*Frame of Mind* 

Greetings, Tidings, Salutations! A merry March to all! 

So, let’s get right to the point. A couple of weeks ago  I finished the game on an 18-hour dev all-nighter (NOT RECOMMENDED NOR ENCOURAGED), threw it up onto Itch, and turned my attention towards other affairs culminating in the posting of this devlog later than intended.   

Nevertheless, my sleepy heart fluttered with joy as my half-awake final debug pre-upload ran smoothly enough to pass GO on my theoretical monopoly board.  As this was an overhaul of a previous game I had published on Itch but was dissatisfied with its mediocrity, I can look at the game now compared to its predecessor and say I am happy enough with the final product. Of course, there is always more design that can be added, code to be refactored, and sneaky bugs to eliminate but this game was never intended to be more than a showcase of skills I learned post-graduating boot camp. So with it finished - hoorah! 

*Things That Worked*

• The last game did not have any successful animations so I had to step into that realm and fill the void. I am not an animator by any means and learning isn’t in my scope of desires quite yet, but I needed to figure out a way to let the player know visually that events were taking place somehow. I had fun playing around with layers in the environment that would hide and activate inside the battle system, resulting in a clunky but charming retro movement style in combat.  During scenes where the parallax background took place, I used small revolving characters in conjunction with the storytelling design to convey travel a la chibi loading screen avatars. 
• A largely overlooked component of the last game,  I utilized the skeleton of the battle system I had previously written. I bolstered it with the idea of carrying the narrative into the fight. Demorious is my favorite character in this game. They are loosely inspired by “Emil” from Nier Replicant.  Much like darling Emil, I wanted Demorious to be able to fight beside Chosen. Knowing this, I needed to define the capacity in which Demorious would be involved, restructure the game flow, resolve any previous constraints, and tweak the boss elements. During this time, I also took the liberty of redoing the level environment of each boss.  I decided on having Demorious control all healing aspects of the player. When Demorious’ turn occurred and their health was above a certain percentage - they would both heal the player an amount relative to their health as well as do a small amount of damage to the enemy. If Demorious’ health was below a certain percentage, they would heal the player at a reduced amount and no longer attack the enemy. When Demorious health reached a designated “all time low” they would no longer heal the player and their turn would be skipped. I included an event that both included Demerious “low health”  icon anim and dialogue to alert the player that their companion has fallen and needs assistance.  Next, I created a mechanic called “Protect Demorious”  that activated on click and was allotted a select amount of uses.  Protecting Demorious would heal Demorious at a certain percentage relative to their health. So, if the player waited until the last minute to save Dem, they would only be able to give them a small amount of recovery. If the player implemented an element of strategy and initiated Dem recovery while their health was still relatively high the recovery effect would be greater.  I incentivized the use of “Protect Demorious” via calculating mathematical values that would necessitate a win condition using this tool at a capacity that fluctuated based on the strength of the boss as well as limiting the amount of strong attacks the player could use during a given fight. Additionally, to reinforce this  I  had the bosses do a certain percentage more damage to Demorious each turn than the player.  All in all, I am pleased with this design choice and anticipate revisiting and fleshing out this concept in another game. 
• Tweaks here and there include additional ink files, custom sound design ( on the way to the first battle, you will hear the Bewick’s Wren, Black Phoebe, Raven, and Crow that like to sing outside my window) (on the way to the second battle, I slowed and reverbed my window chimes), thorough way scenes betwixt battles, story inclusion of the Spear of Deliverance, cleaning up all rects and canvas hierarchies, and an ending cutscene which was a result of a mistake with mixing the old ending scene within the new system framework. I had realized this oversight a bit too late as the final congratulatory scene was relatively fine in the first game so I had left it to the very last minute when building out this game which was around 1-3 am into the aforementioned dev binger.  Realizing that a proper scene reconfiguration would cost an extra day and brain cells I didn’t have at the moment  I quickly pivoted to a design concept that went from having Chosen converse with a flock of NPCs that praised them post-battle and instead a picturesque view of the town and surrounding valleys with Chosen receiving letters of gratitude from throughout the land.  I do wish I could have fleshed out the cutscene a bit more and implemented any parts from the final scene I had worked on but lo and behold sometimes you have to know when to leave things be. 

*Things I’ll Carry*

This game taught me a lot about the importance of coming back to something you know you could improve on and going the lengths to make that happen. I enjoy combing over existing concepts and fleshing them out with detail.  Giving myself a deadline to improve that coincided with the same time as the sprint's original 4-week production taught me to realistically plan for the scope of improvements;  when to highlight something new or expound upon something that already exists as well as manage my time constructing those improvements wisely.  With reverence, I lay this game to rest from my soul and open it to be shared with others.  If you enjoy it or hate it  I am happy you take time out of your precious day to experience my game.

 From APassionateOde's heart to yours -  I sincerely thank you. 

I hope to see you in the future as my incoming games dangle on this season's horizons. 

All the sweet dreams, 

tracie