Thrall

The demo has been updated!

This update is huge. I mean, absolutely massive. November and December were decently productive, but January was just something else. I had three weeks of vacation, and since I'm looking for a new job I took them all at once. During that time I managed to get a ton of work done, and I wanted to release an updated demo with all the new mechanical changes.

However, I decided to go one step further.

The original demo could get the player up to about level 8, maybe 9 or 10. While it definitely gave a sample of the main gameplay loop and a lot of the mechanics, it didn't really do what it should have, which is reveal the potential of this game. You don't really get to fully experience the loot system or try out the various skills trees until about level 12 or so, and unfortunately that isn't really feasible to reach with just a prologue and a single dungeon. So, with that in mind, I have an announcement...



The new demo has been expanded to include the first FOUR dungeons, and all the story content up to that point!

Now, I don't intent to release any further story content past this point until the full release. I don't want to fall into the trap of constantly trickling out more content for the game until the player basically has half the game or more without a full release. I don't want an episodic game. But with the demo in its current state, the player can pretty easily reach around level 15 - 17, and get a much better feel for the loot system and the potential of the skill trees. There's also a lot more story content to get you hooked. But, having said that, the amount of story content available relative to the total planned story is still pretty light. Take a look at this story path mockup for an example.



So there's really only about 25% of the game content here, and from this point forward is where the branching story structure will really come into play. It is still somewhat of a linear story, but each individual path taken will have some radical differences between them, even if they all converge near the end of the game.

At any rate, the demo has a lot more to offer now, and more properly reflects the potential this game has and where I intend to take it. I hope you all enjoy the new content!

But with that said, the new dungeons are not the only changes present in this demo. Not at all. I've been hard at work this month, and there's a ton of new cool stuff to see. I'll highlight the major changes, then post a comprehensive list at the bottom if you want to see EVERYTHING I got up to. So, let's kick it off! What's new?

Customizable Armor!

So I kept thinking, you can see what weapon you're using in battle, as the weapon sprite actually appears in the hands of the user when you attack. Cosmetic changes actually do exist in that sense. But what about armor? No matter what armor you wear, the character sprites don't change. It can break immersion a bit when you equip a bright red cape, but your party member sprite is still wearing a muted blue cape. Well, not anymore!



With one of the more recent changes, character sprites will now change when you equip a new body armor! The color is determined by the actual icon of the armor you're equipping. If equipping a cape, clothes, or anything cloth related, the color of your cape will change to match the color indicated by the icon, and the armor will be randomly determined. When equipping armor, a cuirass, or anything metal, the color of the armor itself will change to match the icon, and the cape will be randomly determined when the loot is generated. It's also consistent between party members, so if you remove the armor from one member and put it on another, the color scheme will be the same, but for the new party member's sprite!

Side Missions and Keep Member Dialogue!

In the previous demo, keep members wouldn't really have anything to say. That was never intended, I just hadn't gotten around to adding their dialogue trees at that point. Well, now everybody's got some words for you! And maybe a little more...



Any keep member that has (...) above their head will have something to say, and if they have a (?) above their head, they'll even have an optional side mission for you! These missions can vary in difficulty, but every one of them has a special reward for completing them. These rewards are rare and unique weapons and armors that have special effects that no other loot has! They're absolutely worth getting, so don't ignore them!

Job Board!

As a reward for completing the demo, you'll get access to the brand new Job Board! If you've ever played the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games, you'll be familiar with this.



Jobs will be randomly generated, providing a random location, floor, objective, and reward. There are currently four different objectives available, with more to come in the full release. One of the objectives has ten different variants as well, so it'll never be too boring. In addition, the rewards can be very worthwhile! You can be rewarded with Gold, or you could even receive a randomly generated item, weapon, or armor, with rarities ranging from green to purple! And that's just the MINIMUM rarity for the reward. It's entirely possible to be rewarded with Legendary equipment, if you're lucky.

Other Things!
Aside from those major changes, I've also added some really cool things that aren't easily shown in screenshots. For example, I've added diagonal movement! I talked about this in a previous video, so check it out if you're interested. Movement is much more intuitive now, and makes sense for the environment of this game. In addition, the Big Enemies I mentioned in an earlier blog are available in this demo.

I've also modified some of the status ailments, most notably Weak status. Weak will now double all subsequent damage to that target while active, sort of like Slag in the Borderlands games. I've also modified Seize to reduce DEX instead of RES while locking skill use, but Freeze status will reduce RES as well as immobilize.

And finally, I did some major changes to the scripts in the base game. Specifically, I re-wrote Game_Battler from the ground up (mostly). With this, battles are much more consistent. Physical skills gain all the benefits that a physical attack would, and it just makes more sense. I've also done some massive enhancements to the UI, both in and out of battle. For example, when the Party Command Window is open during battle, there will be icons displayed next to the actions you can take. For the Attack command, the icon of your equipped weapon will be displayed, but if the weapon has an element then the icon for that element will be displayed instead. This way, you can immediately determine what element you're attacking with, without having to remember it. In addition, I've added a button prompt in the corner of the screen to show how to escape battles, since that mechanic isn't well-explained and is often ignored.

Anyway, that's most of the big major changes. There's a plethora of other enhancements, but they're not as important. Still, I'll list everything in a spoiler tag below if you're curious.



Anyway, that's it for this demo update! I hope you all enjoy! Oh yeah, and I apparently broke the file size limitations. So now the download is on MediaFire. Haha oops.