Devlog #15 Back to Work as Usual

I apologize for the lack of communication, and I also want to thank everyone for their patience and kind words while my family is adjusting to the loss of my Dad. My birthday was actually on November 2nd (we went to a cabin by a local lake, which was my twin boys' first family vacation (they're almost four now)... which they loved, and the adults sort of enjoyed some of the time). The service for my father is going to be next Sunday, and then everything will officially be back to the old daily routine. Just in time for the winter holidays to screw everything up again.

Work Update:
- All renders for the Lani update are finished (there's always the possibility of me adding more to extend scenes that don't feel right during play-testing, but I don't expect it this time).
- This update adds player skills to the combat and storyline, but skill books still need to be added to the drop lists and properly tested (I expect this to take the majority of my time).
- This update adds status effects/buffs to the combat system. They are currently implemented in my test build of the game, but players can expect that some buffs or skills will not be working as intended in the next official release. These non-operating buffs will be related to advanced skills, so most players will not be impacted by their absence. Specifically, there is a defensive skill that places a buff on the user (or party at higher levels) to 'reflect a skill'... so the enemy attacks, damage is null, defending character then uses the same skill against the attacker, calculated based on their own stat points. This isn't something incredibly important to the game itself, but in my quest to let the player character be potentially super-OP at early levels, I really want it in the game. I imagine a level 1 party using it on a dragon or something and everyone reflecting a massize aoe skill right back in his face, once for every party member that was targeted. You know, normal balanced gameplay.
- The beginner camping equipment is rendered and added to story content. This is the first large story content wall in the game, requiring the player to save money to purchase it in order to unlock sexy content with Lani (though once you've reached level 5 or 6, the money shouldn't be a problem). Once purchased, it can be placed into the Soul Box for future use.

I expect to release this next update in roughly a week and half. I've been away from the computer for so long now that I'm having trouble picking up where I left off, so I find myself wasting time going through my old unfinished code when I would normally be able to just pick up where I left off and continue. That said, this update is pretty large and I think that everyone will be happy with the new content. I've been wanted to delve into the storylines for these characters for a long time, so I had a lot of fun fleshing out Lani's history and hinting at her future story content.