Side mission preview video is up!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CymUYacUb8
Let me know your thoughts, and thanks for the support!

Ran into some technical difficulties with getting the video recorded. I expect it should be up tonight though. Thanks for your patience.

After extensive testing, and quite a bit of experimenting with javascript, I have the mission system functioning! Expect a video tutorial in the next day or two. Next release will have the first parts of the system available, assuming no game-breaking bugs appear between now and then.

After extensive tinkering, I just managed to figure out a system that will actually let me use local variables for each actor, which will make the mission system so much simpler to code. So instead of pulling shenanigans and setting aside hundreds of individual variables, I can have the missions tracked per actor. So, way easier to work with from the coding side.

The side mission system is, tentatively, working! It's still super experimental and there's probably about a million game-breaking bugs involved in it yet, but I have a single basic test running successfully. So, assuming I don't change anything, here's how it goes:

-You find a side mission somewhere. Probably there will be a hub area for these in the sanctum, but there might be some to find elsewhere with exploring as well.

-You select a party member to do the mission. Whoever you select receives a status "on a mission" that renders them unable to act in battles. (I would have preferred to make them unselectable in the main party, but apparently that's super complicated and way beyond my programming skills for some reason.)

-After each battle, a timer ticks down, and anyone who's mission timer becomes 0 returns from the mission and the "on a mission" state is removed.

-There's a check for success, and if successful, the mission's rewards are granted.

I hope to have it where each person has different traits that make them better or worse suited for different missions, but we'll see if that's possible.

Once I get it worked out to at least a basic runnable state, I'll make a demo video so everything is clear how it works out.

So I, uh, just now found out that I can set states to last for a certain number of *actions* rather than turns. Given that the battle system I'm using isn't really turn-based, that would definitely help with making them behave more consistently. So, I think I'm going to try that and see if it breaks anything.

I'm currently doing some exploratory work on a new system. As the game progresses, a reasonably diligent player is fairly likely to acquire more characters than they're able to use at one time. So, I figure it makes sense to have some way to make use of the ones that aren't being used in the active battle party. My current idea is a system where characters can be sent on missions of some sort; they'd be made unavailable for a certain number of battles, after which they'd return with small but relevant rewards, such as money or crafting materials. This is super subject to change since at the moment I'm not even completely sure that what I want to do is programmable in RPG maker, but I do intend to have some kind of system even if this one specifically doesn't work out.

0.2.1 release

I haven't been able to make as much progress as I would have preferred, but I figure you've all been waiting long enough, so here's something of a polish release.

 

https://mega.nz/#!fhEgTRBJ!MLNO0iWeGLbpoR4rb3wChyC3h9AUM_7IpxAlfKva_3c

Patch notes:

- The various class graphics for Faurach are now in the game.
- The post-battle cutscene in the warehouse no longer repeats indefinitely.
- The wizard hat should no longer cause the game to crash.
- The spirit soldier ability is now non-accessible like it should be, but also won't crash the game once it is accessible.
- Status effects in general should now behave a bit more predictably with respect to durations. The most notable effect of this is the Tactical Avoidance ability should actually function now. Side effects may exist with other abilities lasting a bit longer than intended, but that can be more easily smoothed out going forward.
- All weapons currently in the game now have unique graphics
- I've begun groundwork on some systems for later, though not much that would be visible at the moment from the players' perspectives.
- A few minor touch-ups here and there too small to list specifically.

I'm still not entirely satisfied with the last segment in the current demo, but every time I tried to restructure it I got writers block regarding how to do so specifically, so it hasn't changed since the last release. I intend to modify it some when I come up with a good way to do so, but it will be at least ok for the moment.

Thanks to everyone who's been playing and commenting, and especially to the ones who have donated. Enjoy the game!

Apologies for the lack of communication. Mild illness combined with unstable internet for a duration wound up distracting me from posting. That said, I have still been working. New release should be within a couple of days, assuming no catastrophes.

In the interim, I've had reports of a few bugs, so here's the status of the ones I've heard about so far:

1) The various class graphics for Faurach are now in the game.
2) The post-battle cutscene in the warehouse no longer repeats indefinitely.
3) The wizard hat should no longer cause the game to crash.
4) The spirit soldier ability is now non-accessible like it should be, but also won't crash the game once it is accessible.
5) Status effects in general should now behave a bit more predictably with respect to durations. The most notable effect of this is the Tactical Avoidance ability should actually function now. Side effects may exist with other abilities lasting a bit longer than intended, but that can be more easily smoothed out going forward.
6) It's been reported that various merchants in the bazaar cause the game to crash. However, I haven't been able to cause this to happen at all. I've tried buying all sorts of things from a wide variety of merchants under different circumstances and everything seems fine as far as I can tell. If anyone has a save file where this is happening, it would be quite helpful to track it down.
7) It's also been reported that reaching battle the battle turns of the fifth party member sometimes causes crashes. The person mentioned specifically an imp apprentice, but I've checked everything I can think of relating to imps, apprentices, and fifth party members, and haven't found anything. A save for this one might be helpful as well.

Thanks to everyone for being so patient, and hang tight for the next build.