaces, it will gradually become corrupted as Annelise grows more intimate with the cultists.

That’s all for this post! Alpha 0.9 will be released on Friday, May 1st.

Thanks for reading, and have a great morning, afternoon, or night!