Oct. 7 2021 Progress Update!

Hello, everyone reading this! At time of writing, the Prologue has been out for less than a week and Chapter 1 is in progress!

Optimistically, I want to release this chapter by the end of the month, but realistically it'll probably take me two months to complete. The thing is that most of the time spent working on the prologue was just playtesting and refining the tutorials and dialogue. I actually had the level design and core interactions pretty much done weeks before release, but needed to make absolutely certain that it works as an intro to the game and conveys the mechanics clearly. Broadly, I am done with the prologue now. If any major bugs come out I'll fix them, but I could spend ages polishing one chapter to a mirror shine without giving the others the attention they deserve. A slight flaw in timing is a hit I'm willing to take.

This chapter will probably be the same deal as the one before, but now with some new challenges because it's the first actual battle. Speaking of!

I'm not going to spoil everything about this map, but I will say a few things. One is that I have actually done a bit of reading into how cults actually work to know how to address the conflict between you and the temple. It solidified the idea for me that just killing a group's leader isn't going to make that problem go away. This is contrary to a lot of people's (including my own) desire for a clean takedown of a villain, and like, yeah. There's this kind of harrowing feeling in realizing that the big fight where you kill the bad guy is really more symbolic than anything else. But rubbing up against that truth can also be cathartic. The TTRPG this game is adapting has always had themes of revolution, but this is my way of addressing the fact that I don't know what that will really look like. Will this work, will anything work? Find out next time, or whatever.

There's also that rabbit, who has a very special power. I'm just going to say that there's a special skill in both this game and the TTRPG, called "Bodily Fluids." It's an Archer and Medic skill typically, and it's quite powerful. By using it on an adjacent enemy, you annihilate their ego, lowering all of their stats by 3 for a few turns. This means -3 damage, +3 damage taken, -9% accuracy and evasion, and so much more. It was a silly move I put into the game as a 16-year-old kid, but the joke was so consistently funny that I knew I had to put it into this adaptation. The part of me that wants to put in a rabbit that pisses on people and has 75% evasion and 3 HP is the same part that dies laughing at the idea of a theme park attraction designed to smash a person's dick, and I hope you understand that. As for whether this Fucking Bnuuy will be friend or foe, you'll just have to see.

Also, exciting news!! Last night, Hunter Black messaged me offering to do art for this game! I was honestly ready to go without an artist for a very long time, but obviously I'm going to take this opportunity! They specialize in pixel art, meaning they'll fill the gap in sprite animation I've been wanting to fill for a long time. (Also furries, which is, hehe, wonderful for future plans.) I'm so thankful for every person helping me make this game, it's gonna be amazing! Thank you all!

-Angela Nyx Solomon