Redemption Harem - Following Up on v0.1

Redemption Harem's v0.1 release seems to have gone well enough. Better than Maids & Masters did, but given that MnM was my first game when no one knew who I was, that's not much of a comparison to make. The real measure will be the public release when v0.2 goes into early access and the general public gets their hands on it. I would say I'm trying to not let my expectations get too high, but I don't really know what to expect. I know it won't be a disaster, but I doubt it'll be an explosive success either, so I'm not really giving it much thought.

 

That said, I am looking forward to v0.2 already. At least one bug snuck past me and into the v0.1 build that's already been identified and fixed, and there's another that I need to investigate to see if it didn't get fixed properly, but they're both minor annoyances more than something completely game-breaking.

There's also a few balance changes I want to make already. Capturing enemies in combat - particularly non-boss enemies - is harder than it needs to be. Part of that I think I'll address by updating the Tie Down skill you can learn through the training dummy so it force-upgrades the enemies Bound status rather than simply having a higher chance of applying the state, but I might end up going in a different direction with it. 

 

I may also put some SP regeneration on the parry system so you can use techniques more often, because - especially when you're trying to capture an enemy - the optimal strategy is to sit there and Guard repeatedly to get your SP near max, then use the next 2-3 turns dumping it into your capture skills. That's... boring, frankly, and not what I want that gameplay loop to feel like. At least against the random encounter enemies, I want the capture mechanic to feel more like taking advantage of an opportunity that's presented itself rather than the "I'm actively being attacked by this wild animal, let me stand here and make faces at it for a minute or two before I do something about it" that it currently feels like. The parry system is supposed to avoid that feeling, so putting some SP gain in it might solve this other issue. I'll need to test it out to see how that actually feels, though. There might be a completely different solution that will work better that just isn't presenting itself to me right now.

 

I'm still very happy with the game overall, though. The day/night system feels right - sitting in the fortress doing prep work takes a day or two to fully finish, which means it's also a great way to fill time when you've hit the "come back tomorrow" points in quests. The survival mechanics feel a smidge harsh, but at least to me, aren't so harsh that it becomes a pain in the ass, it just pushes you out of the fortress to forage for supplies and explore (which is exactly what the survival mechanics are meant to do). The economy balance is in a much better place compared to the demo, and while you can theoretically do things infinitely and break the economy, it kinda sucks the fun out of it. While I was playtesting, I only really wanted to go looking for fights when there was a specific enemy that dropped a thing I needed for crafting, and it only took a few minutes for me to run into the type of enemy I needed to find and capture them to get the thing I needed. It's still a little rough around the edges, but it all fits together very nicely.

Of course all of that will smooth out even more as the game progresses and you gain access to more things and level them up, like farming giving you more food as you unlock plots and the Hunter profession giving you more loot as it gains levels for capturing enemies.

Plus the ability to hunt animals that you find outside of combat. I want that to be part of the v0.2, but I'm still working out exactly how I want that to work mechanically, which means it'll probably be the reason v0.2 still isn't out at the end of September. It's a mechanic I really want to be part of the game, though, so I'll have to figure it out sooner or later.

 

Anyway, v0.1 early access is out right now, and you can get it on Patreon, Subscribestar, and itch! 

Redemption Harem - Testing v0.1

There was one last system I needed to rework before v0.1 was completely ready, and it's taken all weekend to rework properly, but I'm currently in the process of testing it and now it too is one of the many things that's working out fantastically. I still have a little bit of rendering to do before everything that was in the demo is done for v0.1 (mostly because reworking this system took a fair bit more time than I expected it to), but that should all be done today, leaving the rest of the week for polish and bug hunting.

That's right! Nothing when horribly wrong and v0.1 is still set to release into early access this Friday,  August 21st. If you want to get your mitts on it, Patreon and Subscribestar are the best places to do that. It'll be going up on itch as well over the weekend, but since I need to create some new assets for the new early access page, set up the lifetime key that the Supporter tier gets, and will likely be taking the time to redo some assets for my other pages while I'm at it, and doing all that will take me more than a few minutes.

Everything should get uploaded same-day after this week, though. Launching a new title into early access just takes a little extra work. 

 

The same should apply to v0.2 and onward - one of the biggest reasons I'm releasing v0.1 three weeks after I wanted to is because I've been building all these new systems, but now that they're built, I'll be able to put all that effort into new content.

Though with that said, there are a few things in the demo that won't be in v0.1 right away. For starters, now that I have access to the profession system, hunting and farming will tie into and rely on that. Since I moved to a zero-xp system, those can also be extra progression systems. With them also not being strictly necessary for progression, that kinda turns into a cascading effect that allows me to use them to reward you for engaging with the game, which I feel is much more interesting than the more straightforward (but also kinda boring, a little game-breaking, and sometimes frustrating) way they were implemented in the demo. Not being able to hunt the deer yet means I need to implement an alternate way to complete Nadua's hunt quest, but that's fairly simple by comparison.

All of that in turn means I'm not completely done developing new systems, but developing one or two new systems alongside new content will be a lot less work than needing to rework basically everything the game does from scratch, so v0.2 onward will hopefully still not take me nearly two months to make and I can get closer to the monthly updates I want to aim for (even though my Patrons are amazing patient people who have so far unanimously voted to let updates take as long as they need).

Anyway, that feels like enough rambling for this week. Go get acquainted with one of the links above so you're ready for v0.1!

