Thoughts...

Back again with another devlog. So since I've posted the 2.1 update Moon Rhapsody has gotten some more attention in various places and I've been able to get a more clear picture about what issues it has and what different types of gamers think about it, and overall I feel like current demo is.....okay, maybe not shit, but heavily flawed, and the game is probably more difficult than it should be.

Now some people may say the game is fine the way it is, but people comparing it to Dark Souls and saying it's even harder bothers me because that's just not the kind of game I wanted to make, and I'm honestly not even really that good at Dark Souls or many hardcore old school games. A lot of the difficulty I think comes down to the game simply not telling players the best way to play it, which I don't like doing because I personally like it better when games leave it to player to find the best solution, but I think the main problem for me at least, is it just doesn't give the player many options in terms of where to go at the start and ways to experiment.

MR is supposed to be a more open world type of game and with the current demo being broken into stages, it forces players to progress in a specific way, and unless they get a good handle on how the game works, they will probably get stuck and die repeatedly at some point.(Which someone did actually point out to me beforehand may up being a problem. )After playing through it a few times I think the mostly linear progression and non stop dungeon crawling definitely does hurt it.

So I wasn't sure if I was going to expand on the current demo or just make another version, but I'll probably make one more version that has an open structure like 1.0 and 2.0, but with more to do in it, but I'm likely still going to to make some changes to the current demo so it's not quite as punishing to new players.

Also, I've been looking at the overworld a lot and decided I had to make some heavy changes to it. Specifically I moved a very large portion of it to the south part of the map where I thought there was too much water and expanded on the space I moved it from. I had to do this also because of the main town Seiryu Village being part of that section was not in a good location and very hard to reach being essentially being all the way at the northern most part of the map. The only reason I had still had it there was because the map shrunk to about 1/4 of it's original size, so it would of originally been at the center. Now however it's much closer to the start and I can make the northern part a more interesting place to explore.

The girl in the artwork attached is Rune, a naga woman who loves hotsprings and teasing Satcher. She also like Satcher, often appears in dungeon areas giving advice. While Rune is friendly, most other Nagi outside of Seiryu Village attack Sasha or Nyx on sight.

The Dark Artist

 

 

Nyx Cheshire, the mischievous blue bakeneko who lives on the haunted island of Makishima with her older brother is now playable, not in the demo version yet unfortunately, that won't be for a while. Players will be able to choose either Sasha or her at the start of the game and can play through 2 different stories. Unlike Sasha, Nyx prefers using her magic paint over guns which has it's advantages and disadvantages. Nyx can use it to either fire drawn projectiles or create tags that can be triggered to explode or cause a reaction. The type of tag assigned to the paint can change the effects of the spell and a large number can potentially be found. Nyx also uses a kusarigama as her default melee weapon, the chain part giving her a lot of range and can pull foes toward her to slash with the sickle part.

 

 

Another key difference about Nyx is, being a very energetic demon girl, she recovers her SP automatically to full most of the time, whenever she isn't stunned. However Nyx generally takes more damage than Sasha, loses SP faster when struggling and swimming, and her paint might require a little more practice to wield and has to be crafted. It cannot be repaired like a gun if it is used up. Because of this, Nyx doesn't use a tune up kit like item for paint, rather she uses an item that improves her overall magic skills like a more proper RPG. While Sasha can also use spray paint and tag effects, she is unable to combine it with the crystals needed to use magic.

And, of course, Nyx will get violated by enemies if her clothes are stripped off just like Sasha. Most of the failure scenes are variants but she will have some that are unique to her, and Sasha as well.

 

A new adventurer approaches...

 

Wow, it's been a long a time since I did one of these. I hope everyone got to try the new demo version of Moon Rhapsody at least. There's still several bugs in it I'm trying to resolve and will probably post another version update this coming week. From the feedback I received, not knowing where to go a lot of times seems to be the biggest problem people have, so expect there to be additions to the map system and more hints scattered around. As for progress on the game, I'm about halfway if not a little more finished with implementing the other mode I mentioned before and previously said would be an an end of game unlock. It will instead be available from the start and has the player controlling a different character instead of Sasha. Which people may have guessed if you read my comments on discord, and might have already have an idea who it is. All their animations minus H scenes are complete, including basic clothing variations ingame and in menu. The stuff the remains is mostly gameplay involved, and I still need to change the NPC dialogue for them. Unlike Sasha this character will not use guns at all and is slightly more vulnerable defense wise, but instead they have unique abilities they can use and also have less restrictive SP recovery.

