Post Game-Jam Update - October 2021

Post-Game Jam Update, 22nd October 2021:

ESSENTIAL UPDATES:

-- Napping is now a safe activity—the screen fades back in whether you seek shuteye at Ramon’s or the other character’s crib!

-- Save crystal maintenance is complete—they’re back up and running!

-- Most importantly: Implemented new SFX for entering/exiting doors to avoid being forever haunted by the old default sound!

-- Convinced the Groovy Chicken to always be bustin' a move, using its face graphic, and wearing its groovy sunglasses!

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COMBAT-RELATED UPDATES:

-- Adjusted most skills, character stats, and enemy settings/formulas, with an emphasis on making weaknesses and shield breaks matter more

-- Spruced up animations and battle sounds

-- Extended status effect duration by 1 turn across the board to avoid immediate-recovery scenarios

-- Battle text: skill names are no longer cut in half!

-- Battle text: Changed “silenced” to “comfortably numb” when affected with the physical attack-sealing “Comfortably Numb” status effect

-- Battle text: status effects messages linger 3x longer, hopefully giving people time to read ‘em

-- Battle text: added a “WEAK” pop-up for when shield-breaking elemental hits. (Or, perhaps more accurately, a "VEAK" pop-up. I'll adjust it to include the other V eventually) 

-- Battle text: “boost” now reads as “attack” in description for the “Radical Cut” state

-- Fixed “Needle on the Record” skill from sabotaging own party to debuffing enemy party

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THE OLD ULTRAVIOLET-RELATED UPDATES

-- Second boss no longer repeats their entire shpiel if you re-approach them without having met certain criteria 

-- Fixed the checkpointing of teleporters when wanting to warp back into The Old Ultraviolet (so now you can teleport back to 3 different locations; also, the chicken now knows for sure if you’ve been to one teleporter and not the other)  

-- Added ability to teleport back to The Old Ultraviolet from the main street

-- Added more permanent stat-boost items as potential treasure chest loot

-- Added new treasure chest locations

-- Added more treasure variety (20% less chance of gold, 15% more chance of items, 5% more chance of equipment, approximately. (Very approximately...))

-- Pet Stone side quest implemented

-- Teleporting into The Old Ultraviolet now retains the zoomed-in camera setting that’s used when entering on foot

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CITY-RELATED & MISC. UPDATES:

-- Made a new apartment (Ramon's neighbor's place); hopefully every apartment now has its very own entrance and exit, with no unintended overlap

-- Added interior decorations, a little bit of dialogue stuff, and the occasional item/money event to liven up NPC houses

-- Some NPCs will now comment on the more or less specific locations of the 2 optional characters once you’ve been made aware of them in-game, so finding them won't be too much of a hassle

-- Improved signposting on how to get to The Old Ultraviolet: characters on the west side point you to it; sign on main street gives specific directions; disco lights have been added to the ground near it; the pavement from main street now leads straight to the Groovy Chicken + The Old Ultraviolet, with no grassy interruption in between

-- Renamed Center Street to Main Street

-- Corrected spacing on on-screen street/area names

-- Ramon’s apartment now has its proper name plate (as does his neighbor’s)!

-- Octavia’s brother no longer floats overhead when you talk to him in the pub

-- The woman in the pub is no longer off by 1 when she says she’ll give you 2 vouchers

-- If you haven’t recruited the first optional party member by the time you approach the second one, the former will no longer chime in

-- Whoever you haven’t recruited also won’t show up during the final & post-credit scene 

-- If you witnessed an exchange in which a tree hummed at you, that scene will now play to its intended conclusion (previously, having Halford recruited cut it off mid-way)

-- Direction fixed GB’s GF and the person sleeping on the grass

-- Fridge is no longer accidentally haunted during the post-credit scene (unless you’ve repeatedly bothered the fridge gods, in which case the hauntings will continue!)

-- Halford’s head no longer clips through Ramon’s couch!

-- Halford now has a reaction if you bring him back to his drum kit!

-- Added “got item!” sound to a couple of events

-- Removed pointless “formation” option from menu

-- More sounds

-- More trippy background images

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POTENTIAL UPDATES/CHANGES FOR THE FUTURE:

-- New, more readable font

-- Bigger disco (maybe multiple versions so it's not just the treasure chests and loot drops that change between runs)

-- More main story

-- More time/better characterization for the optional characters

-- More side quests

-- More skills

-- Encounters featuring 2+ enemies

-- Better combat balancing

-- Sideview battle system. Maybe. (Definitely won't be in the next update, unless the hyperfocus deities strike exactly the right note in my brain)

-- Item description for the gumball machine vouchers + an icon for when receiving one in the wild

-- Make the gumball machine not do the thing it sometimes does (against its creator's wishes!)