Hello it's me, Angel!
This update mainly sets up story mode to handle all those final bosses that are just waiting to be added! There is also finally a stat page to view all the numbers the game has been tracking!
Early Access updated game version to v7.1
Content Added -
- New branching path choice at the end of a story run if any alternate final bosses are unlocked
- Each story path has new types of medals to earn
- Added a stats page in the main hub where you can watch all your numbers go up
Updates and tweaks -
- Some tracked story records had to be reset due to the new story path structure (this will not affect any dream progress)
- Changed the file completion percentage to exclude all medals that are beyond the scope of any dreams (A new marker will be added to denote completion of these soon)
- Adjusted the amount of blessing generated in the radiant garden
- The amount of blessing generated by each action will diminish as you do more in a single visit
- Added an upgrade to the garden that allows you to overpay for a gift and fill the blessing bar more
- Upgrading the garden will now also fill the blessing based on amount of tetrids spent
- Set a limit on donations to Blot's Gallery per visit
- Added an upgrade to Blot's Gallery to allow her to accept up to 5 donations
- Tagged more gifts as "art" for Blot's gallery
- Solara's shop event will not end if you buy all the gifts, allowing you to check upgrades before leaving
- All events that have upgrades will now show an alert icon if you can afford any upgrade
Bug Fixes -
- Fixed a bug where the Quickplay equip menu could incorrectly show that panics are equipped when they weren't
Future Roadmap!
It's time to spill the hearts on what exactly I have left to do in order to be able to call this game finally finished!
New Monsters
First Lets review the list of 8 missing normal monsters:
- Shanx (Guardian)
- Alter Shanx (Guardian)
- Guardian Soul (Guardian)
- Dendrohai (Glyph)
- Chionotoh (Glyph)
- Ventra (Zaramech)
- Veyeral Quartet (Veyeral)
- Storm Veyeral (Veyeral)
The newest monster, Shy Momo, was also on this list the last time I posted it. This means that now all the Shambles and Glass Flora are done! (The normal, non-final bossy ones anyways ːveyeralː)
I'm going to keep the amount of final bosses a secret until the big day when they are all put in, but I will say that there is at least one per category!
New Monster Events
There will be one other shop type event similar to Blot's Gallery. The catch is that only one of these can appear per run. The first one you fight will be the one who opens their shop.
There is also another type of event planned! They will be gift trading events with several of the monsters. Each monster will offer different types of gifts and different amounts of them. They will each have their own quirks about what and how they want to trade. None of these will have any type of upgrades or anything like that as there will be several of them.
Only one of these events will appear per run and they will only happen at the end of a three battle chapter. If multiple trading monsters have been defeated, it will pick one of them randomly.
There may be other limits placed on amount of events that can appear per run. We will see how the balance feels.
Altered Story Extended Event
An event will be added to Altered Story mode that will take place just after the "Altered Nowhere" chapter. It will allow you to extend the run by up to 3 extra battles! But you will have to make sacrifices such as giving up gifts or panics to make the rest of the run harder. This event will also not appear if you took any gifts from the link synapse at the start.
This will be the ultimate challenge to earn the biggest score possible!
New Music
As I worked on the music for all of those secret final bosses, I made many many drafts. I cut lots of cool Ideas that didn't quite fit. Lots of cool ideas that you will never ever get to hear...
OR! I can put all those cool ideas into a 3rd set of songs for each monster family! What's that? Three whole songs for each monster group is not enough? Wouldn't you know it, I went ahead and made a 4th set of songs for them too!
But I can't just use all these songs just anywhere. No, monsters need special occasions to pull these out. So you're going to have to be a little patient as I get those special occasions ready.
The Towers
A new game mode where you must climb a tower while only battling monsters of a specific type. There will be 6 of these towers to unlock, one for each of the monster families. There will also be some surprises in each tower, that I won't go into just yet.
Unlocking each tower will have something to do with the newborn monsters. Reaching a certain goal in all 6 of these towers will also be the true way of unlocking Endless Nightmare!
Ultimate Tower
The final challenge! Can you climb a massive tower while battling every single monster in the game?
I won't give away all the mechanics of this yet, but heartbreak will not necessarily mean starting over from the bottom. But I'm sure some of you will be able to do it in 1 life!
Story
This update just added the "Choose Her Path" event. This will always come right before the "Nowhere" chapter that currently sits at the end of every story run. Each of the 4 characters can choose which of the 3 available final bosses to fight. If you look closely, you will notice that each path says it contains "1 battle," but that's not always going to be the case!
All characters will have several paths to choose from and different amounts of battles in each. Some paths will even have whole extra chapters like the one in Altered Story mode. Each heart will also have battles with final bosses that others will never meet in their story. And of course, each of these paths will have ending scenes!
Altered Story is where all characters be able to battle every single final bosses in a story-like run.
Fifth Character
This character has still not been added for a very simple reason, she will unlock when all the other characters advance to a certain point in their stories, but those stories aren't done yet. She would be somewhat of a spoiler if I add her too soon. Especially for the few of you who are too good at piecing things together with those gift memories!
I have confirmed that she will be some sort of helper based character. And yes, she will also have an alter.
New Gifts
Everything above is set in stone, but this is the most tenuous section.
Most of my gift ideas are already done, but there are a few more that will be sprinkled into updates along the way. I still need to do that Toxic Aura gift.
I'm still deciding if I want to add the starting effects of the alter characters as some sort of cursed gift. A set of gifts with big gains, but also big drawbacks. If I do add these "cursed gifts," they will be added in a way that makes them completely avoidable at all times. They would also definitely be called something other than "cursed gifts."
There is also another type of gift that I've always had in the plans, but they may be cut depending on how hard they are to implement. They would be used immediately in the battle where they are offered and wear off after. Sort of like an auto quick gift, but it's used before the battle and not received at the end.
The effects of these wouldn't be direct buffs, but rather they would create objects to shoot during the battle that would trigger some effects. Like pop them for karma, pop them to create a small panic in place, stuff like that. They would also hold the combo while you try to break them. It's almost as if the monster is using these gifts to attack, but you know they secretly want you to win.
Timeline
I will not make any promises on how long any of these will take, but I can give an outline on what order I plan to finish these.
Early Access v7.X
First, I will finish all the events including the big Altered Story one. These will be spread out over a few updates. I will also be adding a few of the missing monsters including the newborn, Guardian Soul.
I don't expect this to take very long compared to the other main versions.
Early Access v8.X
With all 6 newborn monsters done, I can finish up "The Towers" mode and advance up to version 8.0. This will also be where I add in the 12 new battle songs! All the remaining common bosses will be added here as well.
After that, I can work on all the remaining final bosses.
Expect a long wait between the last v8.X and v9.0.
Early Access v9.X
Once all the story scenes and final bosses are ready. It's time for a BIG update that will have ALMOST all the story and ALMOST every final boss. This is where playable heart number 5 will be added too! There will only be one last thing to tackle.
v1.0!
Adding The Ultimate Tower will finally take this up to v1.0! The Early Access tag will finally be removed!
One Last Gift!
I recently posted a sneak peak at one of the future final boss battle themes. It's right here if you want to listen!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5yMMKZaubE
Thank you all for continuing to support me in this madness!
ːradiantheartː ːradiantheartː ːradiantheartː