Hello everyone!

I hope everyone is doing well and having a good holiday season.

It has been a bit and wanted to touch base with everyone and give an update. Originally the plan was to release the 5.0 demo in October; however, I kept finding bugs, issues, and things that needed upgraded. Additionally, I was receiving amazing feedback from people and wanted to implement it as they were great quality of life changes.

Instead of releasing an incomplete/bad demo, I took a small break from the project and tried my hand at transferring the game in Unity once again. Unfortunately doing the turn based RPG did not go well and I ended up scrapping it a little over a month as it was not good enough to respect the source material. I took a few weeks to take a breather and refocus and began work again.

I have a huge list of things I am working on and hoping to add/finish for the demo but wanted to talk about a few things I haven't brought up yet as well as compare the original game, my project a year ago (4.1 or earlier), and currently what I am working on just to see the evolution (I hope) of the project.

The battle system for the original was not a large screen size. I tried to mimic it in the first versions doing an 800 x 600 resolution.  Eventually opening it up to a much wider space 1280 x 720. The battle doesn’t feel so claustrophobic, and I can use larger sprites now and fit the team more comfortably.

The Loot System is something new I am trying and have been changing it because of the feedback I’ve received. I’m hoping to get more feedback to make it even better. The original game is your classic text you found something, and I went with a random loot in 4.1 (or earlier) with a simple text. I then went to pick your item out of the box approach, and finally refined it to each chest has 5 item to choose from based off feedback I received. Using the arrow keys the highlighted box moves, and the others shadow out. The text at the bottom of the screen will change showcasing the items Attributes, Invocations, or Set Bonuses.  Green numbers will represent an increase in an attribute, while red will be a reduction. The idea is every chest is important so no more getting an Herb out of a mile long walk in a dungeon.

One of the biggest requests I received was to add more battle frame movement/animation from the engine default 3. What was tricky about this one is every character has a different amount of battle animations and some for different things. I went through every character and decided to go on a solid 5 frame animation as most of the characters have 5 battle animations, while a few had up to 8. It took some work, but I got it working. So, what I’m doing now is resizing, realigning, modifying, and/or utilizing every character battler for the rips/sheets I have. The goal is to build a battle sheet that is expanded upon from the original and 4.1 game. I hope it will make the battle animations more dynamic and feel better close to the original with some graphic editing love sprinkled in.

I also updated the menu some more and overhauled the equipment system. Your characters have more equipment options and customization. Every piece of equipment (but weapons) is now universal and can be swapped if you have the Talent Points spent on light, medium, or heavy armor. I will go more on it in another post.

Re-added the day/night cycle as well as weather in the game. Battle backgrounds change based off time. This feature was in the original game and wanted to bring it back. There are also different light sources you can purchase to change the light around your character in dark places.

There are now two fonts to choose from. Pixel-Retro and a Modern font.

I am tinkering with different camera settings the player will be able to choose from. Additionally, there will be a free camera which might allow weird angles but it is an option for the player to choose. I also will probably leave the Isometric camera with some settings for it as some people wanted it, but unfortunately the sprites are not isometric so that is something to keep in mind if you go that route.

You will see Meryleep pop up with helpful advice in the game (can be toggled off). She will also help you find dragon hearts that are hidden throughout maps which will give Talent Points to your allies similar to Ryu’s Skill Tree with finding the dragon statues.

The Battle System has been completely overhauled in connection with the new difficulty system in place. You can swap characters out of battle instantly now. Additionally, friendships will allow you to do duo, triple, or even quad combo attacks. I will post more on that at a later point.

Havenshire is such a large town that I split it into two (Upper and Lower) because of serious FPS drops. There are still issues with fps drop while it loads in on higher quality settings. I’m still on the drawing board on getting this fixed which might mean I break it up into sections of the city.

My apologies for the wall of text but venting my thoughts and showing what I’m working on (as well as looking back at the original source and where I started) helps inspire me. I wanted to let everyone know the project is still ongoing but it is a lot to work on. I also hope to get more feedback to improve the game. I am sorry for the demo not being out yet, but I want to get it in the best version I can, so I improve upon everything in its best form possible and not on things I know I need to fix.

I appreciate you all!

 ~Knightmarish Games