The state of Divine Arms.

I was planning to announce this by alpha 2.0, but since I'll be scrapping the overworld map system navigation, today is the day.

To clear the confusion, the current updates I've been sending out is called Divine Arms Origins. That's the side view battle system that has been recently just called Divine Arms.

However, in truth, that was just a 'working title' of sorts and after I loaned some bank money and started on 'origins', a year ago, it was all mostly system candidates and are puzzle pieces for Divine Arms. Yes, the top-down OG version.

I did not truly abandon Divine Arms and I continued to work on it ever since I've been proficient enough to use Godot. (There even was a Godot demo for it.)

And now we've reached 1.8 on Divine Arms Origins, they will now all be integrated to Divine Arms.

The Relics, and equipment system will work as intended but It will be streamlined and not all of it will carry over. The diablo-rando thing may be scrapped as it obscures too much of the gameplay, but the auto-spell barrages will remain.

The NPC's and the Sacred sisters will play an important role later on and you, the Outlander will still be able to play with them.

The sideview battle system and the flying island was originally designed for a boss battle and will remain so.

The sideview interiors will be the system used when going inside houses and establishments and will work as intended.

The Dialogue system: working as intended.

The Prisoner system is intended for Siggy and the Outlander when they get intimate in their rooms and was proto-typed by the Goblin thief. However, the system will still be used in Sigurd's arc.

Hiring VA's Siggy should be arc 2, and as much as I want Sigurd in act 1 to have more monster-girl variety, I could never afford the VA for all the female characters planned, so hiring 1 female VA for Siggy and her switch to act 1 is timely.

Spicy Scenes: They will be streamlined a bit but you will see this very soon.

Integration-------------------

There are new and returning assets to save time and I am still around about 40% converting the old assets to be usable to the current one. To give an idea, here's how the new sprites compare:

it's a 300%+ upsize so modifying the old tiles will take some while.

That said, I am currently rushing to get a beta demo soon, but please don't expect a 1:1 from the old og flash version as a lot of things will be streamlined according to all the lessons I learned from those fuckups.

To do's-----------------------

Merging the Origins prototype will be the easiest part as I future proofed it. But in order for me to launch a beta demo sooner, these are the current hurdles I have been cracking for 3 weeks now. (almost cracked btw)

Enemy AI: I've been trying to use my old system for this as the Godot solution is not really working for me but I'm almost done with it. Again streamlining this as well to just be smart about it.  Speaking of AI, I don't use any mainstream AI on my games, but I do use Chat-Gpt to correct my grammar. I hate what it spews on its own but it gives great insight when correcting my engrish.

Freeze: If you remember Flash OG DA, you know Siggy can freeze lakes so she can walk on them and make bridges. Yeah I am kinda having a hard time recreating that smoothly and uuuh we need that in the early stage of the game lol.

Naked Sprites: There's an improved mechanic compared to the old system. Now, if Siggy gets hit, she loses her armor first and will have to fight naked til the armor cooldown ends and she gets to wear armor again. While in the naked state, is where she's vulnerable to S-Attacks and ALL ENEMIES will target you with S-Attacks. So yeah, I do have her naked sprites and animate her naked by default, it just means doubling the time to make them as all actions have armored versions. Speaking of sprites:

I am still missing a few sets, the ones facing backwards.

Anyway, that's all the current to-do's but we inch closer to it everyday. It is hard doing these alone but it is steady progress.

Anyway, I hope you like this news. The only sad part about this is the game will remain in Godot 3 as converting these all to 4 will just take more time.

Apologies if I did not reveal this the first time. I just wanted to approach it this time in to bite size progression and I was not confident enough back then specially after a traumatic experience when I was doing Forbidden Arms. (which I also have not abandoned. But will most likely happen in Godot 4 after Arms)

But anyway, so far the bite size approach works well with my schedule, workflow, sanity and I'm just enjoying developing this. Thank you again for the continued support! I will have more news soon and I am working so hard for the beta demo.

Edit: To avoid confusion:

- I am working on one game only. Divine Arms and it's top-down.

- All updates since I loaned money were bite-sized candidates and prototypes.

- All mechanics needed are sufficient enough now to develop Divine Arms.

- Was anxious and not confident enough to announce it early.

- It was all Divine Arms? Always has been.

-kReig out, Siggy in!