Cold System, Animations and New Region Work (Patreon)

Good afternoon,

Once again, another week is coming to an end, and I want to try to summarize what I have managed to accomplish over the past few days.

Starting with last Saturday, work on the cave maps ended up taking a bit more time than expected, so I spent the entire Saturday and a few hours of the following Monday on them. In the end there are now 4 caves, since I added an additional small one which I plan to use as a hidden refuge beneath Calan’s Rest (if you look at the reworked map from a few weeks ago, you will know where I intend to place it).

After that I began working on the cold system which I mentioned last Friday, and after some back and forth I settled on the following concept: every party member has their own cold tolerance value, which starts with a base value and is then modified by equipped armor.

With every step taken on the cold region map, this value decreases until it eventually reaches zero, at which point the character begins to freeze. For example: Tia has a base cold tolerance of 50. She wears a piece of armor that increases this value by 20, resulting in a total of 70. Each step applies 3 cold damage, reducing the value by 3 per step. Once the tolerance reaches 0, she starts freezing and receives a debuff indicating this. The same calculation runs simultaneously for all other party members. The idea is that caves provide shelter, allowing the player to warm up near fires and avoid the freezing debuff.

Of course I also had to think about how to visualize all of this, so it would be clear to the player when party members are freezing. At first I considered a thermometer-style display for each character with small markers and their respective face icons, but that quickly became too cluttered and would not have been easy to implement cleanly. Because of that I decided on the interface shown here. The way it works is as follows: the temperature bar of the party member with the lowest cold resistance is always displayed. Once it reaches 0, the number above it increases (in the example shown it is already at 1, meaning one party member is currently freezing), and the bar then switches to the next character's heat level who would freeze next (So if Tia had tollerance 70, and the MC has 90 the bar would now show his heat level), continuing until everyone is freezing. I hope this display is understandable. If anyone has suggestions for a more compact or clearer way to present this on screen, I am of course open to feedback. - The thing that makes this current interface a little confusing is that the value will jump a little when switching between partymembers when the lowest reaches 0... I might add the name of the currently displayed partymember to it to make it more clear.

After that I implemented a corresponding armor set that can be crafted using resources from the new area, and made additional adjustments to the maps so that everything is now enterable and connected in-game. In terms of difficulty, enemies in the new region will be level 60+, making them the strongest enemies currently in the game. Of course further balancing tests are still needed, including how quickly the cold value decreases. The goal is for it to feel fast without proper gear, but still give the player enough time to gather resources. to then improve. I will probably make the Orc armor set give some cold resistance, so that you won't have to go in "naked" in terms of resistance.

In addition, I worked on some of Tia’s older animations, specifically those in the hut shared by the MC and Tia. These animations are quite outdated, and since I plan to add new variants featuring a pregnant Tia later in this update, they needed to be updated. I included a before-and-after example so you can better see what I mean. I also worked on three additional animations as well as some transition images, although I am still far from finished.

Edit: after looking at the reworked image over and over again I've now decided to adjust the model slightly and rework the animation again. this brings the model closer to the original look.Aside from that, I also continued working on the story, although I did not get nearly as far as I had hoped. The other tasks simply took too much time.

Tomorrow I will continue reworking the animations and if time allows it, work on a new one. I also want to rewrite the sex event in the hut so that the player is not forced to choose a position at the beginning. Currently you have to select anal or normal at the start and can't switch in between. For that the entire code for the sex events inside the hut needs to be rewritten. We will see how far I can get with that today and tomorrow.

As already announced in previous weeks, I will not be working next week and will be taking a one-week vacation. To compensate for this, I worked on weekends beforehand, including tomorrow. As a result, there will be no weekly report next Friday, but I will be back the week after and continue where I leave off tomorrow evening.

Overall I am already very satisfied with the progress, and I hope to be able to finish the first part of the update shortly after my vacation. The goal is then to complete the animation reworks, test and balance the new area together with the cold mechanics, enemy difficulty, and new equipment, and progress the story to the point where Tia can become pregnant.

Part 2 will then focus on pregnancy and the corresponding content (animations and such), as well as an expansion in Rumah north to create space for children.Part 3 will ultimately cover the confrontation with Dasan and Bolgan, along with further reworks and animations.

That is the current state of things.I wish you all a nice weekend!