V0.02 Coming July 1! Changes to Patreon Reward Tiers!

Hey everyone!

It's time for a wall of text involving the next release, as well as info about changes to the Patreon reward tiers!  As I mentioned not long after the first release, the main focus of this coming release would be the continuation of adding game mechanics, nailing major bugs, improvement of the engine, and streamlining battle (primarily with the integration of a new battle interface dubbed the Tetra Interface).

Well, I've decided to make a change and put off the debut of the Tetra Interface until V0.03.  My reasoning is that it's such a large overhaul of the default RPG Maker interface that I don't want to rush it and not have time to thoroughly test it.  To make up for that however, I'm going to be adding a new H skill branch to Vorepups that will allow me to demonstrate how the new armor damage system will play a role in changing enemy behavior.  It will also give me a chance to integrate and finalize my design for enemy AI relating to the armor damage system, which knowing the limitations of will help a lot with designing H attacks for future enemies.  With that in mind, I'm hoping to finish up this release a bit ahead of schedule, and thus use the remaining time to get a head start on the core of the Tetra Interface.

This is by no means a final list, but here's a list of the new features that I currently have working for V0.02:

• Added 'Advanced Lust Sickness' status effect and related character portraits.
• Improved upon a lot of character portraits for 'Minor Lust Sickness' status effect.
• Added the 'Assist' battle pose and artwork for when a character attacks or uses a skill on her ally's H-attacker.
• Greatly reduced the memory required by the animated enemy sprites, meaning future sprites can be bigger and have more frames than anticipated (RPG Maker has a pretty low memory limit, and will become unstable and can crash when you approach it).
• Doubled the frames in Stigmata's animated sprite set.
• Added system for special effects which include enhanced shadows/lighting and additional cosmetic objects to the maps.
• Added capability to make above system toggle-able with the 'S' key while on the map.
• Developed a low cost processing method for adding certain animated tiles.
• No longer need to choose targets for skills/items affecting all enemies/allies or that have no option of who you can target (like skills that can only target the user).
• Added the 'Hold Breaker' skill. This skill becomes available for use when the character's ally is under the effect of an enemy hold. The skill damages the HP of her ally's attacker by base attack damage, and damages the enemy's Grasp (pink bar) proportional to her ally's Lust. The skill is more effective than the Struggle command, but has a high SP cost.
• Added the 'Strike' command (will be turned into a skill once the Tetra Interface is complete). This command is an alternative to Struggle. It instantly deals base HP attack damage to the user's H-attacker, as well as damage to the enemy's Grasp (pink bar) proportional to the user's Lust. It is more effective than Struggle, but has a high SP cost.
• Added engine capability to display skill availability in real time for skills having custom availability conditions (pretty much any condition involving the H system). 
• Added engine capability to have new skill and item scopes (logic to determine who a skill or item affects).

And here's a list of bug fixes I've made so far (some of these you'll recognize from the 'Known Issues' in the previous release, and some are new):

• Player/camera can no longer inadvertently move during cutscenes in which movement is meant to be restricted.
• Low memory PCs should no longer receive a 'Failed to load bitmap' error on start-up.
• Characters will no longer lose their turn when tutorials pop up in battle.
• Characters will no longer lose their turn when finishing moves occur in battle.
• Fixed the problem that caused text artifacts to occur where line breaks exist in the 'Help' window.
• Fixed goofy behavior for selecting a target for a skill/item in the menu.  Previously it would initially select whichever character you last used a skill/item on, no matter how long ago you did it (such as last play session).
• Fixed a problem with the dynamic portrait terrain background system (this won't be noticeable to players yet, but it was critical for being able to display different environment backgrounds on the character portraits in battle).
• Fixed a typo in the item name for the 'Access Card' item
• All of the Vorepup enemy encounters during the sequence in Old Town South should now be Vorepups, and not Splicers.
• Malise's portrait should no longer improperly appear in both character slots in the save menu.
• Fixed a problem where characters weren't getting revived after battle if the player escaped while one character was KO'd.
• The scrolling battle tutorial messages that begin displaying after the first battle will no longer stick to the side of the screen if you leave the map before they finish.
• Improved character mobility in Old Town Waypoint / Old Town South by removing directional restrictions on curb tiles.  The original purpose of this had to do with the old (pre V0.01) character sprites looking ridiculous as they walked along the curb.  This isn't the case with the new ones.
• Fixed the infamous bug that would cause a crash if you walked up to a specific laser gate before a certain switch was thrown in Old Town South.

As mentioned above, there's still a list of features I'm planning to add before the release, but I don't want to get ahead of myself.  I do however want to talk about changes I'm making to the Patreon reward tiers!

There's some good news and some bad news.  I'll get the bad news out of the way first.  Basically, I underestimated the cost and time required for everything concerning the artwork prints last release.  I apologize for this.  For this release and from here on out, I'll be having the prints drop shipped directly from the printing service.  While I'm not aware of any issues concerning patrons receiving damaged prints from last release, the printing service will be able to package them in flat boxes as opposed to rolls (I had to reorder a few prints due to damaging them while rolling them) and will be able to get them to you much faster.  The downside is it's approximately an extra $5 per print to do this, so unfortunately I'm making the call to raise the base artwork print tier to $40.  I am also going to add tiers that are exclusively for international shipping because there was a lot of confusion over getting extra money to me to cover international shipping last release.

Now for better news!  I've succeeded in getting hold of a print service that will do all out NSFW prints (not just nude), so you can hopefully expect some more intense designs for future prints.  In addition, I am adding a new reward for those wanting to go all in.  The 'Inner Circle' reward tier will begin at $45, and will allow you to receive test builds of the game *between releases*.  Basically, every time I reach a point where I have a semi-stable build I'll share it with those who have pledged at this tier via my Google Drive.  This will give you the first opportunity to offer feedback and also help me firsthand with testing.  Beyond that, I'll be sharing artwork as I finish it, along with concepts and drafts of works in progress that you won't see anywhere else.  Lastly, I'm changing the $3 tier to $1, because now that I understand how Patreon works I realize it's pretty pointless to require $3 just to see the activity feed.

So yeah, sorry for the text avalanche, but I wanted to give you a thorough update on progress as well as a heads up to the changes being made.  You can check out the newly updated front page of the Patreon for more info: http://patreon.com/eromancer!