LyLaD September Update (Patreon)

This month's gamedev was mainly spent on UI changes, bug fixes, polish, and setting up for new mechanics (mainly combat oriented).

Unfortunately I lost roughly 90% of two weeks worth of progress to my computer hard freezing during editing, causing most of the project files to get corrupted (everything here, basically: twitter.com/OrriGame/status/1573926008805523457). I only lost two weeks of progress because I had a backup to revert to, otherwise this would be me telling you the project is done for. I had to speedrun reimplementation of the reverted changes in the past three days, which is why I've been too busy to draw recently, so now I can finally try to get some artwork done before October.

Anyway now I'm making daily backups and will be looking into external storage soon.

You can post suggestions/questions/etc regarding the game here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/game-ideas-open-71772240 

September's runner up poll will be posted sometime later today.

For a more detailed account of what's been worked on:

The face display was uniquely made so that I could print any normal, multi-faceted sprite I make inside of it onto a mask. This allows different expressions (and later body sizes) to be very easily displayed, and not just restrict me to a single 'face' sprite. This won't replace dialogue sprites, but will be utilized for smaller scenes, bits of dialogue, introspection where a big dialogue sprite would be a bit much.

A message log was added in, like you'd see in VNs, via a plugin. There's also the ability to autoplay text and hide the textbox (to see an image in full if it takes up the whole screen).

The main menu was changed to be more easily readable, the small text for stats being enlarged to look less pixelated. I also didn't like the colorful gauges that clashed with the rest of the monotone UI I've been going for, so they got replaced with a simpler display that also tells you Lilya's maximum HP and MP. This was also done for combat. Damage pop-ups in combat will still tell you clearly how much damage Lilya has taken, if you're worried about visual clarity.

DP (Defiance Points, the pink circles in combat) are used to determine Lilya's mental resilience against the enemy. The lower they are, the more susceptible Lilya becomes to much stronger commands and charms. Status effects like restraints and hypnosis that debilitate Lilya's ability to fight can be escaped through normal means, largely dependent on her attributes, or she can exchange further DP to free herself instantly, at the price of rendering her more vulnerable if the fight doesn't end soon. This was already in the game's current build, but I found 'Defy' to be a bit boring as an option so I devised the 'DP Rally' system to make it more worthwhile. (As the name suggests it's akin to Bloodborne's rally system.) It's now changed so that using Defy takes away some DP as usual, but grants you the ability to regain that DP if you deal enough damage or kill an enemy in a certain window of time afterward. This makes it a more viable option in fights of varying lengths while retaining the same element of risk and making it a little more exciting, rendering Lilya vulnerable unless the player can dish out enough damage in the window of opportunity they've created, raising the stakes. This isn't innately fetish oriented, however my goal with systems like these is to draw players into making risky choices that might not turn out in their (or rather Lilya's) favor. Against certain enemies, having too low DP is practically a death sentence (or a fat sentence?).