LyLaD February Update (Patreon)

Got carried away and spent the last week or so devoted to gamedev, but I got a lot done. This also includes plenty of stuff done throughout January as well. I'll just list them off.

What I want to do next is transfer the written text of the game to an external file for easier editing en masse. Since this will be annoying and take a long time, I can now get back to drawing.

After that will be remaking/polishing/expanding the Memory Ledger menu, used for  skill point allocation, choosing perks, and checking on other minute character details. Then that will lead into making the curse system. Then randomized traps will come after that.

Major:

-Weight Reactions

Lilya will notice and react accordingly to gradual or sudden weight changes. Noticing a change in weight will prompt you to check the damage with a scale and/or mirror. There will be a unique scene for going up a weight tier when checking with a mirror, for a closer assessment.

-Food Affinity and Addiction

Foods are categorized into types. Eating a food has a chance to increase Lilya's affinity towards that food type. Once affinity is past a certain threshold, it becomes an addiction. This mechanic folds into the following systems:

-Food Denial

Lilya will likely refuse to eat something if she's already at full health (food restores things like HP and MP). She will deny foods according to what they provide, her own HP, MP, how full she is, etc. To make sure this doesn't intersect with the player's better interests, this can be bypassed when it is seen as mechanically necessary (ie, Lilya is low on MP but at max HP, she'll still eat something that restores HP and MP). The magnitude of the HP and/or MP gain also determines what she will or will not eat. If she's only minorly wounded, then she won't see reason in eating a whole cake.

-Food Temptation

When eating food, Lilya has a chance determined by her Greed and her affinity towards the chosen food type to continue eating on a whim. Temptation can override denial, particularly for foods Lilya is addicted to. She can break out of her binging mainly through willpower. If she doesn't, then she will eat until satisfied or full. Her Gluttony determines how much she will want to eat before she is satisfied. If she becomes full before she can satisfy herself, she will get a temporary 'unsatisfied' debuff. The same occurs if she runs out of any food, or if she runs out of the food type she's addicted to. 

This process does consume (waste) other food items, and in combat it will take up actions and may cost you your turn. It also dynamically chooses the most fitting food items (most filling if her gluttony is high, lower if she doesn't want as much) and will switch food types if she runs out of one type (ie moving from sweets type to the chocolates type).

-Attribute Damage and Sin Amplification

Lilya's attributes determines her basic abilities, and her capacity to use her skills. This make her attributes a great target for punishment. So in addition to basic effects and debuffs that would only temporarily lower one of her attributes, there's now the capacity for her attributes to receive 'damage' that lowers them without any point in time where they will recover on their own. This places an importance on methods that 'restore' attributes, healing this specific type of semi-permanent damage. There are spells, potions, and maybe scrolls that can accomplish this. Some services may also heal Lilya's attributes for a price. This mechanic provides an extra dimension of ways to punish the player (and Lilya), with emergent methods of undoing said punishment.

In the same vein as attribute damage, sins can also be 'amplified', raising them above their normal values. For sins like Greed and Gluttony, this is particularly dangerous. But just like how you can restore attributes, there will be methods to 'normalize' sins.

You can see this in action here.

-Magic System

I started building up the magic system as I was building up to implementing curses. I now have a good idea of what all the spells in the game will be (though many more will be added I imagine), and several early-game spells have been fully implemented. I won't go into huge detail about all the spells here.

Part of the magic system is the spellbook. You need a staff to cast magic, but you also need a spellbook to hold the knowledge of your spells. The spellbook is used to 'concentrate' spells. A concentrated spell will have a lowered cost, but you only get a limited amount of concentration slots to use. You can freely choose which spells to concentrate while in a safe zone, but while out dungeon-crawling you won't be able to change your selections. I wanted to strike a feeling of choosing carefully what spells you want to prioritize depending on where you are going and what you are dealing with, but you can still cast all spells at (roughly) any time as long as you can bear the greater MP cost. 

You can acquire spells at the beginning of the game depending on if you tag the Sorcery and/or Enchantments skills as either major or minor skills. You can also get spells from tutors for a hefty price. One such tutor will appear in the demo. However you can also find spell pages to add into your spellbook yourself. But this is not always easy, and factors into the next system:

-Magic Devices

A secondary magic skill, Magic Devices determines your ability to utilize enchanted tools and objects. This includes spell pages, scrolls, and special enchanted equipment. Spell pages let you learn spells for free. Scrolls contain spells that can be casted on demand with no MP cost. A check is made against your Magic Device skill whenever such an item is used. For spell pages and scrolls, failure usually means the destruction of the item. In addition to such penalties, failing a magic device check will also prompt a counterspell to activate. Counterspells are random negative effects ranging from basic HP damage, to damaging attributes, to teleporting food into Lilya's stomach, to summoning enemies. Counterspells are also triggered by failing to dispel magic locks.

You can see a counterspell happen here.

Minor:

-Hanging Messages

Small system to let messages during combat stick around, and negate pausing for readability if it's the last message in a bunch. Letting you read it while choosing your actions for the turn. Just a simple convenience.

-Free/Full Actions

Lilya, depending on her attributes and perks, can have more than one action per turn. Her actions are also split into 'free actions' and 'full actions'. Free actions are usually spent with using items, and full actions are spent with actual moves. Any free action spent when free actions are already used up will take up a full action instead. Since Lilya is fighting solo all the time I want to make sure her range of actions is larger to make up for it, and players can build into it to maximize actions per turn.

-Variable Max AP

Used to be AP was hard set at 100 and only the regen was determined by the greater of Endurance or Agility (AP is used for physical moves, the stronger they are the more expensive they are). Now Endurance determines max AP similarly to HP, and only Agility determines the regen rate. Will make Endurance more useful to non-tanky builds, and Agility more useful to tanky builds.

-Damage Types Overhaul

Enemies can be broadly categorized into living and unliving, and material and immaterial. For example, most monsters are living and material. Spirits would be unliving and immaterial. Common undead would be unliving and material. You will need special equipment to deal extra damage, or any damage at all, to special kinds of enemies. Such as silver against undead. This also folds into spells, with some sorceries only affecting living enemies (poison magic) or material enemies (destructive warping magic).

-Casting -> Sorcery and Enchantment

While fleshing out the magic system, I expanded the solitary 'casting' skill into two categories of magic. The distinction is primarily between combat magic and utility magic. Sorceries are for dealing damage. Enchantments are for casting buffs, inflicting debuffs, healing, and more specific things like telekinesis, producing light, and rendering yourself invisible. This separation makes it so a pure magic build will have two skills they must spend their points in, narrowing their other options in exchange for such great power. Other builds can also select one out of the two if they want to dabble in magic.

-Magic Traps

A counterpart to physical traps, magical traps can now be implemented and can be disabled by the Dispelling skill.

-Instanced Buffs and Skills

Expanding on player-side options outside of clearly delineated choices, you can use an action such as the Impel spell in place of the Force action to pass a strength check on the map. Or you can use an attribute buffing spell to raise your strength just for the duration of using Force on said strength check.

You can see this in action here.