Howdy fellas! Sorry I’ve been noticeably absent on the devlog side, I’m quite happy with the games reception despite my lack of effort in reaching far and wide, hell this was the only place outside of the blog to get it for quite a long time- not for a lack of trying mind you! Gamejolt just likes to fuck up my deadlines with bad server issues sometimes. But ah~ You’re not here to here me babble on about nothing, so let’s talk about something! Progress:

I’m a little ways into developing Disk 1, the reason for the lack of momentum is there was a lot of stuff on Disk 0 that needed to be updated, such as many of the maps, some of the dialogue, and in general gameplay was lacking. I’ve now made several changes to circumvent this, and MORE are on their way.

The hope, though a mite unrealistic, is to have DEMO 2 ready by 8/8/18. The Good news is, the music is already there. And I could easily develop all the content I want for that time.

The bad news is my top artists live in the Philippines, so getting work from them can be difficult, as it was some graphics were missing in the demo I released 6 days late as was. To alleviate, Demo 2 is what Demo 1 was originally planned to be, but we ended up deciding to cut our losses and focus on the first disk, Disk 0, before we get into the crazy territory of Universal exploration…

Not to mention sidequests, sidebosses, challenges and all kinds of non-linear gameplay focused fluff as well as the main story arc of Disk 1. A lot of that is coming in Demo 2, both in Disk 0 and Disk 1.

So, what are the big sweeping changes and features coming to Demo 2?

-Six New Bosses and the Story Content for Disk 1.
-Unlock of the First Character Ennui, accompanied by epic Ascension cinematic.
-Completely new look for the Island of Vahnus, now with several optional side-missions, stories and discoveries to make.
-A new boss encounter in Disk 0 on Day 2.
-The Defend mechanic is born, functioning as another damage escape tool, holding the ‘D’ key down will defend you from all harm, except fabled YELLOW attacks!
-Character speed is now defaulted to five from four, and dashing is no longer in the game. This simply frees up the need to hold shift constantly.
-Skedaddling has been reworked on a character by character basis, Lumi like always, dashes forward five squares or until she can move no farther. Koko’s previously awkward backwards dash has been changed, now she leaps forward and then darts back, mimicking her weapons behaviour and further cementing her as the one that is bound to return to her old ways. Lilac meanwhile, much like her bats, moves similar to a knight in chess, her Skedaddle lances forward three squares then goes two squares on either side.
-Characters also now have differing pools depending on their style of play. Lumi has the usual 100 Health 100 Energy, but now Koko has 50 HP and 150 Energy, while Lilac has 150 Health and 50 Energy.
-All of the changes to character aesthetic have been to cater more to their gimmick, playstyle and be more fun and rewarding. Lumi is the easy to understand balance of Yin and Yang, Koko meanwhile, tends to be spend energy on everything she does at the expense of her health. Lilac meanwhile puts less energy into things and enjoys just living wholly and as happily as possible, she’s healthy but runs out of energy quickly. Lilac is suited well to long fights, she can live through 3 fatal hits and can defend when need be, her lack of energy makes her bats more the focus of the fight through, whie she dodges most through skedaddle- meanwhile Koko is built for dangerous short fights, and the fight in day 2 shows that better than most, where Koko has to survive against Yi for 30 seconds, if she takes a single fatal hit she’s out, and even two or three regular hits can quickly shred her. Koko is very reliant on defending, sorta like in her story arc, in contrast to Koko who defends herself only if she really has to, again, like her story arc. Meanwhile Lumi is the inbetween, again, just like her story arc.
-The Universe will become accessible in Disk 1, the earliest entry into open world in Biztopian game thus far. Not only will you be able to go to several memorable locations from previous games, along with obviously, planet earth, but new planets currently undiscovered, one of these being the world in the Sunless Galaxy, where Mira’s homeworld, as well as the world shown in Boned and several other conceptual worlds are housed.
-Warp Pad’s were a dumb idea that stripped away the notion of exploring a universe and confined it to an unpleasant menu. Feature Removed.
-Each Galaxy has its own map and within each system or ‘Sector’ is a new map, to exit any of these maps just go to any edge.
-Probably more I can’t remember.

I will soon post a video showing the first playable iteration of the Universe. It will be PRETTY BARREN before I spruce it up with side missions, space stations and junk.