aura-dev

Liora's Price of Dignity Devlog 3 0.1.0-prerelease-1

Added 2025-04-04 23:15:29 +0000 UTC

To preface this post: I decided after all to already get a deployment going, so for those interested, there is a """"build"""" but obviously there isn't a lot in there. However, I wanted to make sure deployment works and my past experiences have shown that the sooner it gets set up with less other stuff interefering with it, the easier it is.

For now only for MEGA and also only on the deluxe tier so new people joining are less confused on the new files in the deployment folders.

NOTE: It's just a prototype build and not even the 0.1.0-prerelease-1 build. There will be absolutely no save compatibility and who knows what breaks. It's really just for those people who want to get a closer look on what I'm talking about in this devlog post

Okay, now let's get into this week's progress report!

First, before we move on to Liora's game, I worked on putting out the AuraMZ 1.1.0 release on Monday. In particular our mod loader and translation plugin are pretty reusable so I hope that for the devs in the audience there may be something nice to find in there. Of course, for Liora, there release was quite important as I based the project initialization off it. I also developed some additional helper code as I updated some of our code infrastructure so SKA might also profit from some of the improvements I have made (mostly just needing less code to accomplish some things).

Then, as for Liora, I have setup the project and begun to stub out various systems I described in the previous Devlog 2 post. I have also done some initial work to try and figure out at the least the pixel level character designs of our trio. If you play the prototype, don't be surprised at Liora and Rean literally being pixel chars in the menu while Edgar is using Arwin's graphics from the default RPGMaker resources. :'D

I still haven't quite figure out how i want him to look and my first attempt just ended up looking like fake-Arwin so I decided to just use his resource for now.

As for the core gameplay loop, I have implemented stubs for most of the important systems. Lets start with the main day time slot:

Dungeons have levels and enemies use the dungeon level as their base level
Observe the weekday name in the bottom right of the Main Menu. Since I want certain contract clauses to be limited by the day, having a week system will help with keeping track. The reason I mention this in the combat part however is because each day is coupled to an element.

Damage by said element on its associated day will be increased by 50%. Since Liora is expected a shorter game than SKA, this should get magic focused build online faster while further sharpening their identity - paricularly important since our heroine is a mage (I started her out with Charlotte's progression curve and her base skills).
You can go into the Forest dungeon and should you somehow (it's possible with a lot of RNG - obviously there is no point in doing balancing passes yet) kill the boss, enemies & harvestable resources will respawn and the area level will increase by 1.

Instead of Recall, you this time have the Retreat action. It allows you to return from the dungeon at any time at the cost of advancing the time-slot to Late Afternoon. This includes using it during battle so you can flee without using flash bombs. Since leaving a dungeon advances time, this still has its downside.
Like in Aura, characters will revive at 1 HP after battle. However, this time around getting KOed all the time will have consequences: Each time a character is KOed, they receive 1 rank in the passive skill Wounded. It works like Tired in SKA and reduces your Max HP by 25% per rank. At the end of the day, its rank is reduced by 1. So getting Wounded I isn't a big deal as it will simply disappear by the next day. This is particularly important when I get to Rean's special mechanics (his Disease).
Edgar will act autonomously. Most of the time he will simply guard. However, if he can land a finishing blow, he is highly likely to do so trying to steal your kill. Should he be the only remaining party member and unable to land a killing blow, he will retreat from battle. The reason that this is his standard behavior is the default Contract Clause that you will have from game start ---

--- Here you can see a stub implementation of a Contract Clause. As of now, I have only implemented the "KILL ENEMY" and "CLAIM LOOT" trigger so the only clauses supported by the system right now are variations with different characters. Next week I plan to expand on this. Also the clauses are currently static without the possibility of adding more, which is part of the Negotation system, the other system I plan to setup next week.

In order to keep track of contract triggers, I was thinking of showing popup messages likes this. I saw this in a Promise Best Left Unkept for the (narrative only) rule system they had and thought it was a nice touch. Not sure when it should trigger (right now it's shown on every kill, which might be a bit much.)

I hope that this "working together with the antagonist" aspect will create new and creative ways for playing withint he framework of an "Aura-like" game. Right now, to defeat the boss in the current build, you will for example have to rely on setting it up so Edgar can one-hit-kill the remaining health. To accomplish this, you can use Liora's unique skill Strategize - for a mage that can easily get Tactical Advantage with her spells, essentially a king-maker skill for supporting her physical oriented allies.

That's pretty much it for the current foundations of the game which I hope can tie in with the core Contract System. Whether it will be fun or not however of course remains to be seen. It's not exactly something I can find out on paper. :'D

Finally, in contrast to SKA you will notice that enemies give XP and also each drop a generic sellable item Magicule which only serves the purpose of being sellable for some gold (gold drops being an item makes it work with the starting contract clause). The reason being simply that there won't be such a focus on quest progression (again as the game is smaller) so we will be using the "normal" progression systems.

That being said, leveling and gathering the mini-drops will only be a minor way of advancing your characters - same as with SKA. The main progression systems come from the Late Afternoon time slot.

The usual candidates make their reappearance. A workshop where you can infuse materials, an alchemist where you can turn Pyroamantium into Bombs. However, while SKA focused primarily on Aura (and I guess some might argue the hidden true main character, her slime), Liora focuses on the trio.

Each of the characters can infuse materials to become stronger. For Rean, you need to give him a material and the gold (you basically share an inventory) and for Edgar - remember him claiming your loot if he last-hits? He also has his down dedicated inventory and will infuse items. He also has his own Gold stat and just like Rean by default spends his day training, raising his Max HP by 1 (you can join him in this activity to also gain the bonus), he spends his time-slot making money, which he can spend on infusion of materials.

I hope this can create a system where relying on Edgar will make him stronger and thus inreasing Liora's reliance on him and thus again needing to seek him out to help out more in battle in exchange for "something". :)

Finally, I have also setup a starting Disease for our boyfriend character. It interacts with the Wound system I mentioned earlier, making particularly weak for getting KOed.

Oh right, I think I didn't mention this: In contrast to SKA, when the party gets wiped it won't cause a day end. Instead of will trigger a forced Retreat, ending the dungeon crawling time slot. The Late Afternoon timeslot will remain available. While this kind of wipe isn't too big of a deal for our heroine and antagonist, our boyfriend will suffer quite a bit with his progression of the Wounded skill.

Reminder: Curing his Disease by hunting down its source is the main objective for Liora and Rean. Progression of the Disease, repeated need for Treatments (and Edgar offering to fund them) are my goals for dev week 3.

Next week the goal is to expand the stubbed contract system to the point that we can have a negotiation so that something like:

Gain clause "If LIORA is defeated, she shall wear COSTUME X on the next day"
in exchange for "On Turn 3, Edgar shall use Protect"

can be put into the Contract Clauses.

Aaand that's it----well, actually there is also a little bit of progress to report on the side of Star Knightess Aura. While not the focus of development this week, I have integrated the Charlotte character artwork. Only thing necessary for it to work is now to have our pixel artist create fitting pixel art clothing parts.

Besides that, our pixel artist has worked on some minor details to make the world of SKA just a little bit more alive.

Mining

Clapping

We are still in the process of figuring out how to best integrate more complex pixel animations within RPGMakers famework (which is primarily designed for 3-frame stepping animations) and our pixel artist is generally still learning the ropes for RPGMaker, but we are getting there. If you have any cool (and concrete!) wishes and ideas on NPC activity being animated, feel free to drop them in the Discord's #feedback channel.