Lamia redesign + Devlog #107 + Monstergirl poll #34 is on! (Patreon)

EDIT: The ranks have been uploaded! You'll find them below ^^

Lamia! With her updated design! She now has a full sprite to match her chibi sprites ^^

Doesn't she look amazing?! She's so much more fun and dynamiclooking! She was drawn by The Helmet Guy, and he did an excellent job with her ^^

I was pretty dissatisfied with her old sprite, there were a lot of elements that bothered me... This new one is a massive upgrade in comparison!

Do you notice something different? Her box has been removed! In the final game, only Fig, the Lamia who joins your party, will have the box. Random encounter Lamias will not! Of course, you'll be able to give Fig the boxless version as an alt costume, if you so wish.

Here are links to Helm's Twitter. Please follow him if you'd like ^^
https://twitter.com/thehelmet_guy (+18)

Helm is also on Patreon! If you enjoy his work, please consider supporting him!
https://www.patreon.com/thehelmet_guy (+18)

Here are all the monstergirl ranks:

Rank 1

Rank 2

Rank 3

Rank 4

Rank 5

I've been working on fixing many, many small issues for the newest build! In particular, I fixed a bug that caused some paths to close back up after being opened. That was one of the biggest bugs left in the game, and fixing it led to some very nice improvements of the exploration system ^^
On top of that, a lot of the Almanach has been overhauled! And so did the Spellcard. And so did the Alchemy UI! And more ^^

Another great change is that you can now pause the game during special sequences.
The changes and fixes are way too numerous for me to go over every single one in details, so here is a big old list of what's changed in the latest build:

Untraversable path in Auria > fixed

Multistates don't update correctly, causing one way paths in certain rooms (leaving and re-entering the area/floor fixes this) > fixed

Open rock doors in Sablee have small artifacts near the sand > fixed

Emotion objects are now destroyed post cutscene

Emotion objects are now destroyed at the start of the teleportation transition

area picture now updates post cutscene instantly (though I doubt anyone noticed the delay)

Synced Eveii and Vestia's fall animation timing

Swapped Vestia and Eveii's positions in the party

Vestia has a new falling sprite when Eveii is out of the party

Map icon disappears if a fight appear in the same room > fixed

Kururin puzzles laser speed slightly increased

One kururin puzzle has been remade

improved area array saved variables to keep cutscene floor numbered at 1000+ but not need a 1000+ long array. Not gonna get into this, but basically optimization!

way for to hide and unlock map and treasure percentage. They'll unlockable somehow in the final game, but I left them as visible by default for the demo.

fixed a crash that would occur when missing party members the first time you see a night sphere blockades (Which can only happen through debug mode I believe, but would have caused similar issues down the line)

Show text on mouse position when clicking on the night sphere blockades 
When going back up after seeing the first night sphere blockades, the party now walks in the middle of the room instead of on the night sphere. Once the sphere is destroyed, the party will then walk to the default placement instead of in the middle of the room! Wow! Believe it or not, some of the core exploration system had to be updated for that. Good stuff though, as it lead to a bunch of stuff I'll be able to reuse easily later. Prevented a bunch of future issues basically!

cutscene 8 > Klehss speech bubble teleports to the top left when she dies > fixed

cutscene 10 > Map menu background will be incorrect after this cutscene (bug won't trigger through debug mode, the cutscene must trigger through Vuu's amplification) > fixed

Info sign harvestable added

Info sign special blocks added

Fixed part of the wall appearing in front of the light in Biscotti's storage room

added a move & zoom function for character portraits in inventory & character select & rank up. Right click to grab the portrait, mouse wheel to zoom/unzoom while grabbed. You'll finally be able to see the full art in game!

Updated the cursor animation in various menus so it animates the same way it does in the overworld

Fixed Almanach's recorded monster drops

Fixed Almanach's Shape names

Fixed Almanach's Shape sprites

As far as I can tell, the Almanach is now fixed!

