Hey everyone! I’ve got some exciting news to announce as Alluna and Brie Re-Tentacled is now available as a free upgrade to everyone who purchased the original game!
I’ve been wanting to release a definitive edition of Alluna and Brie for years now, and after the successful launch of Robotic Battle Maiden I’ve learned a lot about how the engine works and how I can make improvements. I took everything I learned from RBM and used it to update Alluna and Brie, and I threw in some extra content in the form of new boss fights too!
I always felt that Alluna and Brie was a great game and I was extremely happy with the story and the amount of content, but the systems connecting everything together weren’t great. The interface was a nightmare and the game balance fell apart after the first chapter, but all of that has been fixed in Alluna and Brie Re-Tentacled. There’s quite a lot of changes which I have listed below!
Save Games from the original Alluna and Brie are NOT compatible with Alluna and Brie ReTentacled and we strongly recommend starting a fresh save for the game. The original game is still available as a beta branch, to access it right click the game in your library, select ‘Properties’ and then select ‘beta – Alluna and Brie Classic’ from the beta participation menu.
System and Configuration
• Load times have been massively reduced. In the original release it would take anywhere between 8-12 seconds to load the dungeon map, this has been cut back to 1.5 seconds.
• Saving the game takes less time than before, and you can save in any district in Axon City.
• The game now runs in widescreen resolutions. It still has black bars on the side but the original game stretched really oddly and was essentially unplayable on a widescreen monitor.
• The GameCore button has been removed, you now access the GameCore through the in-game menu.
• Controls are now visible in the bottom right-hand corner of each of the games screens.
• The back button now navigates backwards in menus, so you can press cancel to return to the previous screen you were on.
Combat
• Player stats and skills have been completely rebalanced. This includes the amount of damage dealt by each skill, the number of enemies targeted, the MP usage requirements and additional effects such as status ailments.
• Balance has been reworked so that the game provides a consistent difficulty throughout.
• Five extra challenging bonus bosses (and a small amount of new story content) have been added. These bosses are much harder than the original bosses and are completely optional, but provide exceptionally powerful gear once defeated.
• Enemies have been given new skills, and several enemy types have been reworked as healers that restore health to their allies and in some cases resurrect defeated allies. Choosing which enemies to prioritise is important now.
• Skill names now appear on screen, and every single enemy skill has been given a name.
• Combat animations have been reworked, in the original game all animations were 15 fps (even if they were really short or long animations) so some enemies were a flickery mess. They now look as intended.
• A death animation was added so that most enemies will fade away when defeated, rather than cluttering the screen with their unconscious sprites as in the original.
• Natara’s skills have been completely changed. She was originally intended to be a Sentinel style character that had a lot of health and could attract the enemy’s attention, but the original game’s systems didn’t support this. This has been changed and Natara can now use her ‘Sexy Stance’ skillt o make enemies target her. Her attack and magic damage have been heavily reduced and her health and defence has been increased to suit her new gameplay style.
• The Charm ailment actually works now! It was just a stun with a different animation before, but now it causes your party members to attack their allies. This can completely change the tide of battle, enemies that can charm your allies are a force to be reckoned with now.
• Brie can now charm enemies too! It doesn’t work on bosses as that would be a bit too broken, but it works on everyone else!
• The Blind ailment now works on enemies! Blindness prevents you from attacking, and if you blind an enemy they won’t use their basic attack skill. Some monsters have high physical attack and low magic attack, and the Blindness skill renders these types of enemies effectively useless for a few turns.
• Silence also works on enemies too! This has the opposite effect to Blind, enemies will only their basic physical attack when they’re silenced. It effectively neutralises magic users.
• Bosses can now be inflicted with status ailments (except Charm). The success rates are much lower for bosses however.
• Voice acting volume has been adjusted so that all of the voice actors speak at roughly the same volume, some characters were inaudible in the original release.
• Music volume has been adjusted so that all tracks play at the same volume, the incredibly quiet final boss battle music now plays at it’s intended volume.
• Items have been rebalanced and now heal more health than they did before.
• Essences now deal 4x as much elemental damage as they originally did, rendering them an effective (yet expensive) approach to combat.
• EXP has been rebalanced to provide a steady levelling experience.
• Significantly more money is awarded from combat, Brie will no longer be incredibly broke for the first two thirds of the game.
• Later chapters now award more EXP and money to account for the higher difficulty.
• Animations have been added to the HUD to make the gameplay feel smoother.
• The morale indicator has been simplified in combat, now it only shows the percentage stat.
• Morale calculations have been changed so that Brie’s morale gradually decreases after each fight, making longer expeditions in the dungeon much more dangerous.
• Combat characters now move about twice as fast as they did before, so there’s less time waiting for them to move across the screen between moves.
