TRACHI

Hey again (weird to this twice in a single day..),

The thing is...
I got some immediate feedback, earlier, that some of the plugins were causing trouble.

Thankfully, I was able to fix the majority of them over the course of the day.
They were also mostly centered on the earlier parts of Act 1.

So if you're well into the game, you shouldn't run into any problems.
However, if you happen to do so, please don't hesitate to drop me a message.

This way, I can have a deeper look at the issue, and also supply you with a fix, right away.


In any case, the downloads page has been updated with the new version (1.2a).
I'll probably release a couple of hotfixes over the next few days, as well.



And after that, I'll get to work on 1.3
Trachi is conceptualised in such a way that it's very easy to integrate new elements into.
In other words, I'll keep adding interiors for the player to explore and also participate in activities.

I have a lot planned on the gameplay-side, as well. So far, I've struggled to come up with a sensible "combat" system that doesn't hamper the narrative too much.
I didn't want to have the protagonists battling slimes, basically.


Trachi is a game about heuristics.
Or to be even more pretentious (Oh god, here comes the inevitable Sun Tzu quote):
Something something know both yourself and your enemy.
In more concrete terms: The challenge should be about procuring and utilizing knowledge in order to gain leverage on your targets.


Exploration
The exploration segments are more or less already there, since a big part of Trachi is talking to various NPCs and interacting with the odd object here and there.
However, exploration is currently more of a flavour thing and has barely any impact on the main story.

In the future, I'd like to give these segments a lot more significance in terms of their narrative and gameplay value.
To this end , the plan is for players to utilize information they gathered to "buff" the potency of their actions during confrontations with the targets.


Confrontation
Say, you want target to either share a piece of information with you or perform a specific action.
Through exploration, you've come to know that the target has, for example, committed a crime.

Stating your knowledge of that fact to x might then cause a change in their behaviour, making them potentially more vulnerable to your other actions.
You can thus pursue this further by trying to intimidate them them or - alternatively - emphasize with them.

The general actions are to include (WIP): Observe, Emphasize, Intimidate, Seduce, Flatter.
I'm still playing with these categories, but some of them will very likely stay for the final version.

In any case, the potency of the general actions will be highly dependant on various factors.
These include things such as the the personality type of the target, their current mood, but also the attributes of the character you're conducting the confrontation with.
There's a lot of factors to consider, but I believe that this is something I'll continuously go back to and improve on.

I've already sketched out a few unique encounters that will be mandatory to continue the story.
However, I'm also planning to add optional confrontations all over Trachi, some of which might require the player to revisit them at later stages of the game, after gathering additional information.

As you can see, I'm very much looking forward to implement this. Especially since it directly tackles one of the biggest weak points of the game.


I'll try to keep you updated on this and the other additions of 1.3.
As for Act 2, I'll try to split my time between implementing new features and working to continue the story.

I don't expect Act 2 to be as much work as Act 1 was, but we'll see.

In any case, I'll be back with more next Saturday.


To the people that already dived into Act 1:
Thank you, and I hope you'll enjoy this ride as much as I do.

And to everyone:
Thank you, as well. I hope you have a stellar weekend, too.


Nory