Finally got my act together and put a new build together. Link: https://mega.nz/#!HlsHBSKL!xDRbpCpFF-_YYY3fYjE4kGduuKtXb7CGUIy_7IFTMA8

I'm not 100% certain what in here is new since the last bugfix, admittedly, but here's some stuff that's fairly new:

Game is built up through the most recent major boss fight, and I'm not aware of any particular bugs in the story progression or battles.

Difficulty setting in the menu is operational, allowing for five choices of difficulty: story, easy, normal, hard, impossible. Game is balanced around normal difficulty but there's no penalty for changing the option.

Hint system: after losing a battle, the player will be given the option to get a hint about the mechanics of the enemy they lost to, before the usual return to main menu. Hints aren't available for every single battle in this version, but they should be there for the most complicated encounters.


I'm not aware of any significant bugs in this version but due to the complexity of the systems I'm sure there's some there. Any feedback is always appreciated. Enjoy the game!

Boss fight: coded, and as far as I can tell so far, no bugs left in it. Need to do at least some preliminary balance work, but other than that it's just cutscenes before the next release build.

As I seem to have a tendency to do, I've managed to code myself into a corner. I know what's causing the bug I'm working on, but haven't yet figured out a way to fix it.

Preliminary sprite work and initial planning for the boss fight are complete, so now it's on to the programming phase. How long that takes will naturally depend on what sorts of bugs pop up, but I'm hoping it doesn't end up taking *too* long.

Current tasks

The next bit of content will include the next major boss fight, which is the most difficult so far (from a programming perspective, though also probably in terms of gameplay). I have it mapped out with three distinct phases, each with certain fight mechanics to pay attention to. Hopefully programming it doesn't cause too many problems, but regardless I'll attempt to keep updates here with how it's coming along.

Tiny Bugfix

Turns out that build had a couple of missing files, so I've added them in and re-uploaded. New link:

https://mega.nz/#!vw8miLpK!-v-TOoLTUR1nlCkfTretIqH9zzN_SIsrWjsNo7pmp2Y

After far too long, new content! (Alpha version 0.3.2.5)

There isn't as much here as I'd like to have for a new content release, but I'm kind of fed up with not posting anything new for so long. New version link:

https://mega.nz/#!r4EXCDhY!ZduQeqz30M3poCoKH7BHGiCI7ND1MibOeKSgcB2M_oE

 

The changelog is kind of hazy since it's been so long, but here's what I can say confidently is new:

-A little new story content. It's not super complete, but it's playable through to a checkpoint of sorts. I'll be going through and touching it up for the next build.

-A new non-story area that contains a bit of loot and some enemies. Not necessary to progress through, but it could be useful to get a bit of extra money and XP if someone is having trouble. (The game is designed and tested so that grinding won't ever be necessary, but I feel that it's good to have the option if people want to do so)

-Speaking of difficulty, a new option in the menu to set the difficulty. It's a bit experimental and might be buggy, but there's five options to choose from: Story, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Impossible. You can change it at any time, so experiment to see which is the best fit for your play style.

-Side missions are working correctly now, and some of the people in the castle will offer missions if you talk to them. I'll be adding more missions as the game progresses.

-Some new types of recruitable enemies, which have their own classes and abilities to make use of.

-Probably other minor stuff that I'm not remembering offhand

The plan going forward is to first of all finish the chunk of plot that the game leaves off in the middle of, and a more climactic ending to the section. The tentative goal then is to do the next major release within 3-4 weeks, if I'm able to do so, when I'm more confident in labeling it 0.3.3 proper.

On the business side of things: As some of you may have noticed, I changed the patreon from charging per month to per major game release. The main reason being I'm simply not comfortable taking in money for a month where I didn't release anything. In the ideal situation, I'd get out one release per month anyway, but obviously life happened and I wound up disappearing for awhile. I very much appreciate everyone who's contributed so far, and I'm intending to release something that's worthy of those contributions. That said, Dragonfall is, and always will be, completely free to play. Nobody should feel obligated to pay for it.

Questions, comments, concerns, and other constructive feedback are always welcome. Thanks for playing!