Big Artifact News, Art Peek (Patreon)

One last art peek before Christmas!

There are some big changes heading to Artifact. I've been getting some smaller fixes out of the way recently-- today I plan to upload another. Then begins the major tasks at hand.

Firstly, Arousal. Arousal being capped to 10 worked a lot better in the beginning, but now with the plethora of perks, upgrades, and various conditions that can affect Arousal, 10 is just not cutting it. I have been reworking the entire system on paper in an attempt to make it so that each "stage" of arousal lasts longer, gains and losses are more incremental, and changes occur at a slower pace. 

Reworking this system alone could take some time; throw bug testing into the mix and I'm not sure exactly how long it will take. At this point I'm not sure if it could be one week or several, but what I do know is that it needs to be done.

Secondly, story. Near the current checkpoint of the main plot, my brain was feeling like a rock that I had to squeeze, so I took a break from the plot to refine some other areas. Coming back to it, I know it can be much better, and I know it can be much better from earlier on. I have been working with someone to rework the outline and rewrite things so that changes occur at a slower pace and more attention is paid to certain variable player traits, among other larger plot changes. 

This will probably take longer than the Arousal rework, so I will still likely be releasing some more updates between the time that the Arousal rework is finished and the time that the ACT I rework is finished. There will also be more random encounters, transformation events, character side quests (new and revamped), but for now this has all taken a back seat for the plot rework.

Big thanks to the help of community member Diealot, we also have a brand new set of item images on the way! Here are a few.

Aside from more potential hotfixes, I'll probably be taking some time off this weekend until the middle of next week to spend time with family for the holidays. I want to take another moment here to thank you all again for you support through this crazy year! It's because of you guys that I'm actually able to spend more than just a single afternoon making memories with them for holidays. We have so many balls rolling now, I'm excited to see how it all plays out in 2024!

Hope you all have happy holidays! <3