Advent Roundup: September 2024

Hello everyone! Doug here - I can't believe spooky season is nearly upon us! It's been a little while since our last blog post going over our time showing off Advent at the Indy Game Fest in Baltimore, so we thought it would be fun to share some of the many updates to the game we've made over the summer months! Rather than a deep dive into any specific aspect of the game, we’re taking this opportunity to give a quick and rapid-fire look at lots of exciting updates! These updates are a healthy mix of core game items and a number of quality-of-life improvements for making our demo build (and beyond) easier for players to sink their teeth into. Let's get started!

1. Anteprologue

*The Archreaper Cyrus resides in the Obsidian Sanctum, deep beneath the Phaetaean surface.*

Who doesn't have a core memory or three of loading up a game for the first time and being instantly drawn into the world and lore with the opening scene? We have added our own opening cutscene, a Visual Novel segment where the audience gets to see the Reaper Elira first summoned to world of Phaetaea alongside Yumeru and the mysterious Archreaper, Cyrus. Once the cutscene finishes, we even have a fancy title reveal as the cherry on top!

2. Special Action (SP) System

*Elira gets a free tip for beating the boss in Chapter 1R.*

Up until a very recent iteration, characters had three possible options in their Action Menu - (Normal) Attack, Wait, or Cancel. We have now implemented one of our key engines to Advent, the Special Action - or SP - System. When a Player Unit initiates a "Normal" Attack, they'll earn a Special Action Point (SP). This SP is a shared pool amongst all Player Units, which they can "spend" in the form of Special Actions. The implementation of this system still has a number of refinements to go through, but we’re proud that it’s finally made its way into the game and widens the strategy options players can utilize!

3. Ranged Attacks

*Darius with the unlocked "Throw" Ranged Attack in his Action Menu*

A staple of tactics games, Advent now also features Ranged Attacks, where a Unit can attack an opposing Unit from a non-adjacent map tile. In the current build, only Darius can leverage this with his "Throw" Special Action, where he hurls his trusty spear at an enemy from two tiles away (don't worry - the spear has a strong sense of home, and returns to Darius of its own accord without needing to be retrieved). Although Darius is the sole lucky unit to take advantage of this at the moment, our next level will let players control the Angelic Archer Nathaniel, who uses a Ranged Normal Attack with his bow!

*The Bandit cannot counterattack the Ranged Attack from Darius!*

4. Attack Quantity Indicator

*A breakdown of the current Attack Quantity Indicators.*

In our previous iterations, as an example, if Elira got to attack in a single combat for seven damage across two individual attacks, we displayed that damage as "14" in the combat forecast. We rightly received feedback that this needed to be more clearly communicated as multiple attacks, as each individual attack has a chance for a critical hit (or even a miss). Now, we display an "x2" attack quantity for multi-attack actions. Additionally, when a Special Action is used which is restricted to a single attack (even when the character would normally be able to attack multiple times in combat), we further try to communicate that restriction by displaying an "x1" with a lock icon.

5. Differing Terrain Displayed in Combat

*Elira is on a "Tree" tile, while the Bandit is on a "Plains" Tile.*

Until a very recent iteration, in the "Combat Stage" where our combat animations unfold for the player, the Player Unit and Enemy Unit were always displayed standing on a visually uniform piece of terrain, regardless of the Unit's individual Terrain Tile on the battle map. However, different terrain can produce different effects, such as the small Defense and Evasion boost provided by the "Tree" tiles in the Prologue Level. We now further convey that during combat by splitting the terrain display per-Unit.

6. System Tutorial Dialogue

*Our quick-and-dirty solution to tell Player's what's what!*

It has long been on our to-do list to get some proper tutorial screens in the game (we even commissioned some awesome chiptune music to give players a retro bop while they absorb some of the game's finer points) - but that hasn't quite manifested yet. In the interim, and especially to help players while we demo the game at public events, we've introduced some dialogue messages to provide quick, summarized text about game features.

7. “Thanks for Playing” Screen

I briefly touched on this in the last blog, but introduced for our last show was a "Thanks for Playing" screen. This avoided the previous awkward scenarios where the game would either 1) instantly return to the title screen upon completion of the demo, or 2) return control to the player in a nonfunctional, cleared level. This provides players with some closure to the demo experience and provides them with the small reward of some additional Elira artwork!

…what, you thought I was going to put an image of that screen here? No way - you have to beat the demo and earn it!

As you can imagine, there are quite a few other improvements made and bugs squashed behind the scenes, but we hope you enjoyed this rundown of a number of the player-facing ones!

What's Next: RetroGameCon

In less than two weeks, the latest and greatest Advent of the Reaper demo will be available to play at RetroGameCon from October 11th-13th in Syracuse, New York! We can't wait to introduce Advent to more prospective players, and as usual, you can expect a recap of the event in a future blog! Until next time!