ORKASTLE BATTLE DEMO 01 (Patreon)

Okay, so just to be immediately clear,

I unironically don't recommend playing this build.

(;´∀｀).

Next update will be much better, especially because finishing/fixing up sound effects is a major priority.

I'm going to be taking a much needed week off of working.

This past year has been a first for me in terms of day in day out work. I'm used to day in day out effort, but in the past, a lot of that was practice, not performance. Performance has some things that make it less taxing than practice, but it's also easier to work beyond your limits.

I've been putting this break off for a while, and now is perfect timing, because when I come back, we're going to go into high gear with the campaign. I'll be putting up a Steam page and the story demo will be done very shortly.

However, I will be using this time to catch up on making a lot of Ota Clinics and progress on the next Ota Regimen.

I wanted to upload this build because it's there and it feels like a waste to have it just rotting on my computer while the more hardcore Orkastle enjoyers could be trying it out.

First thing to note before anything else is that the goal of battle demos will always be to show off the game in a more complex context. When it comes to playing the game for the story, everything will be introduced gradually and discussed by party members as it shows up.

My biggest concern right now is general game feel before fine balance. I just want to make sure it feels as engaging as possible from an abstract sense, like the combat is an actual fight between magicians, not an overly abstract clash of symbols and data.

If you are hyped enough to play this one instead of the next update, feel free to let me know anything that crosses your mind, even if it's balance-related. I don't mind getting feedback about things I already plan to change or improve.

All that said, I'm extremely happy with how things are. The project in every aspect has been coming out exactly as I envisioned, which is a very weird feeling. My first attempt at a major game project 6 years ago was nothing like this. It was always compromise after compromise between vision and product.

Being able to see the final gameplay loop once the story demo gets close to done should feel incredible (that's not pressure to praise it (。-`ω-), just tell me exactly what you think, especially considering the currently janky state of this build).

There's all sort of little polish and additions needed, some obvious, some not so obvious. Gameover screen + transition is obviously a 0 effort placeholder. The enemy doesn't abide by mana rules. When you win or lose, you have to close the game and reopen if you want to play more. When your barrier breaks, it just switches to the next one without letting you select. The charge meter is completely unused at the moment for example, since that's going to be one of the last things I design for the game to make sure the balance is right.

I also made the Grim Reaper much easier to appear than he normally should, just because I know the chances of meeting him are nearly 0 against a CPU of this difficulty.

If Necromancer hits attacks with the scythe, the Reaper will likely appear only a few turns later. Substitutes (Reiya's Shield and Necromancer's Familiar) can be refreshed even when one is active. Necromancer can also refresh her Illusion/幻覚 spell while in it.

Next update will fix all these and many more, most work from here is trivial compared to what it took to get to this point.

By the way, Illusion does not expire with time. It weakens in efficiency each time the combatant in Illusion is attacked. 3 times, and it will disappear.

Speed in Orkastle in complex, so if you're having a hard time figuring out who is moving first and why, that's why. There are actually 2 speed stats, one for moves where the combatant has to move their actual body, and one for purely magical actions. This not only gives a lot more balance options than Pokemon, it also makes a lot more sense narratively and creates more drama.

I will add UI indicators for wait time per spell and which speed stat it uses to make this mechanic more transparent, but sadly, I didn't get to it yet.

I didn't bother implementing bleeding nor confusion nor spell/mana seal nor cracking, but you can inflict them and see their corresponding symbols.

Bleeding is ultimately just a "do more damage" effect (works just like poison in most RPGs, but the severity increases with how high the status effect number is). Confusion is part of the heart of Necromancer's design (and will be important for some monsters in the game), but I didn't finish implementing it yet for a multitude of reasons, one being I really need my week off NOW (；ﾟДﾟ), but another reason being that it will compound with Awe/畏怖 (Orkastle's paralysis), and I want to make sure that one feels okay first since it's such a notoriously annoying piece of Pokemon (but it adds important depth), so I want to make it feels good in Orkastle before any other status effect. I also want to give each character a very simple gesture animation that will double for both "took bleeding damage" and paraflinching. HP crack is a stall breaker (lowers enemy's maximum HP) and also pointless until the enemy is smart enough to stall you. And sealing is a "take away options" type thing, and if you play this build, I'd rather you easily try every option (also need my week off NOW (；ﾟДﾟ)).

Lastly, Necromancer is not supposed to be able to do anything from the shadow state except cursed moves or unshadow. It would be very broken otherwise, especially considering she attacks faster out of shadow (this is necessary so that she can't abuse slower attacks to avoid a 2nd attack while in shadow). Also, her Familiar/使い魔 doesn't attack from the player's side yet, sorry... He also doesn't attack when she uses non-attacking moves, which I'll be changing.

Almost forgot also!The final barrier after your 3 selectable barriers are destroyed is a special barrier.I will give it a different colored HP bar later.It is a special barrier that will be able to be equipped with any spells from any other barrier.

Other barriers will have customization but will be limited to a specific move pool.It just occurred to me the last barrier will feel like a bug at the moment.Also, sorry for no English ver yet (*´ω｀)

EDIT: Gonna fix a softlock real quick and reupload.

EDIT2: 1 Softlock is fixed (Necromancer using 闇の爆発 out of SHADOW state when moving after opponent), another one I'm having trouble reproducing, seems to be caused sometimes when Reiya strikes.

EDIT3: STRIKE softlock has been fixed. Shinigami now works properly from the player's side (will take you to victory screen). I also toned down the rate at which he appears. Some other improvements/fixes too.

I have a really good vision now for where to take things, what to improve, etc. thanks to feedback and playing myself.

Story demo will give a very different impression of battling due to starting in much simpler contexts, so I'll be thinking about that as well.

CONTROLS:

Z - confirm

X - cancel

Arrow Keys - select