Lots has been happening this month with Resolute Bay! I've made some fairly major changes to encounters and party characters, and polished off a few more bugs from the list.
📢 Before I get into the details, a quick heads up that a ⭐ new version of the demo ⭐ will be available for the Steam Party-Based RPG fest starting September 14th!
The encounter system has had a refresh to improve balancing, the pace of introducing new mechanics and make it easier to form strategies for learning all of an opponent's behaviours. Here are some of the changes:
Enemies have been redesigned with new movesets and a more predictable way of behaving which should make it easier (and more rewarding!) to form strategies against them. For example, all enemies now have one or two preferred states and behaviours that they use in set patterns, which means you can start to anticipate what behaviour they might use next or use a behaviour to interrupt their flow. Doing so can force them into a different moveset which might both disadvantage your opponent and reveal some hidden behaviours to learn!
Behaviours have been tweaked so there is less overlap between them, and to balance their costs better. The most notable changes are that early state switching moves no longer deplete the opponent's resolve and can only be used to switch from one specific state to another. In exchange, they don't require as much energy to perform.
Enemy and player stats have been rebalanced to make encounters a little more challenging - no more winning encounters by spamming the same move repeatedly 🙃
The companion party system has had an overhaul! Now, when you unlock new companions, you'll have the choice to assign them as either an Active or Support party member.
Active party members have a special 'Jump In' behaviour you can charge up in an encounter to use on top of your own behaviours. Use it to swing the encounter in your favour!
Support party members have a passive ability that's active throughout an encounter, such as boosting one of your stats or recovering your vitals during an encounter.
You can only have one of each party member at any time, so choose the companions you want carefully!
Lastly, some more miscellaneous fixes:
No more dialogue loops! There's a time delay before you can restart dialogue, to prevent accidentally restarting a conversation you just finished
Environment parallax layering fixes - no more sliding characters and overlapping sprites
Companions stick together! No more issues with companions getting left behind
Music system rebuild - track looping should be more stable, and music will resume rather than restart when leaving an encounter so you'll get to hear more of the track 🎶
This month has mostly been about updating core systems and demo bugs, so look forward to some later game updates next month!