Work In Progress - Spell/Magic Systems, UI Updates, Drones, World Traversal

Hey all! Just wanted to show a couple things we've been working on for the next build.

Spellcards:

The girls will have another tool in their combat arsenal: Spells and Toolspells. Spells can be executed any time in combat as long as there is enough MP. Here's the basic spell "Butterfly Ball" being used mid-combo:

"Butterfly Ball" is a basic, lightly homing shot that launches after a short warm-up period. It explodes on contact and deals AOE damage. It has a cooldown of 5 seconds. It costs one MP bar. (100MP)

Toolspells:

Toolspells are utility abilities designed to be used out of combat, though some have combat utility as well. You're already familiar with the Scan toolspell, which aids in exploration by highlighting enemies and items. One toolspell that's being added to the game is the Survey Drone toolspell, which is used to get detailed information from scannable entities and aids in locating survivors and items for certain quests.

Survey Drone Toolspell:

The new Spells and Toolspells consume MP. We've updated the combat systems so MP is slowly gained by dealing damage. If combat isn't replenishing MP fast enough, MP replenishing items have also been added:

Spells and toolspells can be equipped in the new Equip menu, which can be accessed from the Pause menu. More spells and toolspells have been planned and are currently in the works.

Holster 2.0:

The Holster has been updated so that any 3 equipped items and spellcards can be ready at a time. There's also two sets of holsters per character, expanding the total of ready items to 6. Holsters are unique per character.

Equip Menu (WIP):

The Equip menu, accessed from the Pause menu, is used to change holstered items, spellcards, toolspells, combo meters (WIP), and cosmetics (WIP). Each character has their own equipment. It is currently in a very WIP state, but will enter the next build in its current state as it is still useful.

World Traversal:

We've connected the new Vanaheim Carrier Area (the base) to Astoria in New Inverness via the dropship. With this, the various missions are finally connected, and the mission selection menu will no longer be needed to progress throughout the game. The girls can simply travel around the world as you would expect them to.

This update is by no means all-inclusive: there's lots we can't show publicly quite yet. There are also various small updates not discussed here, like bugfixes and the new Henshin particle effect for Amelia that we've quietly added.

We'd also like to apologize for the delays on this update. It's been really stressful for us too making you all wait so long. The majority of the things we've been working on requires tearing up the underlying connective tissue of the game, which makes it particularly hard to push smaller builds. We're trying to set up the game for the final story / progression structure, making it a little hard to release chapters piecemeal until the new connections are done. Once everything is reconnected, it will be easier to add smaller bits of content again.

Thanks for reading and we deeply appreciate your support all this time.

-softmode/paperbag, edited by VolatileCarbon