September Status Report 2026

Well, as I suspected, given the recent release around the start of the month and the substantial bug fixes that ensued, the next update definitely won't happen until some way into October.

Following the latest update, the amount of required bug fixing turned out to be more than I expected, though it admittedly comes within the territory of the update featuring so much under-the-hood stuff, and will hopefully help make the game more stable and bugproof in the future.

Over that period, Val also wrote a new scene for the Pedestrian Tunnel event, which will be in the next update. Speaking of which, the radiant specter featured in that event will have unique art in the next update, in order to add to the impact of the encounter. Said art is more simple than the typical MGD character art, but should nonetheless be suitably evocative.

Next came the implementation of a mechanic that has been on the backburner for a long time. feltcutemightcleanlater actually built the entire infrastructure for it about 2-3 years ago, but at the time, I didn't feel the game was in a suitable state for it. But now, after last update's adjustments to status effects, I believe it's a good time for it.

Said new mechanic is Supplies, a numbered resource which will limit item usage during exploration, with the default amount being 20 on Easy, 15 on Normal, and 10 on Hard. Most items now cost 1 Supply to use, though a number of more impactful ones cost more.

The purpose of this mechanic is to put a cap on the number of items the player can use in the course of an adventure, so that players can no longer rely on a stockpile of items to easily see them through fights and other challenges.

To be clear, this mechanic doesn't apply to equipment; only to consumables.

In-universe, Supplies are effectively an abstraction of how many items the player character can both carry on his person and pull out of his Grimoire. Supplies are recovered in full whenever the player gets a full heal (whether in Town or somewhere else), and can also be replenished to a more limited extent at Rest Points, via a new Resupply action. 

This new mechanic also comes with the addition of 6 new Perks that directly affect Supplies in some way. And on an assorted note, I've also added 4 new Perks that buff Aphrodisiac effects, 2 of which also buff item effects in general. In addition, multiple healing consumables and all offence consumables have been buffed, given they are now a limited resource that can no longer be simply spammed. 

And since I previously mentioned Rest Points, those also feature a new Pray action, which is now how you recover Goddess' Favor during adventures, instead of just getting some back upon resting. This will add further choices to make when on an exploration, which will hopefully make the game that much more strategically engaging.

In addition, Rest Points now also feature a tooltip detailing how much you'll recover by Resting, Resupplying, or Praying.

As a side note, since Shizu and Vili's ambush events act as fake Rest Points, they also account for these new actions, though they don't do anything fundamentally different or over-the-top with them. 

Still on the item changes, some powerful consumable items, such as Mini Elixirs, have had their purchasability pushed back to later locations up to the Temple, given how potent they are. The biggest reason this wasn't the case to begin with is that back when these items were initially added into the game, the locations where you now unlock them just didn't exist at all. Item drops from treasures and monsters, meanwhile, are unchanged.

That aside, in addition to the previously mentioned 10 new Perks, more have been added as level-up options, for a total of 24 new Perks.

In the process, I've also revised the availability of status effect-related Perks, so each status effect correlates to a specific stat, and requires 20/40/60 of said stat for each Perk tier. The existing example is the Aphrodisiac Tolerant/Resistant/Enduring tree, with these Perks now requiring 20/40/60 Power to learn (up from 0/20/40).

With that in mind, Movable and Alert have been tweaked and now have follow-up Perks in the same vein, falling respectively under the Technique and Intelligence stat. As for Allure, it now has a Debuff resistance-related tree, and Luck has an eclectic set of 3 dedicated Perks with a number of assorted effects themed around making the best out of a bad situation. For example, the third one, Lucky Break, gives you a hefty +50% damage reduction buff on the turn after you've been Stunned.

Speaking of Luck, it now also has a unique tree of three oddball Perks. The first, Gambler's Heart, gives you a one-turn +20% damage buff if the last digit of your current Arousal is 7. The second, Gambler's Weal, gives you a one-turn +20% damage reduction buff if the last digit of at least one of your opponents' current Arousal is 7. And the third, Gambler's Ace, gives you a one-turn +7% crit chance buff if the last digit of your current Supplies is 7. If all three of these Perks happen to be active at once, the effects of all their buffs are bumped to 77%!

This covers the gist of the new Perks, though I'll also mention 2 others, which are more standard Willpower-related ones that boost the player's in-stance evasion, covering that specific defensive niche for players who might be interested in investing in that.

That's overall a fair amount of changes and additions to the game's mechanics and features, which I hope will make the gameplay that much more interesting and dynamic. Feel free to experiment with these new elements, and let me know of any feedback you have!

My game design yapping aside, Val's also been making more progress on the writing of his quest event thingy, and feltcutemightcleanlater has made some fixes, tune-ups, and funky new additions to the Slime Queen's Parade minigame, complete with new unique scenes for the most persistent of players. So if you somehow manage to fully clear the minigame by filling the entire screen with slimes, the game will no longer crash, and a short scene Val wrote will play instead. (Note from Val: If you manage to do it, let us know and we'll praise you for your skill and perseverance.)

Last thing to mention is that I've also been working on implementing the Salaris CG into the game, which I'm almost done with. I've had to add some workarounds for it, given how it displays differently from the other CGs so far, but it should now be all good.

Really, if this weren't an H game, and if it weren't for a few loose ends with the bug fixes and with the Salaris art, this update would probably be good to ship soon... but I'd rather also make sure there's a chunk of new content for people to enjoy, so regular players will have all the more of a reason to play the game and give feedback on the previously detailed new mechanics. So that will be my focus over the next month now that I'm out of the game design sauce.

I hope everyone had a wonderful September, and has an even better October! :D