The next thing I want to mention is I decided to start a Patreon, which took me a lot of time to consider because I don't like asking for money even though I intend to sell the game. As much as I would like a game like this to be a huge success, due to the crowdedness of the indie games market, the chances are whatever I make from the final product will likely not be enough for me to survive on without finding another job, which is...very difficult for someone like me, without going into shameful details. I've been lucky enough to have a decent amount of savings and inheritance money to survive the last few years, but that won't last me forever. Even if I could find a another job, it would likely heavily impact the work I do on the game as it's often done in the past whenever I have to focus on something else. But the tiers will include getting your name in the credits for $1, access to future early builds of the game in advance for the $3 tier, and for the $10 one I'll give everyone who contributes for one month a digital art book when the game is complete and also the choice to have their own unique item(consumable), headgear, or graffiti tag in the game provided it's appropriate, nsfw is okay but nothing too extreme please. Now, when I say graffiti tag for the last one what I'm referring to is an ability that functions like a perk or skill not in the current versions of the game. It's something that only works when you use a spray paint item(which acts as a weapon) and you typically have to be nearby the tag or in the same area or dungeon for it to function with a limit to how many can be active at once and some having timers. I might show more of it in the next devlog along with the other character. They will be 32x32 pixels max

So if anybody wants to support the development of Moon Rhapsody please consider becoming a patron, it would really help me.
Link: https://www.patreon.com/Kosmic91

Looking Glass Isle

 

So I kind wanted to have the demo update out by now, but it looks like it's still going to have to be a couple more weeks before I can release it, sorry to say. Hopefully no unforseen events will make it more difficult to finish before the end of January, but I can't make any promises. 

 Here's some of things done recently: 

 -The hub that connects the 4 locations for the v2.1 demo is finished. As I said the areas will be the tutorial dungeon, the Forest Sanctuary which was only partially in the first demo, Makishima Island which is in the current demo, and the city in the mist from the first demo. The last 2 will have a lot of changes to them. 

 -Finished the giant insect boss that I posted before. 

 -Completely redid one of the existing H scenes. 

 -Spent quite a bit of time working on boss music this week but I think it came out pretty good. 

 I got most of the important parts taken care of anyway, it's mostly a matter of polishing and making sure everything works now.

Into the new year...

Updates are probably going to be sparse for a while now while I try and get the demo 2.1 update ready. Some things added recently:

-Forest Sanctuary dungeon is mostly complete but I still have work to do on the boss and the music for it.

-Finished a tutorial dungeon that will be added to the demo. It's in the starting area that isn't currently part of it.

-2 H-scenes finished, one seen partially above.

-I started working on something that will likely be an end of game unlock but I'm going to need to pause it for now.

That's it for now, the update I want to do will have 4 areas in it, all except the tutorial dungeon are currently playable in the 2 demos I put out but they'll be significant changes to each one. That will probably be the most content it'll have until the game is finished, hopefully before the end of this new year. 

Forest Sanctuary

 

I don't have much to post this week, and I know I didn't last time either. I've shifted focus to the dungeon maps now, making sure all the puzzles and gimmicks in each dungeon work can be kind of laborious, but designing new enemies and H scenes to go with them helps alleviate the tedium. This dungeon in the screen shot is the one from the first demo that was only there as part of the challenge mode and is mostly finished now, save for the boss here which I just started yesterday. I'd like to put it in the next demo update but I'm still deciding how to do it since I want to save some parts inbetween this area and the current areas for the finished game. So I might change the way the demo is structured so it's more like a scenario selection type of thing instead of a single slice of the game up till a certain point, but I'm not sure yet, let me know what you think.

Seafaring

 

New things added this week: 

 -Mostly finished with the row boats used to get around the sea. You can find one just about anywhere where there is a dock, you can use guns or fishing rods while in them but not blades. 

 -The ocean wyrms that appear in the gif I also added this week but they still need some more work. 

-Made a bunch of edits to the overworld area just outside the main village. 

 I may update the demo to fix a few bugs soon before I release the newer build with more changes and content. I want to put up the newer build in mid January but it could end up taking me a little longer since I'm prioritizing finishing other parts of the game before I get to it.