Hello, everyone!
Two big announcements:
A free demo to raise awareness of Aldriak should be available next week.
Update 1.1 is now live!
Quick summary of the update:
Redesigned combat sprites + weapons visible on the back.
Kyoko and Tsuneo have changed weapon styles. Don't worry if you have claws instead of hammers, for example, the new weapons will be converted automatically. However, I cannot modify equipment that has already been acquired.
Faster movement and combat.
Lots of visual improvements for better combat feedback.
Feel free to give me feedback on the official Discord, Steam discussions, or by rating the game! Your steam review means a lot to a small game like Aldriak.
Version 1.1 patchnote:
New things:
Two new words have been added: “Effective” and “Resists,” depending on the element of the attack and the monster's resistances.
It is now possible to abandon a fight to quickly return to the main menu and reload.
Each character has their weapon equipped on their back during combat.
Each weapon has 10 different designs, one per element. Thus, all Fire swords look alike but do not resemble Ice swords.
After a battle, characters automatically return to the row they were in before the battle. No more forgetting after an enemy pushes you!
Added an animation that distorts the screen when an entity (player or creature) lands a critical hit.
Added a shockwave animation when an entity takes 0 damage.
Added a new dodge animation.
Added a small glow after healing (even passive at the start of the turn).
Added an animation when a status is applied or removed.
Added a better description for equipment that gives new skills. No need to create the equipment to understand the associated spell.
The wheel used to choose actions in combat has been removed to make it easier to select a target.To make it easier to choose a target, characters and enemies that cannot be targeted become transparent.
Added Richard next to the boat to board the deck without sailing.
Added a new NPC who explains that some monsters give much more gold than others (to encourage the player to look in their bestiary if they are short on gold).
Added new NPCs to Telkoal, related to the Kokoalas' hammers.
Added a visual clue so that the player understands that there are still things to discover in the pyramid.
Added an NPC to solve the puzzle that allows access to the door of Thuncient.
Changes:
The combat speed has been increased by default (camera movement and actions). If you have already started a game and have never changed the combat speed, it will be set to 50% in the options. You can change the combat speed (from 50 to 200%) whenever you want in the options.
The movement speed on the map has increased by 40%.
In the area where you have to breathe with bubbles, I added dialogue to make it clearer that the player is allowed to save on the bubbles. There's no question of completing the entire area without saving!
All character sprites have been redone and enlarged by about 50%.
Characters and enemies take up more space on the screen during combat; they are more spread out.
The size of the portraits that display the turn order in combat has been increased.
The Oxygenated Air spell, which used to give physical and magical attack, has become a healing spell that also gives agility.
The duration of damage displayed on the screen has been extended.
Gold gains from common (black) monsters have been increased with levels (significantly, from around 150% at the start of the game to over 300% at the end).
The gold rewards for certain quests have been increased.
Powerful monsters (red) now give twice their resources, allowing you to craft equipment from their set. Thus, fighting a red monster no longer yields 2 potential pieces of equipment (one random and one resource) but 3 (one random and two resources).
I changed the resource system in Chapter 2. In short, there were far too many different resources, and it was ultimately a pain to figure out which monster to hunt for which resource. Now, it has been simplified, which should make it easier to access the equipment in this chapter.
There are now 55 unique level 65 monsters (so it can be done earlier).
The items hidden in the bandit's lair are a little less camouflaged. So they're easier to find.
I refined the animation of the slime, which is the first creature in the game and didn't do justice to the other creatures.
I have standardized many sprites that did not really have the same artistic direction (notably the monsters at the beginning, which are based on RPG Maker MV, while the others come from an artist named Ækashics).
Following the display of weapons on the back during combat, I removed Aldriak's weapon at the very beginning of the game. He now earns his first gloves in Telkoal. This reinforces the fact that he is not a fighter. (New dialogues have therefore appeared).
The weapon icons have changed.
I weakened the first three red monsters that can be encountered with a group of three characters until the player unlocks the fourth character.
The red monster found on the beach biome of the starting island has twice as many spawn points (too many players couldn't find it, even when searching).
A few changes to the appearance of the menus, both outside of combat and during combat.
Status icons no longer appear above characters for greater clarity. As the characters are larger, I decided to leave the statuses at the bottom of the screen, above the HP bars.
The HP bars are closer to the characters and enemies.
Enemy names no longer appear above their HP (you can see them at the top of the screen when you target them).
A secret area that was completely black is now slightly transparent (to encourage the player to understand that there is something to search/discover).
In the quick healing menu after combat, fish can be used much more freely (but also in a less optimized way).
I have redone some of the maps on the starting island (mainly the green forest), so don't be surprised if some paths look different.
Bug Fixes:
Changed the animation of the “Bat” which made it look like it was hitting the Water element when it was actually hitting the Metal element.
Corrected inaccuracies in the descriptions of certain skills and in the glossary.
Corrected numerous dialogues (French and English).
Corrected a cutscene where guards were present when they shouldn't have been.
Improved another cutscene that was a little too fast (added more dialogue and movement for clarity).
Corrected several branches that did not respond to the grappling hook.
When saving with the mage group, the screen did not appear.
Fixed a burn description that did not fit in the frame (the end that indicated 10% was therefore not visible).
Fixed a bug where it was possible to get stuck in a wall after a certain jump.
Fixed a location where you could get soft locked if you saved here in a critical situation (without HP or healing, for example).
Fixed some dialogues/descriptions that were written in English (when they should have been in French like the rest of the game).
Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented the Succubus from attacking on the first turn.
Fixed a bug that prevented scepters (mage staffs) from changing elements correctly after applying a glyph.
The stormy weather forecast had no description.
Fixed a boss battle where illusions did not perform the same attack as the original... rendering the illusions useless.
Fixed a bug that displayed the ice phoenix png instead of its animation.
Fixed a bug where the HP of certain monsters exceeded the HP bar (rather than setting it to 10K, for example).
Fixed a bug where a portrait was sometimes displayed when an item was obtained from a chest.
A guard in Technologia wanted to fight rather than put the player in prison. He was fired.
The background for the guards' combat in the city matched that inside the castle when the option to display lines was enabled.
Fixed several bugs related to the leak (black screen sometimes / leak counter not updating correctly for achievements). Everything has been fixed.
Fixed a bug in the English bestiary that caused the game to crash.
Fixed a bug where the skeleton mage would not resurrect or would target a living person...
Fixed a bug in the Tsuneo the Rogue quest on Earthmoon.
Sometimes the accuracy of a target was displayed as “undefined” because it could not be targeted. Replaced with 0% chance of hitting.
A boat with purple sails was sometimes present instead of a simple rowboat.
Fixed a bug that caused the plant transformation to not be removed correctly from the portrait.
Weather / clouds that reappeared if you pressed the shutter button repeatedly. This is no longer the case.