This week’s update to the game has focused on changing the core gameplay, so there’s less focus on the story right now. As a disclaimer, I haven’t shared or built a playable version of the game, so this is mostly the list of things going on behind the scenes during development.

What does this mean for Infidemia?

–> Core story aspects will mostly be the same. Some events, like the tutorial, will be modified, in order to account for new features.

–> Unused gameplay features will be properly removed from the demo. Cleaning up the game files has been a goal with this week’s update, though this also means backing up unused events and removing them from gameplay if those won’t be used.

–> The time system has stayed the same, though now there are actions that allow you to “spend time”, using up the in-game time. Having the player wait 25 minutes for the next day didn’t work well in playtesting, so now it’s possible to go through an entire day, while doing things.

–> Added new shortcuts, optional to use in battle, but can still select actions using less inputs than menu navigation. This includes a pop-up menu that has selectable actions for keyboard, mouse, and controller input.

–> Fixed some dialogue stuff.

–>Planning to add the victory music back to the game, though now it will play regardless of how you finish a battle.

–> The gameplay progression system works differently now; this is to help address too much filler dialogue from taking up gameplay (depending on how this works, I might change it)

–> Fixed some bugs (trying to load a track that wasn’t included in the game to add it to the music player)

That’s all for this week’s development update. Adjusting the core gameplay will probably be the focus until the game has been playtested enough to ensure everything’s working, though nothing here should be guaranteed to be in the final game, either. Any of this is subject to change. Thanks for checking out this update.

-ZoruaAl

Today I have some more news about Infidemia, though, there are some things that should be mentioned first, as this was probably unclear earlier.

As you might know, this is the Capsule Dragons website, where I try to focus on blogging about the games I’m working on.

I used to post some Scratch games I worked on here as well, though check back on the “About” page and go see my Scratch profile if you’re interested in that. The reason I don’t talk about that often here is because I don’t want to associate an external website (this one) with my account anymore and I can be contacted directly about anything Scratch-related there, and it’s easier for me to work on Scratch-related stuff there.

So, Capsule Dragons will mostly cover Infidemia now.

However, unlike the games I made called “Capsule Dragons” (series), Infidemia may not be suitable for all age audiences, and I’m still working on figuring out a content rating.

For now, please know that the dialogue in Infidemia may contain implied actions of violent or romantic things, (subject to change though) and that it may not be suitable to a kid-friendly audience, so if you’re a kid, I’d suggest playing a different game or reading about a different game instead. Most of my Scratch projects should be appropriate to all ages, though some of the content on this website has been more serious before, which is why I stopped linking it to my Scratch account (you can find that information on the About page of Capsule Dragons) so please take this into consideration.

Additionally, these development updates are not meant to be advertising Infidemia (it isn’t available yet, either) and are instead written as informative things of what I’ve been doing so far.

What have I been working on in the game?

–> Story: First few days should be mostly playable, though for this update, added another day that I didn’t playtest yet though it’s kind of functional. Doing story things (sorry, won’t give specifics on the plot details. Some things have changed, though).

–> Gameplay: The battle system is still a bit tricky (not very user-friendly) though I am trying to make it easier to use. Additionally, balance changes are required. (not much playtesting this week – only playtesting story battles and debugging stuff)

–> Mechanics: New concepts introduced in the story, trying to limit the feature scope (in both story and gameplay). I’ll likely stop the mechanics with what I have currently been able to do without delaying development too much. One battle mechanic (the “Wager” system) still needs to be fixed, though in general, battles are functional.

–> Revisions: Ended up writing the intro of a completed story dialogue sequence, then decided to redo it. I’ll keep revisions for later, once I have enough playable content, though I would really like to keep things functional, even if that means there’s a lot to fix right now.

–> Music and Drawings: Not much to write here. Experimenting with some random stuff in a complete side project that’s unrelated to Infidemia, so I can practice arrangement techniques (not sure what the official term is) without focusing on working on this game first.

That’s it for this update.

