Hi! I've been working hard on Lily (as well as other semi-important stuff like organizing my resume, my portfolio website and doing the job hunt thing) and wanted to make a little blog post about the game design! Blogs help me get organized and stay on track, and I know people love to read this stuff, so here we go!

Roll The Dice! Randomization = fun
One of the first noticeable things about Lily is it's different every time you play it. That's usually not what people expect when they see a JRPG, they expect to roll through towns and dungeons, level up, get superpowers, see the hero finally resolve his mid-life crisis and kill the boss. Lily has those things but in a way that keeps the game fresh even when you play it 10 times. A single playthrough is way shorter than most JRPGs but Lily makes up for it with randomized aspects that keep the game mysterious and fun.

One of my big goals with Lily was to make a game that would surprise people and maintain a sense of mystery - secrets would always be in different places, you would fight different enemies with different spells and find different storylines. I think I'm doing a good job on this front, so let's get to the details!

The Dungeon Walls Withdraw
Every game of Lily will contain several dungeons. They are generated randomly and where people will be spending most of their time!



A dungeon is made up of about 18 rooms like these:

• Enemy Room: Contains an enemy encounter that must be defeated before you can proceed! Enemies drop items when they fall.
  
• Armory: Contains a set of two weapons and you can choose one to take with you! This is one of the main goals of every dungeon.
  
• Boss Room: Contains one of the evil generals. Defeating them gives you a level-up booster item and also helps you on the final boss (??)
  
• Freebie Room: Contains a small treasure like money or a powerful consumable item, or just a place to take a breather :)
  
• Bonus Rooms: There are lots of kinds of these, but every dungeon will contain one and they contain things that will help you progress, like wishing wells and serene pools.
  
• Danger Zones: Contains extremely dangerous challenges or missions with matching rewards!
  

In addition, there are several possible NPCs and events that can occur in dungeons. You may do anything from saving a dog to taking down a corrupted wizard! Other NPCs will guide you to these missions if you find them and they have good rewards as well, so listen close!

(Also, you never really know what a dungeon might contain... even with all these randomized rooms there are still lots of secrets that might be revealed to those who pay attention!)

Fighting Is Honest
I want combat to be as exciting and mysterious as the rest of the game! I've put a lot of planning into making fights fun and strategic while maintaining an element of randomness. I'll go deeper into the combat in another post, but here at least I wanted to talk about randomization again!

There are lots of possible enemy encounters you may find, depending on the dungeon, day, weather, and other things. But even within particular encounters there are lots of possibilities! Things like treasure chests or bombs may appear, the weather may change, or enemies may become corrupted into powerful demons.



The Baby Lich enemy is an example of the dynamic battles. Typically he is a baddie that alternates between attacking and turning invisible which makes him immune to direct damage. However, any time there is a Baby Lich, you might instead fight a Sleepy Lich or an Angry Lich instead! Both are similar to the Baby Lich but have their own quirks - the Sleepy Lich often naps and forgets to turn invisible, while the Angry Lich turns invisible for longer and deals more damage. The Angry Lich is a lot harder to fight but drops better rewards!

Everyone likes Rewards
All the rewards in Lily are randomized as well - armories give you weapons, enemies drop cash or healing items, chests contain useful consumables, shops sell damn near everything... There's a lot! Here's some of the item types in Lily:

• Weapons: Weapons give you different abilities in battle. You can equip up to 4 and this is one of the major ways you can customize your character as you play. Some weapons inflict conditions like Poison or Vulnerability, some deal multiple hits, some give you temporary bonuses, and some do even weirder things!
  
• Souls: Souls give you passive boosts in battle, and you can switch them around as you please mid-fight. Souls do stuff like make enemies Bleed when you hit them, generate Shield Points for you, or steal money from baddies!
  
• Consumables: These are powerful one-use items that do everything from casting powerful battle spells to revealing traps to warping you to different parts of the map!
  

More juicy bits!
There's even more stuff in this game that are randomized, from townspeople and characters you meet along the way and their side-stories, to the bits of Lily's stories herself that are revealed the more you play, so whether you succeed or fail you can always expect to find new things. I really want to make Lily feel alive, mysterious and evolving :)

There's a lot of things to talk about with the other aspects of the game, like combat, unlocks & progression, risks & rewards, and I plan on covering these things in future posts! If you have any questions feel free to ask below!!