Shards of Suravani Devlog #1

I have sort of picked a name now, so anyone that follows this may have noticed it's not called "Ogre Battler" anymore. As nice as it was to get views based on that name, it's going to be pretty misleading now that I'm changing focus.

With the last update, I'm basically doing a pivot into a more traditional turn-based RPG. I had a pretty long hiatus between my last two updates,  and I didn't even find my own game fun, so how would I expect other people to? What I'm doing now is more what I like to do. A strategy game is really hard for a solo dev, especially a noob like me.

The content in scenarios 1-3 will probably be deprecated, but I still intend to have the tactics minigame as a sort of "War Battle" section of the game. My original inspiration was Suikoden II, and the Ogre Battle style combat was a way around the little battle sequences in Suikoden II's Major Battles. But, I kept expanding it, and considered making it its own game, but ultimately I'm not interested in playing a game like that.

Since my last update, I have been expanding the Regular Battles, adding more options, monsters, types of attacks, UI elements, as well as making encounters something you can avoid; enemies will be on screen and will run at you to engage a battle. I'm also making an entirely new party menu, based on elements from Breath of Fire 4 and Sea of Stars. Since so much of what I have done has been game mechanics, I don't really have any new 'content'. I was thinking of making a sort of partial release where I'll throw out a test dungeon, maybe sometime next month?

While all my art is proper (except that pic in the title screen), I'm still using a lot of audio assets from other games, and as I keep adding more and more, it is getting to be a problem. I'm only showing stuff off in small groups because of that. But, it's hard to find sound effects that as as good as Chrono Trigger, that fit the aesthetic of a retro-style RPG.

Anyway I'm not sure who is gonna read this but if you've tried the game out, thanks. Game design-wise, it's starting to come together, and I could still use new ideas.