Hey everyone!

So first off, I'd like to issue a formal apology. I have no kept this page as updated as I should have. In fact, I barely even explained my inactivity for the past 10 months. Well, long story short is that real-life got the better of me. I recently moved houses, which really cut into my casual lifestyle for a while. Then I also had work and University to worry about, so all-in-all, it was just a big mess. As such, I did not have the time to work on The Spirits Within Expansion and thus, went silent.

However, BLANK does have a GameJolt page and if you're a user there and found the game's page, you'll know that I've been working on a new patch. But why talk about the new patch and what it brings when I can just show you what's in store?


BLANK: Patch 1.3

Patch 1.3 is a quality-of-life update coming soon to BLANK that will introduce and improve existing battle and dialogue systems to promote a better battle experience overall. While BLANK may largely be about the story, it's not fair for you guys to have it spoiled by iffy dialogue and lacklustre gameplay. So hopefully with this patch, I can introduce various new things that'll make the game a ton more fun to play. ~~Or hopefully just better than **Patch 1.2**.~~ With that said, let's get to talking about the patch's new features.


CONTASMA Rework


Risk/Reward No More


Aah, Contasma, the Spirit of Cupidity. She was the final member of Veta's crew of Spirits and boasted an array of specialised attacks that would bring havoc to the battlefields of Transech. It's just a shame that all of those said attacks (save for Silence the Sky) were all useless. As I explained before in a previous Developer Blog, Contasma was designed as a Risk/Reward character. Its abilities were powerful, but were accompanied by negative effects. An example was Electrosis, which would increase an ally's Agility, but also have a chance of Paralysing them. While I thought trade-off abilities like this would be a fun little mechanic to work around, I was proven wrong by all the videos and reviews I saw from you guys online. Essentially, he was useless compared to the other Spirits, as players would just use **Silence the Sky** whenever available, then just use items when she was silenced.

From this revelation, a change had to be made. Contasma could no longer be the useless fourth party member that brought everyone down. So ultimately, I chose to remove Contasma's Risk/Reward design entirely in favour of a more offensive spellcaster. My reasoning for this is that having a character that can bring more benefits to the team is a far better design than one who can support the team, but only if you're lucky. Either way, I'm really happy with how Contasma work and here's a preview of some of her new abilities.


Mmm...

Devour Mana: A strange ability that removes an ally's debuffs, restoring 25% of their MP in return.

Spectral Pulse: Contasma fires a radiant pulse, hitting all enemies in battle and lowering their SPELL DEFENSE.

Deceitful Oath: A mysterious ability that applies Magic Regeneration, but reduces their ATTACK and SPELL ATTACK.

Impatience: An ability that increases ALL stats of ALL allies for two turns.


And that's only half of the abilities Contasma now has at its disposal. Hopefully these new abilities will make you drool all over your monitors in glee at the new and overpowered Ring Spirit. But it the worst case scenario where you just don't like Contasma as a Spirit, there are now alternatives to find.

New Ring Spirits: NEGATA, ACCELION & BLIGHTANIS


Scary Boys.

Ladies and Gentlemen, say hello to your new Rings Spirits.

• NEGATA: Spirit of Rigidity\c

• ACCELION: Spirit of Nihility

• BLIGHTANIS: Spirit of Enormity

These new Ring Spirits will offer Veta and her other Ring Spirit companions and host of new spells and combinations to choose from. Whether you decide to adopt Negata's tanky ways into your team to soak the damage, or accept Blightanis' insane magical attacks into your arsenal, these new spirits have something to offer every player. But hold on, there's a significant problem here!


Funky Party

THERE'S NOW SIX SPIRITS, BUT THERE'S ONLY THREE SPIRITS ALLOWED IN THE PARTY

Worry not, my pessimistic friends, for I have offer you the solution. If you may or may not have noticed, there is now a tab on the Menu Screen known as Formation. This is a tab native to RPG Maker VX Ace games that was removed from BLANK, since it did not serve any purpose at the time. However, with the introduction of the new Spirits, it finally does. And with the help of a new script (Courtesy of the incredibly talented Yanfly), players now have the option of simultaneously changing their Spirits out of combat.


The Base Boys

On this screen, we can see Veta's Party, including her and the Ring Spirits she has acquired. By hovering over the different various Spirits, the player can view the different stats and equipment that each Spirit has, similar to how it would be shown to the player if they selected the Equipment Screen in the Menu.


Death comes...


In the image above, Accelion is visible and ready for combat. Unfortunately to get him in the fight, you will have to replace him with another Spirit in your party. So for demonstration purposes, we have chosen Contasma (Sorry Contasma). By selecting change, Contasma will be swapped with Accelion and with any luck...


HUZZAH!

You will have successfully added Accelion to your team. And don't worry, Contasma hasn't gone anywhere. She will sleeping soundly in your inventory and can be re-added to your Party anytime you wish. The only exception to this rule is Veta, who CANNOT be swapped out (Because that would break everything).

So yeah, that's pretty cool right? But do you wanna know what's cooler?

New Battle System


Fight!

Thanks once again to Yanfly and his godlike Scripts for RPG Maker VX Ace, BLANK now has a fully revamped Battle System to make combat more visually appealing and efficient. Tired of having to wait for those "Veta's ATTACK has been increased." Battle Messages? Well thanks to the new Battle System, all little details such as States and Buff/Debuff Tooltips are displayed dynamically on-screen.


Cool.

With this new Battle System, my hope is that Battles will become faster and more entertaining for the user, as well as more efficient for those who want to reach the narrative content of the game a hell of a lot faster than what was possible in Patch 1.2. Speaking of narrative content, let's take a look at...


*Pretty.*

Improved Dialogue & Messages

You probably spotted it right away, near the start of this update. And yes, your eyes do not deceive, that is indeed COLOUR in the Battle Dialogue. And guess what else? That also applies to the base game as well.

Yes in addition to reworking and improving all the dialogue in the game, I have meticulously gone about and highlighted various keywords and phrases to hold more significance for the players. Now hopefully you will all stop asking me questions about how to solve the maze in Chapter 2, before entering the Temple of the Displaced.


Dark Memes.

And going back to the dialogue, let's take a look at the new and improved dialogue for the game.




The Darkness comes...

Now bear with me, as there's bound to be more spelling and grammar mistakes in the game and those will likely just be tweaked out as time goes on. But for now, a series of dialogue sequences and events that created ungodly loopholes or were just a mess to read have been abolished. And most importantly, guess what else is gone?

...



Yep, that's right. No more ellipsis.

Anyway, before I wrap this Developer Update up, I have one final change that I feel is important to mention.

Revamped Enemy Sprites




*Scary.*

You may have noticed the enemy sprite right at the start of the Blog and thought "That's strange, I never saw that enemy in the game.". Well you actually have, just not like that. You see, that's a Displaced, or better yet, a reworked sprite of a *Displaced*. As I began work on Patch 1.3, I began to notice how wonky some of the enemy sprites looked compared to others. The enemies in Chapters 1 & 2 certainly looked a helluvalot worse than their Chapter 5 & 6 counterparts. So to be fair to all life in Transech, I went ahead and gave everyone a makeover. Not going to lie, this took me forever to do and there are over 15+ Sprites that have a complete makeover.

Finally, to end things off, Patch 1.3 has a whole bunch more little changes that I don't want to spoil to you guys/gals. I guess you're just going to have to download this latest patch when it comes out and find things out for yourself.

Either way, it's been a blast and I hope to talk to you again soon about Sanctaros and THE SPIRITS WITHIN

Love from,
King Sangos