Progress Report: December 2024

I apologize for a lack of posts this month. Had a con to attend to, had to work on a bunch of videos, and was busy for the holidays. I did get work done on the game though, and it was mostly on the parent/child duo party members, Vera and Corrine.

To begin with, some of what I wanted out of them is unchanged. Vera can still use normal magic artes like most characters in the party, however I'm scaling her down to using Light-based abilities, both damaging and supporting. Also, thanks to the Battle Grid allowing me to affect nodes with passive states and skill triggers, I can take advantage of having her play like Annie from Tales of Rebirth. Any time she places a magic array on the field (can affect up to 5 nodes at once), anyone standing in them will be affected by a passive state that remains until the step off, the array dissipates, or is removed; since only one array can be active on any given node. Of course, removal is something handled by common events and variables, and actually it is possible for states to stack on the same node. Therefore, I'm considering passive skills that can allow the stacks to occur when done by her at a TP cost. Also, because she has magic arrays that can harm the enemy, another passive skill was made to allow a tick of damage to occur immediately but with a reduced duration period.

At the moment, I've given her enough artes that can be playable effectively. However, because her acquisition of the special arrays are tied to the story, you might not get to see them right away until I get around to updating the Arena Demo. I also need to program her OVL ability, which I already have a plan for.

As for Corrine, I've come up with the means to have him switch in and out with ease. Much like with the Super Guard function, he can come out with Down and Enter and leave the same way. There's also a passive skill that lets him enter at the start of battle. The idea is that he can perform actions based on what Vera does. If she does a spell, he will use one himself. If she uses an item, he will use one too (starting with weakest item). And in the above video, if Vera attacks while in the front row, he will attempt to steal from the enemy. I'm currently trying to balance him out, because of course his actions will cost TP or items, depending on what is done. Other additions are being considered.

Starting February, progress on this game will increase as I'll be scaling back my video production for game development. In the meantime, I'll briefly switch over to William and get his Mimicast ability converted into his OVL ability. That shouldn't take too long, and it'll give me more time to iron out Vera's abilities so she can be playable for the point she joins the party.