So as requested, and after taking the most common questions/concerns that I could find into account, the Reference Guide tab is now available for anyone who needs a quick reminder of how battles in PotF work. If you have any question that haven't been covered in the tab, please don't hesitate to let me know and I'll do my best to answer them!

I've given the help tab discussion some thought, and eventually came to a conclusion that led me to writing this up: There's nothing wrong with reminding players of the absolute basics of a game. Sometimes, especially if you come back to the game after some time has passed (such as the release of the next section of the story), you'd like a reminder of the basics without having to go through the tutorial areas again. So as long as I stick to the basics of gameplay and not flat out describe how to beat certain enemies/areas, then there is no "failure" as a designer to adequately explain how to beat their games.

Of course, I'm probably worrying too much about the subject. If there's even one person who finds the guide helpful, then I'll call it a smashing success!

It's worth noting that, as the game progresses and certain aspects of the game are tweaked, the reference guide may be updated accordingly. For instance: the formula for Guard Break attacks has already been changed from the current download, but the Reference Guide will not reflect that since the available build does not have that updated formula. Don't worry, I'll make sure to let you know of any serious changes when the next build is released, and any minor changes in the patch notes.

My end goal is to create a codex to include all this information and more for players to access in-game so the reference guide won't even be necessary. Until I take the time to actually write the script, a hints tab will have to suffice.



... I've lost control over my own life. You made me write up this guide to help players. This is your fault! YOU MADE ME DO THIS!

Yikes, my blogging game has gotten pretty weak, hasn't it? Let's fix that.

Despite what the lack of tangible progress reports may indicate, work on PotF has been pretty consistent. It's just that the progress has almost all been in back door fields that don't make for interesting blog content (unless you think Word documents and database entries are interesting) and so I've been rather silent save for mini updates on Twitter.

However, it has been a month, and some sort of substantial update is overdue, so here I am.

90% of my work has been, as stated before, in back door fields. By far the most time and effort spent last month was laying out the story point-by-point. Sure, I knew what was going to happen and when before, but it wasn't until I started writing an actual synopsis (which, including just the absolute vital points to the story, just touched 11,000 words!) that I caught minor points and issues that needed addressing.

The biggest reason for laying the entire plot down to the specifics, though, is that just like Soul Sunder, PotF determines its ending based on the results of player actions instead of choices, so a lot of time needed to be spent making sure the criteria for each ending is a fair assessment of the way the player played as each character during their respective stories. This isn't something I can go back and change later for people who have files from future releases, so this needed to be right coming straight out of the gate. Just so there's no misunderstanding (and sorry if this breaks the immersion somewhat), your actions during the prologue were not judged in any way to determine the ending.

It's done, though, and now all that's left is to implement the listeners for these criteria before moving on to the dialogue proper. So yay!

*Side note: I would have been done quicker if I hadn't gotten carried away with writing optional skits. It'd be great to find a place to put them, but having the parties chat among themselves is so much fun!*

----------------------

There's been a fair amount done on the gameplay side, as well. Since the stat overhaul, a lot of previous strategies laid out for the characters became obsolete. Therefore, the rest of the cast needed to change accordingly. You may remember seeing a glimpse of Luke's abilities from a blog way back in December where he could demolish enemies due to his arsenal of magic attacks. Well, now his offensive capabilities have been pulled back a bit in favor of a wider variety of actions.


Frankly, I got bored to death of giving him every elemental spell, so this is his new loadout instead to encourage using other party members. He'll gain more abilities as he levels up, but his pool of spells should still have this kind of ratio.

Since Luke has no Drives anymore, his role as a nuke has been scaled back to only a few spells, and now includes more debuff and ailment-inflicting abilities. The lack of Drives meant his weapons also needed an overhaul, so changing his gear in battle focuses more on stats and resistances.

There's also been a tweak to the armor equip system, but I'm in more uncertain territory here. The idea behind the current system was giving the ability to have every character equip every piece of armor in order to allow you to create your own loadout. In practice, this became an absolute nightmare to test. Being a single individual with no ability to clone himself (yet), something had to be done, either by limiting the available armor or add in some restrictions if I ever wanted to make some semblance of progress within my lifetime. Currently, I'm playing around with a little bit of both.

Right now, I've changed the system so that not everyone can equip medium and heavy armor. Mia, for example can no longer equip heavy armor, so the Chain Mail you get in her prologue will have to be given to Amalie instead. The biggest issue holding me back from really delving deep into an equip overhaul was the fact that changing the system now will cause some issues with your save file if you've already played the current demo. For instance, there's already an issue with Mia and heavy armor if you (understandably) gave her Chain Mail during her prologue, but it's nothing game-breaking. Mia will still have the Chain Mail equipped, but will be unable to re-equip it if removed. However, I've been playing around with the idea of letting Relics be equipped in the same place as armor and removing the Relic slot entirely (sort of like Soul Sunder), but that has caused way more issues with a file if a character already has a Relic equipped.

Since I really don't want to force players to replay the demo over again for something so small, I think I'll leave it at the armor restrictions for now and just limit how much armor you can get. We'll see how this plays out during tests.

