Happy Wednesday everybody! Hope you're all doing well. Sorry that this one is up later in the day than the previous ones, I usually write them overnight and post in the morning but my sleep schedule is normal for once, hehe.

In this week's report I'm going to shine a spotlight on the characters, story, and changes to the battle system. I don't wanna spoil too much since half the fun is in finding things for yourself, but I know people are dying to know more so... it's a real balancing act!

A Revised Introduction

As I mentioned in a previous report, one of the biggest hurdles in the last few months of development was the realization that I had written the game into a rather difficult corner with the original introduction. One positive was that you had pretty much immediate freedom to do whatever, but the lack of direction felt (to me) unsatisfying. I made the decision to build up a new skeleton for the introduction that is more focused and lengthy, eases into some of the game mechanics, and still provides opportunities to meet some of the new NPCs in organic ways.

One hundred years prior to Revenir, at the tail end of a war between two groups, the god of wind was vanquished and disappeared. This new introduction centers around the village's "Revival Festival", an annual celebration in remembrance of that patron god that vanished from the region a hundred years ago and the hope that he will someday return. This year may mark the hundredth anniversary, but will anything really come of it? Find out on the next episode!

The upcoming build is intended to canvas the entire Feran Caldera and its locales before we head off into the next region. Terveiset is nice and all, but there's a wider world out there to get into. Some of the planned characters and scenes for areas outside of the Caldera are super exciting, I can't wait.

New Faces All Around

There are a total of 9 NPCs in the game now, up from the previous, uh... 2. While most of them live in the safety of Terveiset Village, a few are to be found out in the wilds of Fairn Woods and the looming Cloud Forest atop the plateau.
Some teasers:

• A solitary Avian from the large northern capital. Duty-bound and way too obsessed with books.
• The village guard, a stoic Equine whose ties are all but severed.
• A crafty white-furred creature that makes its lair in the mists of the forest - be careful where you step.
• A bright but anxious Feline shopkeeper. Enjoys hearing stories from passing travelers.

In the public release there was a definite lack of NPC content, which I took note of when planning the revised introduction - we've since tried to put a focus on coming up with more NPCs and interactions. An obvious plus side is that more NPCs means more avenues for various NSFW scenes which rest assured we are taking advantage of. As it stands, 3 of the 9 characters in this build are confirmed for NSFW content, another 3 are planned to have something in the future, and the remaining 3 are not candidates at the moment. 

I do want to stress that I tackle development on Revenir as a game first and foremost. And although I do love me some porn, my personal taste tends toward a low-key vibe where sex is not everywhere and in your face at all times. Some characters and creatures might be hornier and more inclined than others, but most will want to forge a relationship with you first before they'll make any moves toward the bedroom.

That said, we will have sex scenes for most enemies and a good deal of the characters moving forward - you may just have to dig a little to unlock them. Expect more feral content, domination, size difference, platonic hand-holding, paw stuff, slit-play, the works. That's the stuff I'm all about ohoho

Combat Changes (here and there)

Right, there hasn't been any...MASSIVE changes to the combat system since the public release, but a couple of design revisions were made:

The AP system has been slimmed down.

Different attacks and skills used to cost different amounts of AP, and you could make actions on your turn until you ran out of AP. This is no longer the case. All combatants now have a maximum of 2 AP (for now!) - taking any action on a turn expends 1 AP, and your turn ends when you reach 0 AP or end it manually. The new one puts more weight on the decisions you make each turn and requires more synergy out of your party, in addition to playing nicely with the new Item Pouch feature and the change to turn order.

There's MP now.

In addition to the AP change, I've introduced an MP system and all skills have been given an MP cost. Spend it wisely...

Turns are now taken in sequence.

Previously, your entire party would choose their action(s) all at once, and then the actions would play out for both sides in a big brawl one after another. This has changed to a slightly different approach; now turns are handled one-at-a-time. Once you choose an action for a character they will immediately act, then pass the turn to the next combatant. This keeps the combat moving at a steady pace and gives you some time to breathe between actions.

You can use items in combat.

I added an item pouch that will hold all your usable items during combat. You can expend an action to use an item on yourself, a teammate, or even an enemy if they give you an opportunity. 

There are 8 slots for skills instead of 4

Initially I wanted skills limited to 4 slots with the thinking that it would force some tactical decisions, but I found it to be a really harsh limitation when factoring in cooldowns. I would use up all my skills and just spam Attack until they went off cooldown, which wasn't very fun. Not only that, but each slot was so valuable that having niche skills in your loadout was almost a punishment. There is a lot more freedom and room for experimentation now, it definitely feels better.

Open to improvements?

As always, once you all get your hands, paws, claws, and all other appendages on the next update, I welcome any feedback and suggestions! I'm interested in eventually running a survey or two as well to gather some more specific info, but that's for later time. For now, sit tight!

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Woo, for some reason this one took me a long time to write up. And I don't even have any pictures this time! Ah well. Hopefully this gave some insight into some of the biggest parts of the update and what has been worked on for the last couple months, even though I wasn't able to drop too many hard details. If you ever want to know anything further just let me know and I'll get back to you~

I think I've finally run out of major things to catch you guys up on and talk about in this monolithic format, so starting next week these Weekly Reports will be used to cover whatever progress has been made over the past week. You'll have to forgive that they will be a little shorter, and maybe a bit more rambling than usual. 

Thanks for your patience and thank you for tuning in! See you all next week, squawk.