Thanks for reading,

-ZoruaAl

Another week of working on the game, so here’s what I’ve added:

• Boss mechanics
  To put this another way, specific actions and events that happen per boss fight, making these fights more unique but also focused on a primary mechanic
• Wager abilities
  New ways to talk your way out of battle have been added, a new ability that I won’t talk about right now though required quite a bit of eventing to do is working
• Tutorials
  Images have been added to mostly every tutorial by now… …This is to make using the menu more clear, and to help me use it as reference when explaining things through text only.
• Story
  The introduction is going along and I already decided to change the plot up. Starting over the intro a lot gives me a better idea on how the game world really works, so I hope this keeps players interested.
• Temporary content rating
  This game may not be suitable for children to play, not sure about recommended ages/content ratings specifically, adding a disclaimer in case.
• Map design
  The tutorial area, a few new optional areas, a shop, and the first café for the game, have all been added. Editing some events in a dungeon I made before to use it as part of gameplay in another area, so the player still ends up doing the puzzles there and such. I’ve added a reset button to one puzzle so far though I should probably do that for more…
• Puzzles
  A lot of the game is top-down, 2D, left/right and up/down, so I’ve been adding (more) puzzles to the game. Kind of like another fun thing to do in dungeons instead of constant battles, though I have been trying to update the battle system.
• Characters
  Introduced someone, have an optional introduction as well as other characters you may be able to meet earlier than usual. This includes characters who are part of the core story…
  …Still using friendship levels in the game though haven’t found many places to add them yet. Most actions from the introduction may look inconsequential.
• Skippable tutorials
  Want to learn how to play on your own? Following another guide? Already know how to play? Regardless of how long a tutorial is, I’ve noticed these can be a bit too long to have to go through and playtest multiple times, so I added an option to skip tutorials, though this should be usable by the player (especially if you get a game over in the tutorial area).
• New dialogue/script
  I don’t usually keep the content that was written as part of the earlier script, though anything that’s part of the original script and left in the game now has been modified to work with any characters currently in your party, hopefully slightly shorter to go through, and partially consistent with the story.
• Story inconsistencies
  This is part of the gameplay.
• Intentional weird stuff
  You may not want to report bugs/glitches for this game, since anything that happens should be normal. In the case of glitches going on there are some ways that I’ve added events in-game to account for this (how’d you get [item] so early?).
• Useful stuff
  Selecting different options when given multiple choices about something when you’re supposed to read each choice no longer forces you to exit out of the event. This makes more sense while playing, but, let’s say you’re asked to review the instructions for a mechanical device, and there are separate categories of instructions, but after viewing one, you have to restart that event to get to the next event, making it take longer…
  …In summary, trying to fix these kinds of things.
  However, boss encounters and random boss encounters have not offered the player many options to redo the fight and will usually result in a game over.
  I intend to add more save points than usual to account for that, though these save points will be in areas where you’re not forced to start the battle.
  You can save anywhere in the game, though this creates some issues:
  –> Glitch potential
  You can go inside of puzzle obstacles that move.
  –> Battle encounters…
  You might end up fighting enemies multiple times (though there should be a cooldown on after an enemy was defeated, because enemies walk around the map, usually)
  –> Right before a boss fight
  You might have to go through the whole boss fight or get a game over in it in order to change your save point. While you wouldn’t be restarting from your last save, it would still take a while.
  –> Multiple save files
  If you want to experiment with your choices in the game, this is a good way to do it, though it may make gameplay more confusing. Maybe this isn’t an issue, but an opportunity for the player to explore the game more?
  –> Saving inside of story events
  Regardless of your choices in the game, there are some story events that require the player to go through the whole thing before doing different things. While you could hypothetically leave those areas and come back to them, it’s usually better to do one of these events all the way through first, but if you’d like to record your progress while in the event, this may work better (as you can save anywhere).
  Unlike saving anywhere, the player doesn’t restore health and other resources by saving. More updates on healing and reviving characters will be added later.

Anyway, that’s it for this development update. I tried a list format instead of using an introduction paragraph, so I hope that’s a quick read.

Thanks for reading this update.

-ZoruaAl

This week, or, this past week, I’ve been updating Infidemia’s introduction, again, as I’ve noticed this is a challenging part for me to plan out without having a clear path on knowing what I’m doing with the game.

I decided to change the second boss to be the first boss the player fights as part of the introduction, and to give tutorials immediately upon starting up a new game. There are some tutorials that will get annoying if you forgot to save at the beginning and you happen to start over, so I decided adding an option to skip the lengthier tutorials would be useful.

Additionally, thanks to a plugin I’m using (will update on which one it is by listing the credits for the game, though it’s not done yet and I may end up changing what resources I use. So, credits are to be decided for now, as this project is in its prototyping phase, still, though I’ve ended up using roughly the same resources and adding more), there’s an option to re-read dialogue, which may come in handy if you’re confused about what happened.