That's it for this blog! Sorry again for the lack of updates, but I hope this makes up for it. I'll talk a little more about the next party member in the next blog. For now, though, here's a little something that might pique your interest in her if you've played the demo:


What?! M-Miasma Charge?!

So far, things are looking to stay on track for a release this month. The art is done save for a few tiles and bust expressions, the dialogue needs a little editing before being added in, and the new battles have been designed and implemented. The biggest hurdle now is getting past the polishing phase. Not just for Mia's prologue, but for the game as a whole.

At this point, though I'm feeling more confident about getting this build ready for testing. I'm gonna try and crunch out a beta build of the complete prologue by exactly a week from now. This time, though, I want to send this out to more testers to get a wider range of feedback. unity and NeverSilent have done consistently fantastic work so far, and they will definitely get a build (if they have the time/inclination of course), but I'm particularly interested in how someone who hasn't had as much contact with the game as them feels about both the gameplay and the story.

I'll need people who can look for bugs, talk about balancing issues, and give input on the story and characters. Heck, even a stream-of-consciousness to let me know what you're thinking about when playing would be fantastic. Any or all of these would be very helpful. I'm gonna stick my neck out here by saying if you tried previous versions in the past and quit because it felt too unfair or too confusing or for similar reasons, you're exactly the kind of person I'm looking for. But really, anyone interested in testing is fair game.
There has been a lot of changes made to the game, and I'm hoping it will do a better job of getting the players settled to the game.

I would like to have the prologue released sometime this month, so testers can expect a build sometime in the week of the 23rd, and I'm hoping to have all the feedback in by the 28th to be able to make adjustments as needed.

Let me know either here or via PM if you're interested in beta testing. And of course you'll be added to the testers list.

Thanks so much for reading!

Once again, I'd like to sincerely apologize for taking down the demo. I'm usually good about keeping it up for those that want to play it. I hope by the end of this blog, you understand a little more why I did.

First off, I'm starting to think my self-set deadline for later this month may be stretching it for two reasons: The first is that I've decided to take care of ALL the art at once, meaning I'm gonna sketch, ink, and color all the character portraits instead of doing it on an "as needed" basis to help with consistency and to prevent from having to switch thought processes too many times during development (shoutouts to Housekeeping for unintentionally teaching me that in his latest blog!). Just as a disclaimer, the art you see in the screenshots isn't the final art. Just their lines and flat colors. I had to put together the incomplete art for a presentation to my game design professor yesterday.

The second is that replaying the entire game for the first time after Strawman and the Swap Event made me realize there were a few fundamental mistakes the game made, leading to a change of heart about the approach to gameplay. So a lot of things have been/will be completely overhauled.

Like, a lot of things.

As in, this is hardly the same game anymore.

So what exactly did I have a change of heart about? Well, I think it can mostly be summed up in this one shot of the Camp Menu. Specifically, take a close look at Amalie:


Wut. What happened to Amalie? She got swole?!

Change #1: Conveyance Through Gameplay

The stats of every character have been revamped to fit more into their personalities.

Somewhere along the development process, I got so engrossed in making a game that I actually forgot why I enjoy making games in the first place: to tell a story supported by gameplay as opposed to a game with a story slapped on it. Amalie was always supposed to start out at a higher level than Aeyr and Mia, but take her into battle and she can get slaughtered just as easily as either of them. She's an experienced Paladin who is used to moving on her own, so having this situation occur was unacceptable to me.

So her initial level is now 16, as opposed to 8 in the old demo.

Amalie can now endure a lot more damage than anyone else in the party, and so her role as the party's tank will be that much more vital, as both enemies and Amalie's Drive costs have been rebalanced to accommodate her newfound strength.

This change serves two major purposes: The first one is to establish Amalie as a parallel character to give you a sense of how strong you will become later in the game after you level up some, and considering Amalie's naturally weak physical capabilities mean that once Aeyr, Mia, and the rest of the human cast hit that level, they'll be decently stronger than her.

So does this mean that the prologue is now stupidly easy and you can breeze through it? Absolutely not! Try to spam Amalie's attack despite having more Strength than any other party member will still get you killed, as the weaknesses and resistances of enemies still come into play.

And that's the second purpose the change serves: It delivers the subtle message to players that you cannot win with levels alone. You need to understand the party member's abilities and plan your strategy around them.

The challenge of the original demo is still there, however, you are given some extra leeway to make small mistakes without being nearly wiped out or use a precious First Aid Kit. This leads into what I've now come to see as PotF biggest hurdle:

Change #2: Accessibility

*sigh*

I'm sorry.

Really, I am.

You all kept telling me to do it, and I should have listened. For that, I can never apologize enough. However, I hope this next screenshot will be worth more than a thousand "I'm sorry" messages that I would have otherwise written.

Are you ready?

Brace yourselves, people. Here it is:



*Squints* Is that... wait... is that an ACTUAL TUTORIAL MESSAGE?! Nova finally learned how to make a tutorial?!!!??!?! OH MAI GAAAAAAAAAAAAAWD!!!