The map icon in Biscotti's windmill now updates when relevant

Made myself a cool little tool to easily write in Trefei (the BEW runes), and export these sentences as sprites that I can easily apply to anything. Like Alma's pages!

Improved Almanach bestiary page

Added a number defeated count for each monster in the Almanach

Improved Almanach item page

Improved Almanach recipe page

Implemented Almanach changes on various page objects, such as the page that pops up through bookmarks

pre fight monster info is now only available only if Alma is unlocked

Improved Alchemy UI

Replaced the wall graphic in Shop & Storage & Map menus by neat slick fashionable triangles

Improved inventory / shop / storage item description systems

Reworked and improved some very old code that didn't really make sense. No visible effect from the player side, but now it's not stupid anymore.

Made the "Are sure sure you want to close the game" menu have an unlocked mouse

The tutorial can now be skipped at any time by pressing Enter

The Fei symbol in fei shards in the ocean are now a lighter color and easier to see

You can now pause the game during special gameplay sequences!

Angel related particle speed has been lowered (leftover from the 45 FPS cap)

Night sphere blockade graphical improvements

Reworked the Spellcard and added Fei symbols (might come back to this one last time eventually)

Random NPC custom spawn coordinates in some rooms have been implemented

Updated a few rooms' ability to spawn random fights
Random NPC now have a water surface near their feet in submerged parts of the Biscotti tunnels

Multiple directional buttons cannot be readied at the same time by using the keyboard in double click movement mode anymore

The game now automatically positions chibis correctly in the party post cutscene/party update (so the characters stand in a line)

The game now automatically positions the party correctly after all transitions (the party needs to be offset in some rooms, such as inside Biscotti houses, but only the normal walking transitions would take that into account before)

Small improvement to the save system. There were some issues with a few objects not being saved correctly in the past which were then fixed, and it should now be technically impossible for such issues to arise again in the future.

Fixed an issue with the fall (post gameover) transition where objects from the previous room would stay loaded

Flower hairpin sprite has been updated

Night cloth sprite has been updated

Night armband sprite has been updated

Added a sound on random NPC spawn

Random NPCs are now called "Travelers"

A Traveler info sign has been added

Rank 6 is now mentioned in the dev talk sign

Added a small build version watermark in the bottom right

So yeah, a bunch of stuff! I'm getting really close to being done fixing bugs, meaning I'll switch to adding content somewhat soon. My next step will be to improve the save system and the BGM system as they both present some issues currently. The saves will finally be transferrable from one pc to another once I'm done with this!

All of this was done in the first 15 days of the month. The rest of it was spent designing 4 new monstergirls, writing ref docs for each and guidelines for artists. I learned a lot this month when it comes to properly directing artworks, and that whole process is only getting cleaner and cleaner! I'm very excited to share the results once either I or others draw these newly designed characters! Designing can be painful at times, but it's incredibly satisfying when it all comes together ^^
I don't know at what rate yet, but the character reveal speed will slowly and surely increase from now on. I'm still planning on contacting more artists, and I want to design at least 2 new characters per month going forward! I'll finally be able to catch up with the monstergirl polls, but I did want to take care of the redesigns first. The next reveal will be Cerelea's new design, and then something new!

So yeah, a whole lot is happening, and I've been busy to say the least. I'll also need to start asking kulor, Thiel and AM4N for new tracks and SFX soon... Lots to think about ^^

Finally, the Monstergirl poll stuff!

The next monstergirl poll has begun! You can now vote for the monstergirl you want to be included in BE Witches in the Discord server if you are a 2$+ patron!

The poll will be active until the 12th of this month. After this, you will be able to change your submitted modifier until the 15th. Finally, the two rounds of the modifier poll will take one week each afterwards.

Monstergirl poll rules

Poll submissions

Also, now is a good time to submit a monstergirl and/or modifiers if you haven't already as a patron! If you can't think of anything to submit, here is a list of ideas you can choose from. You'll need to join the server to submit anything!

And that's all I got for now!

Thank you very much for your support ^^