A technical problem out of the way

Previously, I'd had problems with all the dungeon rooms actually being connected, thanks for the rather haphazard way hallways were drawn in.  I think I've solved that problem, and in a lot less time than anticipated.  Still, completion will probably slip into at least early summer, as there's a fair amount of art left to do, along with some basic game balancing before it goes out the door.

See the minimap below for an example of the new map styles:

More like a game

Yeah, long break in updates, but a lot of of it was artwork, which isn't terribly eventful, and I'm not going to post all of it to the blog anyway.  However, now I've got a lot more of the game working, so here's some shots of it as it stands:

So I added several "boss" enemies into the game, which is to say, they're tougher than normal, and have some associated artwork with them.  Some all have their own quests.  This particular bandit lady will eventually be the object of a side quest.  The quote below is before she's beaten any of the protagonists.

Since Janet just wandered into this boss when she was already low on mana, it won't be long before an h-scene:

As Rachel (the names bandit) looks on, her henchmen finish off our downed heroine.  The image is the same as the default bandit kill for this one, but text is different.

A few adventurers later, Rachel now brags about who she's defeated to the current girl.  The top insult doesn't make a lot of sense seeing as they were all designed for female casters (the tentacles) so I ended up removing the brag feature from Rachel and putting it onto the Kobold sorceress sisters.

Here's Mitzi Bravepaw (the first boss added) with her new text, but before getting any kills.

...even though I've nerfed the damage on the kobold sorceresses, running into one injured or surprised is pretty much game over for lower-level players.  So Mitzi gets her first kill this game...

Here, I come back down to her with a more experienced and nearly fully healed Enchantress, to whom she brags about doing in Megan, the gnome girl.

...and Demeter takes care of Mitzi without too much trouble, gaining 10 mana from her.  All the monsters in this game can gain XP from defeating players, and in the case of magic users, mana as well.  This adds some realism, and together with the fame option, keeps players from zerging bosses.

Some more customization

Have added randomly assigned personalities for each character, so that their lines in scenes (both hentai and non) make sense given their personality.  A relatively small touch, just trying to keep things from being too repetitive.

Other than that, mostly artwork, there's still a fair amount to do before game completion, although the game engine itself is rapidly nearing completion.

The pots are moving!

Nothing out of the ordinary here, not a monster to be seen...

Wait... did that pot just move?

...and now his cover is blown.  They still need a bit of work so they only move when you're not looking, right now in certain cases they don't correctly detect that you can see them.

Lots of other things being worked on as well, it's starting to resemble more of a functioning game now.

Bug fixes and background

Lots of bug-fixes and art work, neither of which make for a terribly exciting post.  The feature probably of interest to most of the audience, is I've added a Moria-style character bio at the beginning, just to flesh things out a little.  There'll be a whole cut scene for a "New Game" that I'll add here in the new update, this is just the first part of it.

Backgrounds (literally, this time)

So at least one background is now in the game, so everyone isn't hovering in white space.  Here we see the player confronting the first "boss":

Note the player's mana.  Here's the after shot, I've introduced maximum mana gain (both yours and the enemies') as plundered from fallen magic using opponents:

Some backgrounds will need to be changed, of course, since they're perspective shots, and things like town and special room backgrounds need to go in, but this is a start.  On a game balance note, here our Half-troll Adventuress (the melee class) comes face-to-face with the kobold sorceress boss... at the end of a hall:

 

 By the time she's closed range with the boss, she's down to just a few hit points a bit of cloth:

Unsurprisingly, she gets about one blow in and then tastes defeat (and tentacles):

...game balancing is still to come, but I may have to tweak monster sight distance to prevent this kind of thing from happening.  At the very least, the player should be able to lure a ranged enemy down the hall where they can ambush them from melee.

Revamping the UI

So, as I mentioned earlier, I wasn't working on the project for much of December or January, but I'm back at it now.  Most of the changes are "beneath the hood" but I did fix the kind of sad user interface a bit.

Here's one of our heroines looting several chests.  The old, useless, drop down menus for items and spells have been replaced, and the text box enlarged somewhat.

Pushing the "Items" button brings up a list of carried items and what number you'd need to press to use them.

Here she is with a few more items, and showing off one of the many new underwear colors in the game.  A bug previously prevented most of them from being selected.

Here's a magic-user, and the Spells button, which acts in a similar way.  There's a spacing problem evident here that has just been fixed. 

There's quite a few new spells, new animated traps, and some other things,  but those'll have to wait until the next update to show them off.  Lots more art done, but it's not yet in the game at the moment.

Release wise, probably looking towards the beginning of summer.