Heya! Hope you guys are doing well! So to jump straight into it, a lot of people were unhappy about the gameplay and the level design (which was very justified), so we locked the hell in and finally got it into a presentable shape!
In this version, only the forest level is unlocked. Before moving on to the college area, we decided to release this testing build to gather feedback on the direction we've taken. If you guys like what you see we'll quickly redo parts of the beach and city to properly support the new mechanics and continue on with the college update!
There are too many minor polishes and adjustments to mention, so I'll only list the main gameplay related changes:
Wall Jump
Arousal Mechanic
Staying too long in pink water applies the Horny status effect. While active, you take damage over time until you either have sex with an enemy or the effect expires. When near an enemy, you can “take a fall” instead of being knocked down manually.
If you die from the Horny status, you can view a CG afterward (later, we’ll also add the jorking animation to the death screen).
Grab Mechanic
You can now grab objects and NPCs with a dedicated button. Thrown NPCs are stunned and take damage, and can also damage other NPCs on impact. Objects can be thrown as projectiles.
Heavy Attack
Slash attack dealing damage to multiple enemies at once. High reward, but high risk since you have to stay stationary to charge it.
(Levels after the Forest will feature shield type enemies, with slash attack being the primary way of breaking their guard)
Air Attack
Tool against aerial enemies and clearing out obstacles above.
Enemy AI
Enemies are no longer as mindless. They now start in a guard state and switch to pursuit when the player enters their field of view. In pursuit, they actively hunt the player at double speed. If they lose sight of the player, they return to a patrol state and normal speed.
Ranged enemies now pursue the player and can shoot in any direction (360°), instead of being limited to horizontal attacks.
Non-Sexable Enemies
We figured not every enemy needs to be sexable, allowing us to create more varied and interesting enemy types.
Level Design
Just generally a lot more thought through and intentional, added proper tutorials the player has to clear before proceeding, properly introducing the new mechanics. To make the levels more explorable, they now feature secret, optional and unlockable areas.
Adding wall jump felt like a really good decision, as we can now easily expand the levels vertically, instead of just horizontally.
Camera
Indirectly related to level design is the camera. A big reason the levels felt clunky in previous builds was limited visibility. In many cases, players couldn’t see where to move next or where they would land when jumping. This was partly due to the camera being zoomed in too far. To address this, I zoomed it out and added a forward offset, allowing players to better see what’s ahead.
//We'll add more decorations later, were primarily focused on level layout for now.What we're thinking of adding next
Crouch & Slide Attack
Adding crouch that would allow to dodge projectiles or access narrow areas. Attacking while crouched triggers a slide attack, allowing them to quickly close the distance to enemies.
Collectible Items
We already have three secret areas on the forest level where placeholders for collectibles are located. We're thinking we would add a menu where you could review the items you've collected and read their descriptions. (Storytelling through item descriptions uwaaaahhhhh)
Stamina
Stamina at the moment doesn't serve much purpose, except for occasionally delaying the player from progressing by making them wait before they can dash. So here is what I think we could do:
Dash would no longer require any stamina. However only one dash would be allowed while you are in air, recharging after landing on the ground (Basically Celeste). Stamina would instead be used for special moves like grab, slash attack or the Bibi attack.
The stamina bar would still recharge by itself but at a slower rate. For a fast recharge however, enemies would have a random chance of dropping a stamina orb when hit by a regular punch. For sections where there is a lot of grabbing (crate puzzles), we could place stationary stamina orbs to solve the problem of stamina running out.
Translation
Our community has already started working on translating Gamer Struggles, which you can already check out in this build, but it is far from done. if you'd like to help, please let me know on Discord (Snaurz5)
(Edit: We got enough Russian translators, thank you guys!)
Known Issues
There are a few issues that we're aware of but were too hard to replicate to begin fixing. In case you can catch footage of these, please send it to us, you'll help a ton!
In case you run into them, both of these bugs can be fixed by reloading.
Inputs Freezing
When you are fighting, there is a small chance your inputs will lock up. Most likely because of a very specific combination at a very specific timing.
Camera Zooming in
Camera might zoom in after the first dialogue you encounter ends, preventing you from progressing. Seems to happen completely at random.
We really hope you enjoy the new changes and that the game has become more fun to play. If you have feedback or ideas you'd like to share, feel free to join us on our Discord server and tell us! (See the welcome note for instructions).
You can download the game by pressing the buttons below, enjoy<3