This is no belated April Fools joke. This is actually happening. In addition to the new stat overhaul allowing for more tolerance of mistakes, there will now be more tutorial points that flat out tell you how the damn game works.

A temporary immersion break is infinitely more acceptable than overly frustrating and confusing players, potentially leading to them giving up before the game really begins.

Prayer of the Faithless is still going to be a tough challenge. However, it's on me to make sure players know exactly what they're doing before ramping up that challenge. Despite all the complaints I've gotten about not knowing how certain mechanics work, I kept trying to skirt the problem by adding in workaround solutions to try and teach players.

I'm still gonna try to subtly teach players as many mechanics as I can, but I realize that sometimes you just need to have a big black box tell you "Hey, press this key to do this" to save yourself precious time and frustration.

Do you want me to orz? 'Cause I'll orz. I'll orz for so long that birds can build a nest on my head and raise their young. I'll orz for so long that my hands and knees will fuse with the earth, turning me into a human table. I'll orz for so long you would think I was a monk at a temple.

Change #3: Damage Types

Originally there were two basic types of damage. The first one was Physical, which is the attacker's Strength minus the target's Armor minus the target's Stamina. The second one was Magic, which was the attacker's Magic minus the target's Psyche that ignores SP.

There is now a third damage type: Technique. This is similar to the Physical formula, but it draws upon the attacker's Tech stat, which is the new name for the Magic stat as it now accounts for more than just magic, rather than Strength.

The biggest reason why this change was added was to give more use to the Magic stat for mostly non-magic characters like Mia, as well as allow more flexibility in the damage calculations and options players will have during battle.



In addition, all attack items now follow the Tech formula instead of Physical, while still ignoring enemy SP. Basic attacks and Drives still follow the Strength formula.

As an example, Mia, whose new stats turn her into a glass cannon with very high Strength and Tech but low Armor and Psyche, can switch between Physical and Technique abilities depending on the situation. In her Saboteur stance, her Burst Drives all follow the Tech formula. When she switches to Rush stance, her Burst Drives use the Physical formula. However, she can still make use of the Tech stat by chucking an item if she can finish off an enemy with one last big damage but doesn't have enough Stamina to use an ability.

So there we go. There's my thoughts on the new game's design philosophy. I would go into more about the character's new stats, but I think we've gone on long enough as it is. I hope you understand better now why the demo was taken down.

For those that have played the demo: Can you think of any mechanic that you felt wasn't explained very well due to lack of information? I'll listen this time, I promise.

orz

Yep, you read that right. I am now a coconut. I say this because I let my bad habit of doing too many different things at once get the better of me again.

After the new prologue was released and received some super helpful feedback (thanks so much, by the way), I started my new semester at school. For this semester, I'm relearning Unity for one of my game dev courses, which means learning both an entirely new engine as well as C#. Plus, a couple of weeks ago, I went to the Global Game Jam, so that's 48 hours of crunch to get a game out. Fun huh? It sure meant that I couldn't work on this as much as I wanted to. But silly me, I kept trying.

You know what the first thing I thought to myself when I got back from grinding a game out over a weekend running on a collective 5 hours of sleep? "I'm gonna take a break from PotF and spend a week grinding out an entirely different project in RPG Maker." Add that spontaneous side trip on top of the stress of learning a new engine and some real life drama, what little energy I have left at the end of the day slowly drains away, melting my brain into a thick paste along with the rest of my insides, leaving only a shell of a body.

Hence my new life as a coconut. I make smart decisions on a regular basis.

But that's all over with now. The jam is done, the side project is done, and I'm super psyched to get back into Prayer of the Faithless. My new status as a tropical fruit is going to make game dev slightly harder, but I think I can manage. Just for you.

So what have I done that's actually worth talking about? Well, aside from some work on the game page (new description, CSS edits, etc.), the first few areas for both Aeyr's and Mia's stories are nearly finished, save for some placeholders. Things are progressing at a pretty steady pace, though again, there's been less and less time to work on it.

Out of curiosity, for those that have beaten the prologue and know where Aeyr and Mia are going, which story are you interested in seeing more? The next release is going to have both their stories at once, but I'm genuinely interested in your opinion on which story setup seems more interesting, or which character you want to see more.

On the artistic side of things, I'm redesigning Aeyr's portraits and busts. I've learned so much about anatomy and art now that I think Aeyr needs a serious overhaul. There's a recurring theme I noticed when making art for games: I always seem to do the main character first. Ordinarily, that's not a problem. However, as I'm both improving my art and deciding on the visual style for the characters, the rest of the cast ends up being very different from the main character, requiring me to go back and redo the first few pieces.

Here's line art of Aeyr's old and new Knight design for comparison, with the Revenant outfit coming later once I'm satisfied with his body type:


Maaaay have gone a little overboard with the evil grin. But man I like the evil grin.

As far as my totally untrained eyes can tell, Aeyr's proportions now match up pretty well with the others in style, so it doesn't look as jarring and out of place anymore. I may just end up giving this treatment to the rest of the cast if this new Aeyr clashes too badly with them.

That's all I had. Sorry. What else do you want from me? I'm just a coconut.