Dungeons
• The number of fights in dungeons has been halved, shortening the length of the game dramatically. Classic AnB had way too many fights, this brings ReTentacled in line with our other RPG My Mad Scientist Roommate Turned Me Into Her Personal Robotic Battle Maiden. It’s still a 40hr game, there’s plenty of content to play through!
• Dungeon maps and node placement have been reworked so that they are easier to navigate with the arrow keys.
• Equipment drops have been changed to suit the new item balance.
• Bonus boss nodes will now be guarding rare and powerful equipment.
• Item nodes have been added, players are given a handful of useful items such as revives, heals and escape items for free at various points in the dungeon.
• Animations have been added to make the level transition smoother.
• The map of Schist Isle is no longer shown on the loading screen (this added an extra 4 seconds) and the dungeon map now loads as soon as you enter the dungeon.
• The player icon has been changed from a vague green circle to a pulsing image of Brie, making it more obvious where you are in each dungeon.
• The bonus dungeon (shh!) is now a much quicker affair consisting of boss fights and rest areas between each fight.
• The non-canon punishment system for failing to complete a dungeon has been removed (due to a very clunky interface that couldn’t be easily fixed and the system being abused and ruining game balance in the original). You will receive warning text for failing to complete a dungeon and you’ll need to beat the final boss to see the credits, but there is no strict penalty for poor time management.
Dialogue
• The dialogue box has been changed to match the one found in Robotic Battle Maiden.
• The date indicator has been removed from the top right hand corner of dialogue (as it was never referenced or used in dialogue)
• You can now use the arrow keys to go backwards (for a few lines) in dialogue scenes, allowing you to go back and read lines you may have accidentally skipped through.
Life Simulation
• The in-game calendar has been halved. Each chapter is 14-18 days long, rather than the 31 days of the original.
• Half of the Max Heart Minutes were removed, but I made sure that all of the important ones were left in.
• Some rewrites were added to Max Heart Minute in order to bring Ashley and Chloe’s characterisation in line with their personalities in Robotic Battle Maiden.
• Saving no longer reduces Brie’s Morale.
• Equipment has been completely reworked and changed from the original.
• The ACPD no longer sells incredibly cheap equipment that one shots the final boss.
• Each of the stores now sells different equipment archetypes, for example MilliTrix sells standard weaponry, the ACPD sells powerful gear with a trade off e.g. more damage but less HP, and the holiday towns affect elemental weaknesses.
• Flavour text has been added to all of the in-game items, including equipment and food items.
• Food sold at stores now has additional text explaining which stats they impact. Not everything is given away but it makes navigating stores a lot easier at a glance.
• The GameCore button was removed, and you now access the GameCore through the main menu (like Robotic Battle Maiden)
• A day/night transition has been added to make the passage of time more obvious.
• Text readability has been improved on all of the menus, pre-drawn image buttons have been replaced with on screen text.
• The shop HUD was changed to display your total cash, how many time crystals you have remaining and Brie’s morale. This was present in the original but it wasn’t super clear.
• Shop names have been added to the menus, and the logos are now twice as big as they once were.
• The district maps were changed to make Brie’s morale and time crystals more obvious.
• The calendar was removed and replaced with a chapter countdown so it’s clear how many days you have to finish each dungeon.
InsectiVirus
• The catch rate has been dramatically improved.
• An animation has been added for successful and unsuccessful insect captures.
• A radar in the top left hand side of the screen now shows which insects are present in the district, and whether you have caught them or not.
• Insect Combat now happens 3x faster than before, and damage stats have been completely rebalanced.
• A new music track was added for insect combat.
• Healing insects are no longer completely broken and don’t drag the fight on for literally forever.
Mermaid Spikers
• Mermaid Spikers no longer makes me horrifically sad. It’s actually fun now! For real!
• Player and Enemy AI has been overhauled.
• Players will now attempt to intercept the ball during a pass or a shot.
• A boost mechanic has been added allowing you to expend energy to swim faster.
• The stats actually matter now! The higher a players shot value, the harder the ball will be to intercept.
• A player must have a high enough Guard value to intercept a shot/pass from the other team.
• Energy is included in the calculations, at low stamina even characters with amazing stats will struggle to intercept the ball.
• Stat growth has been removed entirely, it didn’t work in the original game as not all party members were immediately available in Mermaid Spikers.
• The whole Backatya/Tenderiser/Spiker thing was changed to the much more sensible Back/Forward/Goalie terminology.
• Players now unlock correctly!
• There’s sound effects!
• Each of the mermaid matches has been tweaked to provide a unique challenge for each chapter.
I hope you all enjoy the new update, and if you come across any bugs/errors or have feedback on the game balance, just let me know! I plan to release a few more patches to address any minor issues that players run into.
I’m so excited you all get to play Alluna and Brie the way it was always meant to be played!
Cheers
Lach