Impregnation: New Game Mode.

Heyo everyone! I was originally hoping to do Nika's 4th Hscene, but decided to take a bit of a sidestep, and swap the schedule around a bit. This was a feature I had been wanting to get tackled for a while, so it was a good opportunity to do so. Let's jump right in to the explanation!

This new game mode is unlocked when a character reaches 100 Affinity. This small level is like a "Trial" of sorts. You will need to accomplish a challenge that is based on the corresponding ally's abilities. ie: If you are impregnating Tanya, the challenge will test your use of her Barrier. If you reach the goal with the required points, the character will be considered "impregnated". You will also unlock the EX passive for the character as well. These passive upgrades are as follows:

Lana EX: Thrust consumption reduced by 50% (from 30%)
Pix EX: See enemies through walls. 10% chance gain +1 score on kills.
Siren EX: A static field that will shock nearby enemies at a faster rate (increased attackspeed)
Tanya EX: Increases credits received from missions by 50% (from 25%)
Nika EX: Boost speed is tripled, and Brake speed is cut by 1/3. (from x2 and 1/2)
Rooster EX: Allows the use of Thrust after it is depleted at the cost of less Health.

Some of these are quite strong, but do note these are essentially considered "endgame" buffs, as they require 100 Affinity, and the completion of the trial.

What do the trials look like for each character? Each level takes place within the womb, and you must be the sole sperm to claim victory upon the egg.

In these, you can ONLY use the character's active ability. You cannot shoot, or barrel roll/blink.

Let's take a look at each character's trial:

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Lana: The idea of Lana's challenge is to utilize the ability to score kills while focusing on dodging/manoeuvring. Keep in mind, all of these challenges will utilize the character's EX abilities. (In this case, Lana has flame waves.

Pix: Pix's is based on pure destruction.

Siren: Siren's is a bit of a curve ball. You will be afflicted with 1 level of contamination, slowly draining your health. Considering her active heal buffs her passive significantly, you will need to choose your timing wisely. (Healing only when there are a lot of targets nearby, as opposed to wasting thrust on moments that the idle passive can take care of.

Tanya: Notes for Tanyas: At this moment I realized I never actually implemented Tanya's EX ability in the last build.... woops... Tanya's EX ability allows you to fire her barrier in a straight line dealing big damage. This upgrade is actually really strong in the normal game, and is quite important in this trial.

Something else you might notice at the very start of this gif. Hitting walls or enemies unprotected will -10 points (Barrier will allow you to pass unharmed). This applies to ALL the trials. Running into obstacles can kill your run regardless of your health.

Nika: Nika's, is of course focused on her ability to increase attack speed. Primary fire will always shoot automatically. It is essentially a raw damage test, and optimization. At many moments you may find yourself playing chicken with some clusters in hopes to kill as many as possible without colliding with them. (As colliding with deduct points)

Rooster: Finally we have Rooster's trial. This one is also pretty self-explanatory. Get as many summons as possible. Have a strong start is pretty integral to this challenge along with really utilizing Rooster's passive to tap into the life bar when needed.

Something to note in all of these trials is that they are extremely "Thrust" focused. This means that going in with a higher "Assertion" stat will help tremendously. That is also due to a pretty big change coming to this build.

Assertion will no longer raise your max Thrust. It will instead raise the recharge rate of it. This method makes a bit more sense, as max thrust really doesn't do anything for you if you are using it throughout the level, as the recharge was always the same as before.

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This is likely NOT what he score screen for these segments will look like, but I'm going to use it for some explanations.

These levels will also have a "Bronze", "Silver", and "Gold" medal. All that is needed to impregnate the character, and gain their EX passive is to achieve Bronze. Silver and Gold currently do not give any additional benefits and will likely be for achievement's sake. As you can see, there is a weird discolored Pix on the side of the screen, this is just a placeholder, but I would like there to be a little "Victory Still" of a creampie, much like in SpunkStock.

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There are a few other changes to go along with all of this:

>Lana's active now drains less thrust than before.
>Tanya's active now drains significantly less than before (Approx. about half the amount as before).
>Reduced Nika's Yarn's Thrust cost from 8 to 6.
>Added Nika's EX ability: Nika's yarn no longer adds vulnerability, and raises ATK SPD by 3% per yarn instead of 1.5%

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Because I never implemented it before, I will show off a couple more examples of Tanya's EX active.

At the moment the shooting barrier follows you when you turn. I kind of like this behaviour as it's unique to the barrier, but this may change in the future.

That should pretty much sum up this week's report! Hopefully next week I will be jumping on Nika's 4th Hscene. If not, I will be working on some wrap up components like dialogue, and testing.

I'll catch you all next week with the next post! Thanks again everyone!

-Regulus