This update was supposed to come out at the start of the month, but one thing lead to another, and well…
Redesigned most of the in-game HUD.
Redesigned Jin and Kouta. Most of the elements are largely the same, but it’s just modelled better.
Jin now has his own boss fight. (Although it more or less reuses the same arena as Kana, but there’s a simple story reason for this, whenever I finally finish the story section. )
The first fight after the tutorial has been reworked. You do not need to win in this to proceed, but the cutscene that plays will be different depending on whether you win or lose.
Fixed a bug with chip damage not being reflected properly.
Reworked a lot of backend logic on how phases work. It should be more stable, but more testing is needed.
Fixed a bug where dying immediately after pressing Return To Hub would cause a softlock.
Redesigned some UI menus.
Rewrote a majority of the game’s text.
Restructured the save file. Previous save data will be invalidated.
A new taunt has been added. If you taunt while at 0 remaining heals, you can eat a riceball that grants a long-lasting regeneration effect.
Added a “Streamer Mode” setting that reduces the exposure of certain outfits. By default, this will be set to OFF.
Currently, Qipao, Maid, and Kana’s costumes have been implemented. It’s less exposure overall and it’s admittedly quite hastily implemented, but if you're cultured enough, I don't think you'll find them any worse than the original.
This is primarily implemented because of upcoming IRL showcases in public, but it's also a way to explore slight differences in designs. For example, the reduced exposure version of the maid outfit now uses black pantyhose instead of white garter thigh-highs, and I'm sure there's people who prefer that over the original. (Even now, I was still torn between white pantyhose and black, but I figured black was the safer option. )
As far as player outfits are concerned, I'd like to implement these as a per-costume setting rather than a global blanket setting across all costumes, but this will have to wait until I redesign the costume UI.
Planned Future Updates:
Nia will receive a full redesign and rework later in July. As with the rest of the updates this year, it’s simply the result of having improved a lot since their initial implementation. (And also, the recent changes have caused some non-critical but noticeable bugs with her…)
There’s been a lot of planning and writing, that has yet to be implemented in-game. Generally, the core of the story has not changed all that much, just that the way in which it is told needed to be reworked. For one, the Archives section has been entirely restructured now that I have a better idea of what I want to put in it. Writing is a lot harder than one might think...
I've been too caught up with work for the first half of this year, but it's clearing up soon, so expect more updates from now on, at least until I begin the last push to finish the game. I plan on taking a short break from development after this update, but I'll still be around to fix any urgent issues if need be.