Orkastle Update 03 - Tachie, Animations, Chapter 1 Plans, etc.

So what I said last update about dropping updates more frequently, imagine I'm saying that for the first time now (*´ω｀)

There's a poke/devlog in the works right now, it's not my sole focus since I'm jumping to little bits of art that still need to be done and writing daily now, so this update will just mostly talk about what I won't talk about/show in that video.

The goal is to get out Chapter 1 before the end of the year. At our current rate, it's definitely possible, so it'd be very close either way.

A lot of doors for the project will open once that full Chapter 1 demo is playable, so I'm in a mad rush to get it done.

So a huge thing now is that all characters that will appear in Chapter 1 have at least 1 tachie and their design fully finalized (not all pixelated yet, but that's easy).

Going to post the design sketch followed by tachie drawing for each.

Yalkut: isn't very talkative, likes money a lot. Will get focus in Chapter 3.

The hardest part was the large bulky sleeves which I for some reason gave a difficult pose.

Mima: cold and harsh and a bit nihilistic. Can communicate with ghosts.

Will get focus in Chapter 2, but plays an important part in the sub-climax of Chapter 1.

Kuroua: chuunibyou and a scardy cat, fairly weak at fighting despite her looks. Will get focus in Chapter 5.

Hibiki: from Eastern country Jyapen, cheerful and energetic but has a very harsh and serious side that occasionally comes out.

My brother actually designed her a while back, and I just made some final changes.

Unnamed slaves who will be very important to the (hopefully very shocking) climax of Chapter 1.

I also made little drawing fixes to the existing tachie, but you'll see those later.

I really want to give Enoch and Kannyo an additional tachie for Chapter 1 so hoping I find time soon. So far only Reiya has an extra one.

I want every character to have at least 2.

I'll probably patch in some more pose changes to Chapter 1 after those are done.

Enemies have attack animations now. They just represent the type of the attack used.

Types have symbols now, here's the rough sketches.

I'll do them up properly in vector graphics at some point, but more important is just having pixel art version for now.

I think these are my 2 favorite enemy attack animations.

First one is for Elemental (霊), basically anything with an Earth, Wind, Fire type beat, and second one is for Earthly (地), basically ground, plants, nature, etc.

Look forward to seeing the rest in the game.

There's super move animations in the works where there's a dramatic cut-in pose before the move goes off.

I'm just focusing on getting Reiya, Yuriel, and Kannyo one, but I'd like every character who participates in the versus mode to eventually get one.

Reiya's just needs clean up, color, and a background speed lines effect.

Yuri's is in the works, I handed this off to my brother so he can make the proper thing. That flashing at the end is Enoch and she alternating.

Yuri and Kannyo have battle sprite drawings now, but neither is pixelated.
Kannyo's support move animation is in the works (I'm like Sonic at doing these now compared to before when I was just really learning how animation works).

There's a key visual poster in the works, which I can use as cover art of sorts.

The background is mostly going to be filled with bones and flowers (this is actually significant to the story so it will be cool once you eventually see why (´・ω・)).

My brother will also be making a poster, so I'll have the option to pick and choose which one I use when.

I think that's all the most interesting art updates for now.

Next time I'll start showing off monster designs for everything in Chapter 1.

I'm aiming for all compulsory text (ie. all ADV "cutscene" text) to add up to exactly 30k Japanese characters (roughly like 15k English words) in Chapter 1.

This means the total reading time is about 2 hours if going at a very leisurely pace and as little as 40 minutes for the speedtards.

Gameplay will add probably about 45 minutes to an hour.

It will be the shortest chapter because I want to reward lower investment players who pick up the demo as quickly as possible to hook them in the way Undertale's original demo did (but better).

The dungeon's gameplay will be fairly simple because I don't want to overwhelm the player with mechanics and mostly let them get used to things like the battle system, encounter system, and dynamics with party members, which is all a bit idiosyncratic compared to the average JRPG.

Most dungeon gimmicks for Chapter 1 will amount to "which fork do we take?" or "where is the key to proceed?" or "the door shut and locked behind me."

This also means coding the dungeon will be trivial.

Dungeons in future chapters will have breathing room to be a lot more wild. I want the feel of each to be quite distinct because I think it will serve the story better, but I'll make sure they'll actually fun.
I actually low-key hate variety for variety's sake in games and always prefer when a game flaunts a strong system over gimmicks, so I'll make sure any variety is actually welcome. My current vision is:

Chap 1) Maze-like area - no gimmicks, big focus on how it feels to dynamically interact with party members.

Chap 2) Forest/Graveyard dungeon - navigation-oriented gimmicks (cliche for this type of stage, but I'll keep it interesting)

Chap 3) Library labrynth - huge dungeon with an overwhelming amount of places to go, and a passage of days system involving regularly returning to a hub area. This chapter is going to be a little more development intensive, but it should be very much worth it. It's also my chance to slip in a bit of slice of life antics into an otherwise kinetic story.

Chap 4) Illusionary dungeon - the idea with this one will be how much illusion magic is getting thrown around even though there isn't much in the way of physical dungeon space. Despite having the plot carefully planned, I haven't yet decided how you'll actually play through it. The key will be making sure the illusionary stuff doesn't feel like it's wasting your time (keeping it tied to plot-reveals or semi-reveals is going to be the primary key along with keeping tangible consequence to the scenario).

Chap 5) Slaves quarters - I haven't even considered what exactly the gameplay will be here despite it plotwise being one of my favorite sections, but I do know I want there to be creepy feeling like if you were in a town filled with innocent NPCs in an RPG but it's the most dangerous place of all.

Chap 6) Orc quarters - I know staying hidden and gathering info is going to be important. I'm thinking about chapter 3 in Mario Story/Paper Mario, which was a primary influence on the whole game.

Everything has become so routine at this point, I'm able to smoothly knock out any given task without much delay or difficulty. It makes me kind of groan thinking about how far I'd be if I started the year with this level of comfort and efficiency, but on the other hand I can have a really clear view of what to expect for 2025.

Stay based and ota and I'll drop the video and some playable stuff real soon (no cap).