Nagi preview + other info

 

It's been almost a month since I posted a devlog again so I better give an update. Some things might be already known but I'll list them here anyway. I know promised another demo update but the next version is still probably a few weeks off unfortunately.

Additions:

-The dungeon/town posted before in the last devlog is about half way finished.

-1 new enemy finished, another is almost done and took a while to fully animate, screenshot related.

Changes:

-Grabbing via enemies is different, and no longer requires the player to mash buttons/keys to escape. Enemies will also no longer take SP when grabbing, but there is a trade off that I'll let players see in the next version.

-Seaside Ruins area and north eastern part of the map in Nyx's mode has been modified and expanded. 

-Working on the Sky Garden Temple some more because I feel like 

it's poorly laid out in it's current form.

-Found and fixed a memory leak causing multiple cave areas to lag, should also allow the game to close easier now.

I've also gone back and did some more work on Nocturne, which I've tried to limit for a while so I wouldn't get behind on MR, but I had to figure out the visual style I was going to go with as well as how I was going to handle the multiple clothing layers on the protagonist. Since I decided not to go with a similar pixel art style that MR and my older projects have and instead use higher resolution sprites. Ultimately I finally settled on something good I think, and the basic movement/jumping sprites along with the clothing layers are animated. But the game is still far from being presentable, and if I do show it, it will likely be after Moon Rhapsody is finished. Or not it depends, but I felt it should still be mentioned.

Regarding the changes to Game Jolt's policies.

So if you aren't aware Game Jolt has recently out of nowhere decided that all games containing explicit sexual or violent content such as heavy gore are not allowed as they apparently aim to be a more kid/teen friendly site so to speak. I have no idea what the reasoning is behind this decision is, I suspect it's a similar case to what happened to tumblr years back, but of course that means Moon Rhapsody may not be able to stay up on GJ much longer. I won't be taking further action unless I am forced to, but the game is still available at Itch https://kosmic91.itch.io/moon-rhapsody-demo-v2 and my patreon https://www.patreon.com/Kosmic91 eventually other sites hopefully.

Mingli Art + Screenshots

So it's the end of the year, I was going to post one last minor update to the demo, but once again I couldn't get it done in time due to various things. So instead I here's some art for Mingli, and screens of one of Nyx's areas plus an H scene I added for an existing enemy.

 

Chao Mingli is the waitress at the tea house next to the inn belonging to her grandmother in Seiryu Village. She's one of the few mostly normal human residents, though despite her polite and friendly demeanor, she's a tad eccentric, a trait she shares with her grandmother. Due to the frequency of attacks by demons and spirits on the village she's also a very cautious person. In Nyx's mode the strange fog covering the islands doesn't bother her, but she finds herself alone and trapped inside her shop.

That's it for 2021, Moon Rhapsody still isn't finished yet, but I still feel the game is coming along fairly well, maybe it will be done next year...but I don't want to make any promises. I hope every one enjoys/enjoyed the holidays and keeps looking forward regardless.

End of the Year Update

 I suppose I better post an update since I said I would try not to get behind again.
Although at this point I don't feel like there's really much I want to talk about, there's still quite a lot of work I need to do obviously, and I wasn't able to get the game complete by the end of 2021 like I had originally wanted to, and it's probably going to take until the end of 2022(or longer) to finish unfortunately, considering I can only get so much done each day by myself. With the game around half way complete and the demo taking up a good portion of the total content, I don't really want to post too much more, as a lot of it needs to be saved for the full game.
But more importantly, the last demo update took me several months to get out, long after I gave all the information I wanted to give and that ended up creating a long drought of information that probably left multiple people disappointed. So I'm going to have to keep updates to around once or twice a month, instead of weekly like I used to do. This is probably a troubling sounding post and not what some people want to hear but it's the reality. I created Moon Rhapsody originally as a side project to a larger game, and it ended up becoming even more complicated than that one, and I don't want to to strip it down or abandon it due to the difficulty.
There's some new things I've added, I want to post another update to the demo before the end of the year but until then there probably won't be anything else. I'm also working on a Japanese translation with help from someone else which I've posted screenshots of a few weeks back, though probably only a handful of people here would be interested, so I'll probably find a different place to post updates on that version.

Kunoichi + Clyde Art

 

I wanted to post more this week, but I didn't really get a whole lot done, on the actual game at least, and the stuff I did work on I don't quite think is ready to mention yet. But there's a new version up with more fixes, not as many  as the last one but some were still needed. 

Also I finished art of the kunoichi thief Nyx meets at the start and Clyde the fisherman. Both characters actually originated in an earlier project some people remember, Nyx included, but the kunoichi wasn't as much of a troublemaker as she is in MR.  She still may not be as bad as she comes across.

Bug fixes:

• Areas not being reset when reloading a file.
• Can't scroll down the overworld map fully.
• Error while reloading a weapon.
• Able to rotate items while opening lock using up a different item.
• Aello soft lock when attacking her.
• Unused icon in Forest Sanctuary, missing stairs icon in Sky Garden Temple.
• Elven Robe SP recover not working correctly.
• Bladebug near first leaf key in Sasha's mode removed(Was only supposed to appear in Nyx's mode).

Also getting 100% items unlocks any missing scenes now.

Also there's some changes to the hidden mode.

New Looking Glass

 

I haven't done a devlog in a very long time, as many people have probably noticed. 
But now that the new version of the demo is out I think I can start doing them again more frequently for a while. Although usually I would post them on Sunday/Early Monday. Anyway, there were still many bugs and problems that I again missed even after the first patch, so I would recommend everyone playing 3.0.1 to download 3.0.2 which is now up.

Bug fixes:
-Kunais in in Forest Sanctuary not removable from inventory.
-Kunoichi reseting and the pitfall already clear when reloading causing softlock.
-Gates staying up after escaping with Aello.
-Missing boundaries added in some places.
-Mizuki diving onto player while in doorway.
-Hidden door in apartments not working.
-Host/Poison reset not working for hidden savepoints.
-Error when discarding clothes during cut in.
-Error when reloading a weapon.
-Basilisk in jail cell not playing proper Hscene and staying asleep if Nyx touches it.
-Nyx's default tag not changing colors.

Changes:
-Overworld and all dungeons now reset when you leave them to save memory usage, it may or may not make much difference on lower end PC's.
-The warp point at the top floor of the apartments becomes disabled instead of blocks appearing to stop the player.
-Minor changes to apartment's level design.
-Added dialogue in City of Mist.
-All status effects have icons.
-Host timer is now visible and resets to 3 min instead of 1 when saving.  
-Wyrms and Incuflies don't spawn in overworld until later.

I don't have much else right now, I want to get back to  adding more stuff but I also want to make sure all the most crippling  issues are out of the way first, especially since I neglected the ones  in 2.2 for such a long time.
Some people have mentioned some levers not working when  shot at, but I haven't been able to replicate it. If anyone knows how  let me know.
Also there's now a walkthrough of the early part of Nyx's mode on the game's page and Youtube.

Instant Takedown

Still working on the next update for the demo, and I still have some semi important things to add before Nyx's mode will be fully playable start to finish. I might not get done till the first or second week of September, but I'm still going to try and finish it before end of August anyway. Most of the content left I want to add is side stuff but there are some scenes and dialogue that still need to be added. At least though a lot of bugs have been fixed already so the process of play testing likely won't take as long as the last update for ver 2. A couple things I added recently were Nyx's takedown move shown in the gif which works only on humanoid enemies when they are unalerted, and a new mode has been added, or more precisely I expanded an existing mode that's a currently a spoiler, and said mode probably won't be locked in the next update.