Progress demo: autumn-winter 2025

I. Choosing characters for the turn
I decided it would be better to let the player choose who goes first and who goes last.
It sounds better than a fixed order like in Deltarune, where Ralsei could have done something on his turn (like throw in an extra heal), but Susie, who ended the battle, did not let him.
There will be up to 4 characters, not a fixed party of 3.
You will be able to assemble your own team like in some gacha, or play completely solo.

Stats screen:
Basically, what you see in the screenshot.
When you hover over / click on a character’s name, a window with their stats pops up.

The stats formula is simple.
Let’s use Attack as an example.
Current Attack = base attack (from level) * bonus attack * buff attack.
Bonus attack and buff attack change and are gained during battle, with the only difference being that bonus attack remains constant from round to round, while buff attack gradually returns to its original state.

Suppose a character gets a x5 “Vigor” effect.
Their buff attack becomes 1.5.
Over the next rounds, this buff attack gradually decreases, as does the buff itself, until it returns to the initial value of 1.

There are many stats.
Stopping at what Deltarune had (HP, Magic, Attack, Defense) felt too simple.
The idea was to let party members buff and debuff each other and do other crazy stuff.
The same goes for enemies.
This gives more fun options for approaching enemies and building teams.

Then a thought came up: what if a character has more than 100% of something?
Some healing sources could, in theory, restore HP or mana over the limit, but with a cap.
For now, the idea is that a character can be overhealed up to 150% HP.
The same with chances: hit chance and crit chance above 100% actually make sense.
A “super accuracy” and “super crit” mechanic is implemented.
Super accuracy increases crit chance (and crit chance increases crit damage) by a fraction of its value above 100%.
For example, if hit chance is 105%, the crit chance is 5% higher as long as hit chance is above 100%.

Overall, nothing too complicated.
If something differs from base values, it is indicated on the character card when choosing them, so you do not have to open a whole bunch of numbers.

II. Choosing an action
When a character is selected, they are moved slightly forward and the others are dimmed so it is visually clear who is acting.
No overcomplication here: the main directions are the classic ones – attack, magic, act, inventory.

However, each character has their own special (not 100%, but to varying degrees) attacks and magic.
So far, only Kris’s attack, familiar from Undertale and Deltarune, has been implemented in code.
But this is not the end: different executions will be made for different types of magic and attacks.
Hopefully, this will not turn into a collection of annoying minigames inside another game.
In the autumn report, you could briefly see which attacks each character would have at which level.

There are also plans to rework Acts.
The idea is to make them universal, so that the player tries to guess what needs to be done with a character for a pacifist route.
But instead of 3–4 options, there will be 12 for everyone.
Not going into details yet, since Acts are not a priority right now.

After choosing an attack, you can select a target.
Target stat windows are not implemented yet, but that is not a problem.
You pick a target and perform the attack.
The character completes their move.

Then you select a new character, choose an action, and repeat this until all characters have taken their turns.

By the way, you can always target anyone.
So if you want to perform an action or attack on a teammate, you can.
Right now, Kris can be forced to hit himself or another party member.
So if you, for example, “accidentally” want Chara to ult Sans, you can do that.
And Sans is not the only one who can dodge.
To be precise, not everyone is 100% accurate anymore.
Hit chance depends on how straight the acting character’s hands are.

III. Enemy turn
By some miracle, the heart can now move with the arrow keys.
It even more or less properly reacts to projectiles.
The only issue is that if it keeps bumping into the borders of the box it dodges in, the heart will shake.
Nothing can be absolutely perfect.
On phones and tablets, control will most likely use touch.

Each enemy attack applies a debuff to a character with its own individual chance if they get hit.
Imagine Kris gets smacked, gets scared and can no longer hit properly for 3 turns.
Or he gets slammed so hard he falls and loses his next turn.
If it is someone like Jevil, the hero instead is guaranteed to get a 1‑turn Bleed.

If the enemy lands a crit and applies an effect, it is shown on screen next to the damage numbers.
The same works for the player’s side.

Also, the enemy’s target is no longer strictly one and not entirely random.
In Deltarune, the enemy indicated who they would hit, and all attacks went into that character.
Here, characters have a Tank stat, which is the chance that they will be hit.
The sum of all Tank values is taken and split into shares; whoever’s share the “lot” falls on is the one who gets punched in the face.
This gives some variation.
You can choose a character who will tank the most by increasing their Tank.

If you are alive, you are doing great – keep hanging in there.

NOTES FOR THE FUTURE
Next up is an in‑battle dialogue system and other fluff, but that will come later, after finishing the base for Underevent and making the trailer.
For now, the focus is on character cards, their attacks, and enemy attacks.
Then the work will slowly move on to the movement system (since the room‑to‑room movement system is not implemented yet).
Music, visuals, and other joys of life also need to be made.

The post may sound simple, but in reality, the code has a ton of stuff that took a lot of effort and time to understand and implement.
And this is all still in Ren’Py, by the way.

So, a lot has been done, and there is even more to do.
Since the technical part of the code is in place, visuals now need to be brought up to its level.

This will be the last post of the year.
So here is wishing everyone health, strong will, and patience to reach your goals, even if they seem hard to you.