Hangover

Okay, it's been a long time - two and a half months or so. But still, the new devlog arrived! 

Why so long?

Firstly, I was taking time off from my main job, and I decided to make that time free from everything altogether - even this project. My conscience tormented me a bit, but in the end, I feel that this decision was the right one - you need to unburden your brain from everything in general from time to time.

Secondly, because of the first reason, when I returned to work, my managers started gnawing me with redoubled vigour. You know, "So, did you get some rest? Great, it's time to get back to work and clear up all the mess we had made while you were away". So the amount of free time I have has diminished significantly (but its slowly getting better). 

Thirdly, this update has simply been quite massive - there have been a number of innovations and some substantial changes to older systems. Let's talk about that!

New monster girl: The Harpy

Harpies are like magpies: they love shiny things. So don't be fooled when one of them comes to hug you: she's probably only trying to steal something. They carry everything to their nest, so if you follow one of them, you can find it. But beware if you want to rummage around, because the nest's inhabitants will hardly like it.

New item: Sake bottle

This is the first of a planned series of items from the "alcoholic drinks" category. Yes, you can drink in the game now! Damn, I guess I'll have to put an age restriction of 21+ on it...

Alcohol consumption can lead to all sorts of consequences. If your eyes start to blur, it's a sure sign that it's time to slow down a bit. And my advice to you, don't try to read a scroll with your tongue tied... or try it, who knows, you might enjoy it.

New random encounter: Onsen

Ever dreamed of visiting the famous hot springs? Now you can! There doesn't seem to be any staff here, so maybe you can get a glimpse of the women's side of the baths...

Unfortunately, I don't yet have the final images and text for the scenes in this encounter, so instead there are placeholders for now. This will be fixed as soon as I get the results from my contractors.

Miscellaneous

• All character and scene images have been unified: they now have a size of 4096x4096px, and the content itself takes up all available space (i.e. no empty space near the borders). This is to avoid unpleasant artifacts when scaling sprites.
• Fixed internal Phaser error when exiting the game
• Storytelling has been updated: the game state can now change during the story (i.e. any characteristics of the player, monsters, items, etc.) This allows the story to come a bit more "alive", as the events in the scene can now have tangible effects (someone has hit you in the scene? your HP will instantly decrease!)
• Player and monster sprites are now two cells high instead of one, which should add some depth to the picture.

• An animation playback mechanism has been added to the game - now I can simply specify a sprite with frames and settings such as frame rate, amount of replays, etc.
• The character sprite changes when the player enters the water - for now this only works in the onsen encounter, but there is a possibility of adding this behaviour to future maps too.

In a nutshell, that's it. But along with some of the things listed above come some little secrets (which I won't reveal, of course) - find them all!

Until the next time (I hope it comes in less than three months)!