Tuesday, February 20, 2024

Maids & Masters (& Progress On v0.15)

Working on this bundle (have I mentioned there's a bundle? We even hit out next goal, so bundle bonus renders will be coming soon. You should check out the bundle.) has taken up more of my week than I'd have liked, but there is good news.


In terms of general progress, there's only two relatively simple maps left to make, the maps that have been made are almost entirely populated with interactions, all the new assets (both visuals, like sprites and battlers, as well as system things like new enemy types and battle configurations) are done. That means there's not a lot left to do except the writing, implementation of new mechanics, and all the usual testing.


On top of that, to keep the good news train rolling, the new mechanic is already working perfectly. It's been a long time since I had an idea, tried to implement it, tested the test case, and everything just worked. It's not a terribly complex mechanic - for these challenge fights, I simply wanted to have just one Maid be able to participate in the fights. Where that could have become challenging is the way MnM shares experience. I didn't want to remove all your other Maids from your party, both because then I'd need to add progress checks to make sure you get the right Maids added back into your party, and because I didn't want those Maids to miss out on the experience points you'd earn doing these solo challenge fights. Thankfully, limiting (and increasing again) the party size is a fairly simple process, so both issues are solved in one easy script call.


Because that was so easy to solve, it opens up a lot of opportunities for extra content in the new Estate. This is fantastic news for me, because I was ready to cut a lot of that challenge fight content in case it didn't work out the way I wanted it to. Since the whole process is incredibly simple, all of that content gets to stay in. It's maybe less fantastic news for you, because now you need to figure out how to solo a challenge fight with Maids like Ella and Alice in order to get the new trophy. Good luck with that. If it's any consolation, I will test and balance things until I'm absolutely certain it's possible without needing to cheese the fight somehow. I want that trophy, too, after all.

 

As an extra upside, the new mechanic being easy to implement also means if we're lucky and I'm able to find enough time, I might be able to get a test build out to VIP Patrons on March 1st. It's more likely that my being out of town will limit my time a bit too much and I won't have that test build ready until March 8th, but only time will tell.


Speaking of time, because I'll be out of town, there may not be a blog post next week. There is a small amount of work I'm going to try to bring with me, but that's mostly for things that aren't my own projects and to make sure Precious Kouhai's v0.1 can get released on Friday. 

Right, I said I'd talk more about that this week. And now this week's post is already kinda long. Uhh... here's the short version:

Precious Kouhai's v0.1 is coming out faster than usual because it's the official v0.1. Surprise!

The release cadence will follow MnM after v0.1; meaning nothing will change when PKv0.2 goes into early access, then PKv0.2 will go public when PKv0.3 goes into early access, and so on.

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Maids & Masters (& More Progress on v0.19)