I’ve been focusing on getting gameplay working (Yes, the chat command finally works – wagers are being implemented, but I still have to finish working on the unlocking hearts mechanic) while doing some more of the game’s story (I’m not very good at writing, as you might be able to tell by reading this blog, so Infidemia’s script may be painful to read) and focusing on keeping things consistent.

The original introduction had the player moving around a lot more, which I thought was useful to show off the various areas that you can go to from the starting area, though this ends up being confusing if I’m trying to remember the last thing that happened in the story. I might add a “the story so far…” message that you can read if you want to, as I’ve played a few RPGs, and sometimes when going to play another game and then forgetting what I was doing in one that I started makes things a bit confusing for me to not really understand the story or what I was supposed to be doing. The intro is mostly “go to the next place you see” though I may have added an optional boss fight and optional event…

…Anyway, other things like music for the game and drawing enemies and bosses hasn’t really been a priority. I’ve been trying to come up with a new main battle theme, but I can’t think of anything that matches the style that I’m going for (as I don’t try new styles often) so I might end up using an earlier version of it. I was going to get around to drawing sprites for enemies though this is probably my lowest priority right now.

Here’s a list of what’s completed so far:

• Introduction: How to move, interact, use the menu, save the game, use the first few main battle commands
• Story: Explains that the player’s not given many details to start with (no spoilers)
• Gameplay: One new type of puzzle room has been added, used for the intro, wagers finally work (barely), and balanced the first boss fight. May need more balancing.
• Music: Experimenting with making a track for the intro area, the first city area, and the tutorial battle theme.
• Concept art: Planning to draw various enemies and the first boss, though haven’t started.

This game has been really fun to work on, though it’s also a bit tricky to try and get everything to a point where I’m happy with it.

Since a lot of this game does not make any sense out of context, I’ve been trying to focus on not giving away too many screenshots or gameplay of Infidemia, though that’s mostly my excuse…

I’ve been planning to get a demo ready, but I always feel really cringy about it because I’m concerned that people are going to dislike the game and it’s… a bad game… …though now that I’ve kind of accepted that Infidemia’s introduction was badly made, I’ve been using the game’s script to make fun of myself and poke fun at how ridiculous some things are in the game (because really).

A lot of the game feels embarassing to talk about because the basis for the game world was based on fourteen dreams I had telling one story, and that one story was pretty weird. A lot of it only makes sense in my head, so I had to give more context in Infidemia, and make sure to reorder events chronologically, as the structure of the game relies on telling the story in consistent time. There are some minor details like being able to tell what day of the week it is, so I hope players will notice the extra things like this.

The game itself isn’t based on those dreams to be exactly as I remember things being, though some of the dream sequences present in the game’s story may take a more literal approach of being based on that…

…Regardless, these details aren’t that important to know while you’re playing the game, though thanks for reading this anyway, since I’ve talked a lot about the game, revised the intro at least five times, and haven’t really shown any playable content yet. In summary, thanks for showing your interest.

Oh, yeah, the battle UI (user interface) still needs to be reworked. Just remembered that, since I have some plans to draw out some more windows and customize things.

I haven’t worked out things like what platforms the demo will be on, what user input devices will work (hopefully anything USB-compatible, though it’s going to take some work to get that ready) and what the content rating is.

Important Notice: No demo has been made officially available, published, or distributed. There’s not even an executable file for it. I’m adding this disclaimer because I have not actually made the demo yet. I’m working on it, but it’s not 100% ready.

And about the game not being 100% ready – it would be better for me to release a demo with what I have so far and getting players’ comments before revising it, but, I’d like to get a fully playable demo first before I decide feedback is important. Yes, there are tons of things that need fixing, and I am willing to listen to feedback, as long as it’s honest and hopefully (doesn’t have to be) specific. However, the game has many points where I didn’t use eventing properly (resulting in a character staring at a wall and freezing the game, or a character walking partially and then getting stuck because a non playable character has a pattern in which they walk around, and that pattern disrupts an event, freezing the game because I didn’t add an option to account for that, or maybe a battle’s about to start but it’s using the wrong battle theme file because I changed files around) and this is the least organized game I have made, despite having options for backup folders and source control, I have not used these options and have not used them efficiently.

Still, I’m focusing on making the story more consistent for now so I can add new story content without having to replay what I have so far (I try to limit my time playtesting to as short as possible, often adding in-game cheats or debug options to do this, but, playtesting with normal options and just going through the game each time is pretty useful in my opinion. I’ve been able to use a debug room, test individual battles, and stuff like that, though testing story events usually takes a little bit longer).

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope that this was interesting.

-ZoruaAl