Redemption Harem - v0.1 Release Date

It feels both a little overdue and like I'm still missing something, but I'm finally far enough along with v0.1 that I think I'm comfortable giving it a release date. It'll go into testing this Friday for V.I.P.s and Producers on Patreon and Subscribestar this Friday, August 14th. v0.1 will then release into early access the following week on Friday, July 21st.

Since it's been a while since the last time I've had an update release into early access, if you're not familiar with how I do that, I do rolling early access. That means that v0.1 will stay in early access until v0.2 goes into early access, then v0.1 will be available for free for everybody.

The same applies to itch.io, where there'll be an early access page available for purchase that'll get you lifetime early access that'll go up, and the existing demo page will have the most recent public build. And like I did with Maids & Masters, I'll offer a lifetime support key for Redemption Harem that can be redeemed through itch.

 

With all that said, the only meaningful development news is that the parry system has been implemented and not only works exactly how I wanted it to, but is fairly easy to adjust. The current assets are probably going to end up placeholders so I can make something a little flashier and/or prettier even if it ends up being slightly less intuitive. Everything else is just the time-consuming fiddly bits, like finding typos and making sure all the quest log and journal updates appear correctly, and updating item and skill descriptions so the formatting matches, etc. etc.

I'm extremely happy with it as is though, so let's talk about that a bit. It gives combat exactly the sort of skill element I wanted it to have so that you can "dark souls" your way through combat without any upgrades if you get good at it, making all the exploration and crafting upgrades optional, but still extremely useful. While I want the perfect parry to be generous enough that you feel like a combat genius hitting it fairly often, it being too easy trivializes things and can have the opposite effect when you hit it even when it feels like you shouldn't. 

I feel like I've hit that sweet spot, because combat is still dangerous, especially since food items can backfire (there's an Overfull debuff you get by over-eating) and other forms of healing are much more restrictive. Aside from the perfect parry window, there's a "guard" window where you'll get a temporary guard state to take half damage, and between those there's a "perfect block" window where you'll prevent closer to 20% of the damage. This little misses result in taking chip damage, so instead of being mauled by wolves, you're able to power through (thanks entirely to how good at the game you are), but going through 3-5 of those fights can still result in a game over if you're out of healing items. Unless, of course, you're really good at the game and parry everything that dares approach you into the dirt where they belong.

At least to me, that feels great. It encourages preparing ahead of time, such as buying camping supplies so you can stop to rest in the middle of the area (I literally got to the "tutorial camp" and thought to myself "dang, I should've bought supplies so I could heal"), or buying up materials to craft healing items, or taking things in parts so you can forage for stuff to sell or craft with. In those situations where you haven't, or you under-prepared, or you had a fight go wrong early on but you're too far in to just back out, then you lock in and turn into the patron saint of parrying - it's exactly what I wanted out of the system.

The new time system makes this work even better, as now it's actually possible for you to go into the first map, grab everything you can see, then back out to sell what you don't need or call that good enough and spend the rest of the day researching, or whatever else you feel like doing to properly prepare before committing to diving three maps deep into random encounters.

It's hard to put into words how great it feels to have everything fit together so nicely in the early play tests, especially since it's taken so long for me to get everything implemented the way I want to implement it. But I have, and everything works, and I've barely had to compromise anything, and... it's so nice. I really hope those of you who get your hands on it are as happy with it as I am.

Redemption Harem - Finally Out of the Fortress

After almost exactly a month of development, I've finally gotten past the first 15 minutes of the game and out of the fortress. That doesn't sound like much of an accomplishment, but in reality, it means that all of the core systems that aren't part of combat and exploration are done. That doesn't leave a lot of work left to do, and v0.1 is getting very close.

I'd like to say the v0.1 test build will be coming on Patreon on Subscribestar this Friday, but that feels like tempting fate. 

 

While there is very little left (basically all I have to do for the game to be playable is finish adding in the quests), as tends to be the case with a thing as complex as game development, every few steps forward leads me to a new problem that helps me empathize with Sisyphus. 

The most recent example of this is how exploration is handled. I wanted a way to visualize how much of the map you've explored, both as a means of displaying the gathered information so it's easier to reference and to incentivize you to explore areas. It gives me more ways to reward you as well as something easier to design around, as the natural gamer instinct when you're given an incomplete map is to try and fill it in.

The plugin I found to do that flat out doesn't work. The code was obscured by the person who made it, so I can't attempt to fix it myself, and the error being thrown is a code issue.

I spent today redesigning the map exploration checks to make sure I could implement another solution, but the other solution I have is very fiddly and requires me to make a ton of custom assets, and may delay v0.1's release another week or two while I figure it out unless I cut it so v0.1 can release sooner. The feature is probably still worth taking the time to implement, but I already feel like v0.1 has taken me too long to finish and I still haven't gotten to trying to implement a parry system to combat. Which, based on what I've been able to find so far, is not going to be a simple process either.

 

That's really all that's left, though. There are still a few events that need name boxes added, I need to finish adding the quest logs where they need to go, and I still need to make sure the capture system will work the way I want it to and get that fully implemented, but adding name boxes and quest log updates is a few hours of work at most, and the capture system shouldn't take more than a day. If I'm able to get parrying to work the way I want it to quickly and easily, that's just two days of work, and Friday is technically three days away. If things don't cooperate and I run into other issues it might take a week to get set anyway, but we don't need to spend more time on that.

I might be missing a few other things that will need my attention before v0.1 officially ships into early access, but that's what the testing period is for. It still feels like too much of a long shot to say that testing period will actually start this Friday, but we're very close.