I am still working on Diabolica, albeit slowly the last few months due to a number of other things. Though here this last week I've been working a good amount, specifically on the class/skill/progression mess that has been a prominent mess in my project for a long while. A lot of information on the game page is also outdated / misleading, so I ought to update that soon.

the premise of the game still remains the same, though i got rid of character classes in favor of learning skills from equippable items specifically meant for learning skills (and nothing else), what exactly that idea will be like will be elaborated on later, of course once i can get it to actually WORK

i am becoming more satisfied or less perfectionistic about this project, especially now that i have the desire to work on other games that diabolica is taking my free time from. though given that i go to school all week and then work 7 days a week i am pretty short on free-time nowadays,,, but i have been saying i'd finish this game for years and i am determined to get it done

once i finish a few more things, mostly the skill system thing, and skill fusions which i will also explain later, all that remains for me to do is map out the dungeons, create the enemy and boss battles, execute the story in there somehow, add in a few easter eggs and other little details, and then do rigorous bug-testing and play-testing for balance. which is actually a lot of work, but

things are going well! sorry for lack of updates!

I am indeed still working on Diabolica. Floor progress is slower than intended because I decided to re-do parts of the database again, which takes a lot of time and effort. I finished all of the classes, which I will soon post descriptions of in another blog post. The crafting system still needs recipes for many equipments, but that is pretty much all that remains of database work!

But I have made it to the 4th floor (out of 95), which means that I'm almost done with my first branch. I am rather satisfied with the results thus far, so it seems that years of perfectionism-fueled redoing this project are finally going to pay off. It takes at most about two days for me to complete a floor, meaning if I worked every day until I finished all of the floors I would be done by Dec 06 2016.

However, once I finalize database work I will be able to work at a much quicker pace, possibly churning out 2-3 floors in a single day. So fear not! Though I want to make a polished game, I am quite frankly ready to move on to a new project, so I will not be taking years more to finish this.

Wish me luck!

Hello my devoted followers~ (and goodbye my lost subscriber :\)

After floating around in RMN's Slack channel I was inspired by a discussion there to play around with the mechanics of missing and scoring a critical hit!

Miss & EVA
Thanks to Craze's Accuracy Overflow, there is an incentive to acquire more HIT%. All hit rates exceeding 100% will work against the target's evasiveness. An enemy with 50% EVA will practically have 0% EVA when attacked by an ally with 150% HIT. This means that buffs to HIT% are more useful!

In addition, the Miss buff has been implemented! When any battler misses when attacking a target, they will get a buff applied to them until their next turn is over. This will boost their attack speed, their critical and hit rate by 10%, and their ATK by 25%. This way misses don't completely ruin a battle, yet aren't the best thing. (The buff doesn't stack)

Critical Buff
Similarly to the Miss buff, the Critical Buff is applied to target of a critical strike that successfully hits. This brings Critical Evasion to 100% and their Evasion to +10% until their next turn. This prevents chain criticals from occurring.

Let me know what you think~! I haven't much feedback in the last few months unfortunately :( I wonder if my participation in controversial forum topics is to blame?

Yaaayy!! I've finally gotten to implementing all the changes to the battle system and other things. I am super satisfied with the results for sure! Here is a list of things I've done:

• Implemented new battle HUDs. Now, busts/portraits are used to represent each character in the battlefield. Each portrait has a box for status icons, HP and MP bars with numbers, and a rectangle indicator for the Crisis system. All selectable windows appear in the middle of the screen and move to the right as you choose the actions for each actor.

• The Crisis system has been implemented. Inspired by Valkyrie Stories' Lifeline system, the crisis waves become more drastic as the user acts in battle. There are various modes configurable in the skill menu that can change how one gains crisis.
(Crisis is based off TP) Whether the Combatant crisis mode, which gains Crisis as you fight in battle, or the Mender crisis mode, which gains Crisis as you heal allies, once your Crisis has reached the peak, indicated by the drastic blue wave, your "Solution" command becomes available.

Similar to the former Astral Projection system, once a character uses the Solution command they must put in one of several possible combos to execute a special skill.

Additionally, when any character reaches max crisis, they have a chance of gaining one of four states; Divine Favor (doubles LUK for battle), Persistence (50% of not dying from a fatal attack), x2 EXP, and Treasure Boost (doubles gold and drop rates for the battle).

• Transitions between maps and scenes now use crossfading, similar to battle transitions in the engine.

• Transitions into battle now have a blurring swirling effect. (Demonstration will be shown later)

• Some battlebacks are now animated to a degree.

• The battle system is now completed.

• Advanced camera control will be used for scenes.

• Item rarity has been implemented.

Now all that's left to do is message busts and reconfiguring sprites and I will be able to work on the playable game (maps, specific battles, etc.) Things are looking quite good for Diabolica!

A new series of battle changes has just been implemented! In a sense this has made most of my old developments obsolete, but that is okay! I have felt that recent implementations have over-complicated the game, so these changes are just condensed forms of somewhat convoluted systems. I know these changes will produce better results. I will get to writing about this in detail after a job interview, but a quick list of changes here:

• Astral Projection has been rehauled/removed. It has been replaced by the "Crisis Mode" system, the only similarities are the Combos to execute skills.

• Battle Favor has been removed, and is also in a sense replaced by the "Crisis Mode" system; distinct crisis mode statuses can be gained, of which affect gold drops, experience gain, persistence, the LUK stat, and item drops.

• Animations now properly center on their actor targets.

• The Crisis Mode system has been implemented. This is intended to replace the convoluted Astral Projection/Battle Favor system to be both simpler and more effective. There are similarities between Crisis Mode and the old astral projection which will be covered in a later blog post.

• An animated display for the Crisis Mode system similar to Valkyrie Stories: Escallion Rising's "Lifeline" system has been implemented in the Main Menu and in the battle.

• The number of playable characters has been reduced to the 4 crucial characters, and the battle members size has increased from 3 to 4. The Reserve system and the party backup mechanic have been removed.