Breach: Awakening

As you might have noticed, I'm using 95% stock sounds and animations. I usually get bogged down in art generation for my projects, so the goal here is to use as much out of the box as possible, albeit with a little twist. I am planning on changing up the arrow graphics though, since a cute little bouncing hand doesn't really fit with the general feeling I'm going for.

During the video, when the "Critical Break" animation pops up, this indicates that the enemy's resistances have been broken. Enemies have both Weaknesses and Critical Weaknesses. A Weakness usually means they take more damage from a weapon or skill type. A Critical Break occurs when an enemy is hit with the specific combination attack they are vulnerable to, Snap-Freeze, in this case. When Broken, an enemy cannot act, and suffers reduced defenses.

Of course, enemies can also do this to your main character and party members, so it is important to put a team together that compliments each other and is not all vulnerable to the same things, otherwise one "target all" spell from an enemy and the team is stun-locked and unable to fight back as they get decimated.

Contrary to how it appears, I am not using the default Random Battle system. Mine runs on dice rolls and a random delay timer via a Common Event. I've tailored it so that if the same encounter is generated twice in a row, it is not a viable choice the next time the event is triggered. Nobody likes fighting the same guy seven times in a row. Also, in the starter area, the enemy encounters will scale so that the party has a chance to build up some before they start facing stronger challenges.

Since the game permits players to save anywhere they want, there was no need for me to include dedicated save rooms/points. Instead, once a properly fortified area has been cleared of hostiles, it can be used as a rest area, allowing the party to heal.

The game is intended to be somewhat difficult. Healing items are rare, mostly coming in the form of item drops. Since I'm using a custom system for my enemy encounters, I can increase the likelihood of the team running into one of these foes when someone's health is critical.

The other option for recovery comes from crushing your opponents. In the video, you'll see that a bonus was awarded to the team for beating the enemy before they were able to take any offensive action. That type of victory can net either XP or a recovery event. The idea is that a party that is getting weak doesn't always have to try and high tail it back to the last area they cleared to rest, if they put their skills together properly, they can fight their way out of trouble and press on. When someone is in critical health, or drained of stamina, the bonus is converted into a restorative one. I am considering allowing the player to choose their bonus with a timed keypress, though, so that if they really wanted to give their dying team an xp boost instead of healing them, they could.

In the case of Bosses, there will be special bonuses based on the number of turns the party is able to defeat them in.

I have a lot of work ahead of me when it comes to balance. I want to reward players who gather up new skills and combine them to take their target down fast, without really beating people who might not have the right/team/build for a given boss into the ground.

Even though escape is not permitted against non-optional bosses, I'm planning to give the player enough warning about what is coming up so that there will be no excuse for them not to throw down a save just in case they are woefully unprepared.

Well, that is it for now. Hopefully I'll be able to get some more work done this weekend.