Hello and welcome to a new development update!
I know we've been relatively quiet lately, but we've actually been working on a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that I'm sure you're excited about because it's going to positively impact our workflow from now on. Let's dive right in.
1 • Character artwork: I'll start with the most personally exciting thing for me. Character artwork is something very important to the world of Mortis. It conveys the essence of the character and shows the details that our small sprites can't physically fit into. After all, these guys are only 12x22 pixels. You may have already seen Evander drawn on our Steam page, but there are more characters to come. I will now show you some cropped artwork that we feel is appropriate to share at this time. These are Evander and Trevor, two of the three currently playable characters. We still remember our promise to release a limited data book, both digital and physical, and that's where this artwork will go.
2. Pixel-perfect movement: This is a bit of old news for those who reside in my Discord server, but I've decided to use a pixel-perfect movement engine created by Rosedale_Studios. It makes creating maps much easier and less tedious, as it fixes the problem I hate with RPG Maker’s built-in map editor - empty space clipping. For many years, the RPG Maker developers failed to provide an eraser tool, which was not a problem before MZ. Now when you try to erase something with an empty tile, it stays in one of the 4 map layers. Do you know why this is a problem? Because the empty tiles have their own passability, resulting in walk-through walls or stuck-in-texture scenarios. The plugin by Rosedale_Studio fixes this problem and completely ignores empty tiles and their passability. It also provides pixel-perfect movement, opening up more possibilities for map creation! Every little stone, every little corridor - you will feel it all!
3. Weapon animations: A problem you probably wouldn't care about arose when we switched from RPG Maker's generator to custom sprites. I didn't foresee this myself, but each of the playable characters got different weapon use frames. Swing, thrust, and missile. This means you have to manually move and change the weapon sprites to match them and somehow, somehow, get the game to show the sprite you want. It was very annoying, time-consuming, and spaghetti-like. Now we sacrifice a little bit of individuality to get rid of all the above problems. Mind you, all the other animations will remain character-specific, but those three sets of frames will have to go. With this change, we are also happy to announce that there will now be more different weapons in the game, with some being added retroactively. The final part of this particular update is that Tale of Cowardice will now use custom, tailor-made sprites for weapons. You're going to love them!
4. Frozen Tundra: Frozen Tundra is the new in-between location between Tempex, its Glacial Passage, and the new town of Palazzia. It's a massive frozen thicket with new, dangerous enemies crawling around, ready to tear you apart at a moment's notice. Frozen Tundra is also where you will encounter a brand new Diablo-esque mechanic. Yeah, I love those. From now on, every more or less important dungeon will have a mini-boss waiting for you. These mini-bosses are a sight to behold, trust me. They will appear directly on the map and will start chasing you or otherwise behaving strangely once they notice you. These minibosses will always spawn as Leaders and will have unique combat mechanics. The proof of concept for the first miniboss, the Vargr, is already complete. The Vargr was the last enemy to be created for Frozen Tundra and is currently in active development. All I can say is that it's loosely related to the infamous Father Agunim... Perhaps you'll learn more about them in the new build of the game.
5. Palazzia: Palazzia is a little less rich in news. In fact, I'd say there is almost none. It is still a long way from being implemented in the game, so most of the things that are happening with Palazzia are behind the scenes. Obviously, I can't tell you anything about the plot, but it has seen some very impressive developments in the not-so-distant past. You'll love the central character of this arc! His name is Quincey and he's a lowly archivist, a fifth in his dynasty. Although he has no arcane abilities, Quincey is very good at his job and can decipher powerful magic scrolls at a moment's notice. One of them is called 'Darkest Day' and... Oops! That's a bit too much information for you! He'll be playable, of course, but unfortunately, you won't see him in your party again once you finish your business in Palazzia. He'll be the first of several temporary characters to appear in Tale of Cowardice. But don't ignore him! You'll have plenty of time to customize him, and trust me, you'll want to upgrade his equipment and skills! With the dangers lurking in the Palazzian dungeons, Quincey won't stand much of a chance in the fierce battle ahead. But with proper care, he'll become a valuable asset. His character art is currently in progress, and may be finished by the time you see this update on Kickstarter.
6. The music: Our brave composers work non-stop to create the best possible original soundtrack for Tale of Cowardice. In the new update, you will hear both new tracks AND old pieces revisited. I'm afraid I can't show you anything without spoiling the whole thing, but believe me - new compositions are a kind of divine ambrosia to the human ear.
And that's it folks! I know it may not seem too grand or epic, but believe me, our current situation unfortunately does not allow us to do much more. Some of us still live in Russia and I personally have some problems with my studies. It's pretty hard to interact with the rest of the team in such a state. We sincerely hope that we'll be able to speed up development and show you more cool stuff later on! Take care and stay tuned!