Progress Update #4

Hi again! I hope everyone had a great holiday season.

It's been another four months since the last progress update, and I have some exciting news to share. As of this year, I've begun to work on Surface Level on a self-imposed schedule. This workflow has proven to be healthy and efficient for me in the past, so here's hoping I can hone it in and inch my way towards that finish line 🪱.

As for what's changed since last time? A few things, but nothing huge. I wanted to push the changes I'd made since August before truly getting the ball rolling. Here are some highlights:

• A game over screen with the ability to instantly retry encounters upon failure.
• Started working on encounters that let players make up for any losses they faced during the prologue. Bentley's is implemented; Piper's is next.
• Damage numbers! Whenever an ally or enemy takes damage or heals, there's a color-coded number to indicate the amount. The overall readability this brings to the game's combat cannot be overstated. No wonder so many games have this feature!
• "Locked" and "stacked" intents. These are barely implemented within the current content, so I won't get into how they work, but there's great potential here for future enemy designs.
• Multiple design changes that intend to reduce annoyances or confusion regarding specific combats.
• A cute visual for when Hayes' relationships deepen.
• An uncountable number of bug fixes (haha).

Oh, did I say "changes I'd made since August?" I meant "changes I made since late December." Everything listed above was from the past two weeks. That's the power of the self-imposed schedule!

See you VERY soon,
Cadence