Here's devlog #1! This one's pretty varied, and there's also some other announcements thrown in, but allow us to shed some light on current developments!
Our Tentative Schedule!
Here's probably the most important announcement on the list! This is our planned schedule as of right now. These are tentative dates, not set in stone by any means, but with how development is going, this looks like when it's all going to happen.
What this means for Arc 1 is that it's going to be finishing development around Q2 2025. Alpha builds will start 1-2 months before the beta is properly released for all backers.
Mechanic Spotlight: Aggro (Reworked)
During some devlogs, we'll be highlighting some of the game's mechanics and going over any changes that have been made from the demo. We're choosing to talk about Aggro first, since it's received the biggest rework since the demo's release.
Aggro was a mechanic that was already planned to get a rework before the demo, but the input players had from the demo further confirmed that it needed some rethinking.
First off, what does Aggro even accomplish? The demo's first chapters didn't mention Aggro much, since it's a subtler mechanic compared to movement, attacking, etc. However, it's quite important since it dictates which one of your units get attacked.
Aggro determines which unit enemies decide to attack. In very early builds of the game, before it was even revealed, it was clear that enemies had a greater attack range than most other SRPGs. It was easy for enemies to dart across the map and pick off your weaker units, which felt frustrating. Aggro was the solution to this problem, as a method to direct enemy attacks gave the player more control over who was getting attacked.
However, Aggro was originally designed around each unit having an Aggro number, and a clunky Aggro percentage. It ended up not presenting as much control as desired, since the numbers were obfuscated behind a system that didn't convey well. It also meant that the player had to keep checking the Unit Bio, since calculating Aggro percentages required a lot of mental math.
Now, Aggro has been consolidated into a singular resource—no need for percentages. It's also no longer dependent on damage dealt, making Aggro easier to be planned around. Critical Amplification (damage boost when landing a critical hit) has also changed, since it was based on the unit's Aggro. It follows a similar design philosophy, now simply adding damage based on Aggro rather than using a complicated multiplication formula.
Aggro is lost when getting hit during the player phase, leading to a much more interesting swing of things, where Aggro is a resource that is constantly changing. Your units end up essentially playing hot potato, and it's much harder for one unit to handle defense entirely. We're much more satisfied with the mechanic, and we're excited to see how these changes influence the game going forward.
There are other changes to the game that will be showing up in the first alpha/beta releases, and we'll be continuing to update backers about that in the future! Based on feedback and testing from the demo, some of the other changes that we're planning to make in the future include:
- Status effect changes
- Throws and collision changes
- UI changes/additions
- Balance/scaling changes
Until Next Time!
Thanks for checking out the devlog! We're working on making the game as spectacular as we can, so hang tight! Hope to see you again in the future!
Thank you for your time,
-Smithy, Hybrid Fiction Games