Another Forest Temple

Got a fairly decent amount of work done this week, still focused on Nyx's side of the game. Basically Nyx's mode is more action oriented, with areas that make avoiding enemies more difficult, where as Sasha's is more survival based, this is of course since Nyx has more SP recovery to work with, but resource management is still something to worry about just due to the limited inventory space.

Without spoiling any story elements, Nyx doesn't go through the same areas as Sasha, mostly anyway. The one video I posted was actually a little deceptive in a sense, because Nyx doesn't go into that wooded area in the demo or the island Sasha starts on at all, but her mode will still be about as long as Sasha's, it depends on the player though I guess.

The screens are from another forest dungeon similar to the one in the current demo, some of Nyx's dungeons will be like alternate versions of Sasha's but not all of them. One last detail is Nyx's mode has more gloomy looking environments than Sasha, but the tone is more upbeat, basically to reflect the personalities of the two characters.

Steady Progress

I don't have much to report in this devlog other than I've started adding the dialog for Nyx's route and I decided what the out what content I want to add for the next demo update, not counting any potential patches. I expanded on one island in the map and decided to cut another fairly large one that, I felt was out of place and made navigating around with the boat awkward.

Which, I hate having to do because I thought it was an interesting location and it was there for a long time, but I think it's probably for the best. I don't have any screenshots to show right now so I drew up some more art. Top-Bottom: Basilisk, Krasue, and Aello.

The basilisks are common enemies that live simple lives of pillaging and raping, both against humans and other demon tribes. The Krasue is a dangerous spirit that appears during rainy nights in the fields and constantly hungers for flesh. The last is Aello is a headstrong, virtuous harpy from the forest who appears in the demo hunting evil spirits. Despite her heroic ambitions, Aello often has bad luck and finds herself in trouble, but she always tries to keep her head up. She also doesn't get along very well with Nyx, though they're still friends.

Demo v2.2.1 Released

Moon Rhapsody Demo v2.2 is now available for everyone to play.

2.2.1 fixes the issues I mentioned in the last devlog and some minor bugs here and there but otherwise isn't much different. I spent the week trying to get some work done on my other project, but will probably go back to MR next week because I want to get Nyx's mode in the game soon. 

Overall I would say MR is about 30-40% done at this point, which is less than where I wanted to be at now, but the time spent ironing things out and fixing problems always adds up.

Anyway next major update will probably be around mid or end of July, and will hopefully be at least halfway done by then.

Also here's a new piece of art for Sasha. Made a few edits.

Ruined Village

 

Sorry for the lack of devlog updates the last few weeks. For those that don't know, version 2.2 of the demo is up on Patreon until probably next weekend when I will post it everywhere else. This version doesn't have Nyx playable in it yet and old save files won't carry over unfortunately, but there are multiple changes to the world and gameplay balance, new items/weapons, and a new H scene with variants. The last boss is also easier, provided you're unaware of the original intended method of fighting them, or aren't going for 100%, otherwise there'll be a third hidden easier method to defeat them. For those that do have the demo be aware there are a couple serious bugs at the moment. If you go into the Ship Graveyard before the Forest Sanctuary it will crash the game with no error, and may still happen later too but going into the forest dungeon seems to fix it, also do not check the nightstand in the apartments on the top floor after encountering the boss, it may cause one of the chests to open up and lock you out of 100%.

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