Status Update: September 30

Hi there Pangaeans!

A lot has  been done, so let's get to it!

The good news is that the Environment Battle System is finally working! Not like I want, but still the foundation is in place. Depending on the area, the spells Zero can use will either be there or hidden entirely. The end goal is to gray it out and give them element icons for colorblind players to make it easier on them. In the final version, some areas will also give an elemental boost for non-Zero skills to keep him from being overpowered (he'll have his own special boosts). Meaning monsters in their own element will be prove a harder challenge than before. Scrolls, however, will not get that boost. There will be animation improvements on the monsters and the battlefields. For now, I'm keeping the humans to side-view battlers and using simplified monster animations just to keep things eye-candy for the Demos. Most of the enemies are where I want them to be but I need to restructure the final boss for the Demo and see if I can't do some more stat manipulation. Right now, I'm working on updating the special attacks and putting in new ones, but as I mentioned before I forgot to work on the actual animations for it, which is time-consuming. But it shouldn't take me that long. Several days, for sure, but now that the hard part's over, this is just doing some repetitive work, really.

The next part of my end-game is to try to re-color some monsters. A vibrant artist for RPG Maker, called ÆKASHICS, drew up some seriously awesome creations. If you're an RPG Maker developer, check their site out. It's abundant with amazing resources! I can't use them all, but a few will make their appearance (Ækashics, if you're reading this, rest assured, you will be credited on my site and in the game and will give you a free copy!), namely the Mimic. I LOVE the design, but I need to recolor it to match the dungeons they are found in. It may not seem like it, but the Mimic monsters have their own side-story that the full game will explore, hence why there's a small scene before each fight. They're pointless now in the Demo, I admit, but i's meant to lead on to the real story. For now, I just need to recolor the Mimic for the Demo. 

I don't know if I'll be able to finish everything next week, but I'll try. Reason being is I'm approaching midterms and I have my annual family vacation coming up. I should be done with the attacks and stat restructuring, at least. I want to do the recoloring since I think that's harder, but the new attacks and animations are actually required. If I can't recolor the Mimic, it won't be a big deal since the game is still in construction.

I want to once again thank everyone who's been visiting my site and spreading the word! If all goes well, version 0.4 should be out in a couple weeks, work permitting. I know it's been a long wait, but I'm thankful to those who stuck it out. When it comes close to release time, I'll let you all know what I have planned next.