VULCHA has won the poll and is in the game with her animation. Her unevolved form, HARPI will grace the skies of the plains as well. 

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NEXT MONSTER POLL is out now. We shall vote on the second SPARK monster to be added to the game.

Do you want a powerful Zebra warrior to dwell on the plains? Or a gigantic, slumbering, lizard woman?

This month I wished for a BIG STRONG lady to counter the continuing introduction of smaller Wind types. I made a Zebra, because electric zebra’s are one of my favorite monsters, and then I went a bit overboard... The Thunder Lizard monster is the largest monster to date, so big she has to squat to be seen fully in frame. I hope the vote is close, but I feel like it might get crushed by one side.

Rosaria has her X anim, FINALLY I can stop thinking about it, and all the XANIMS, until the day comes I remake them all in 256 pixels with 10 frames, instead of 128 and 5 frames, F***. Next I will be adding a bunch of x-anims to make them compatible with new mirror style and thus, new scouts (who are different sizes and shapes). So some old / early monsters will just get MORE animations. There’s also a new position for the scouts coming next month: Cowgirl, which I was uncomfortable with since it didn’t show off the monster enough... But whatever I guess. Interestingly I can also make it so the monsters will be feet facing or head facing the camera and make the scouts facing the camera or facing away (so cowgirl / reverse cowgirl). 

CAMPING is almost done, I ripped out most of its half-finished code in order to get this VULCHA update out. You will be getting it this weekend. Camping is mostly finished and operational BUT didn’t make sense since the monsters you control couldn’t get agitated enough to FORCE you to camp (and then relieve their frustrations on you).

Camping works like this: Ideally you camp every other night, keeping your monsters well fed the whole time. Each night monster burns some calories. Calories are like a fuel tank, and you fuel them up by feeding them food from your inventory. When you camp, you get an opportunity to feed all of them, then choose to REST with [R]. 

When you choose to rest each monster you control takes a hunger test. During a hunger test each monster reviews if it is well fed. If the monster has lots of calories it doesn’t lose any obedience, and might gain some obedience (unlikely). If it is hungry it loses obedience. 

Then each monster takes an obedience test. The lower obedience is, the more likely that monster is going to make a move on the scout. If their obedience test goes badly for the scout, the monster mounts the scout and attempts to impregnate her. 

Go more than 1 night without camping and the monsters feel agitation, each time they are agitated they lose obedience automatically, and it gets worse if you put it off. Rest at rest points, which are going to be little fire pits spread across the map, and keep monsters fed. NOW the kicker is you probably WON’T be able to keep a full team of fully evolved monsters fed. Evolved monsters burn lots of calories and food is going to be scarce, trapping you in a position where you have to keep moving from zone to zone looting as much as possible. Just a BUG types can keep loading a scout up with eggs when mating in the stables, VEG types actually lose less calories a day, their unevolved forms lose NONE, WOW. (Each type is a bit special in its own way (forthcoming EGGODEX will explain more idiosyncrasies)) 

My idea is to keep lots of wild food sources off the main roads, forcing the player to explore and keep moving around the map. The main road will still lead you to landmarks where crates of items might be, but exploration will be rewarded. (I know you all know the 4 maps and the world isn’t big yet)

And of course, none of this is in the game YET. But almost. It feels pretty good to me from a macro design perspective, and so far in the game it works okay. But I think the rates of hunger, and loads of polish explaining what the fuck is going on, is needed badly now.

SO PLEASE IGNORE THE CALORIE AND OBEDIENCE METERS AND REST WARNINGS. I didn’t pull those out for this 1st of the month release.  

TEMP: Saving and loading data is suspended for the time being until I can overhaul the process this month. I was using an old method that wasn’t suitable for GODOT 4.0. You can still earn unlocks they just are not recorded, for now. 

CHANGED: Plains ambience isn’t as loud.

FIXED: I hadn’t added spark or wind stones to the key random stone function. They are added now. 

APRIL MID: 

Added hidden lore blurbs.

There are now hidden lore blurbs in the drop base, these will eventually populate all maps, unique locations especially. When standing beside an object of interest hit R, this interacts with the collider, and causes the lore inspection to trigger a short pop. Don’t mind the little monster in the jar. She enjoys the job she was specifically bred to perform non-stop...

The player can now sprint. Press shift to begin sprinting, press it again to stop sprinting.

Sprinting drains scout stamina. Cannot sprint when stamina is fully drained. Stamina pool max increased by increasing your fertility (with herbs).

MONSTER DROP: The first SPARK type monster enters the fray. A yellow, electric mouse? That will never work. She uses the first SPARK move: Snap Bolt

She’s only catchable in RosedewMeadow, where you might find her EZ encounter in the bushes beside the drop base. Or a regular encounter on top of the hill.

Aithon has been moved out onto the plains, where a horse belongs.

Drakia has her X anim, FINALLY I can stop thinking about it.

I also wasn’t feeling Drakia’s face, so I changed it to be more intimidating, which is in line with her lore as a dangerous dragon. 

I'm all hands on finishing up CAMPING NOW. Finally, a way to heal your monsters. And also for them to become hungrier, fall into a frustrated breeding frenzy, and betray your trust, making you their breeding stock. Truly the feature that monster catching games have been missing since the beginning. 

I said I wouldn’t make another massive level, and then I made the open plains.

The plains are a very wide open, empty space, and its rolling hills and spread out loot, is now added to the game. It FEELS like a sprawling open space, but that’s not necessarily a great feeling in this game format. Hopefully there are enough unique assets and points of interest to keep it engaging but honestly, I could double the points of interest in the future and make it feel more... WORTH exploring. It’s definitely the first area that drops big environmental story hints.

GALEM WINS the monthly monster poll. Her, and Pebs are finished in this update and will be stomping IN to the monster lineup. Pebs can only be caught in the open plains.  

MONSTER DROP: The first WIND type is swooping in, she is, predictably, a bird. She wields the first ever WIND element move: Razornado. Which is also the first move which is one word, weirdly enough. Pippin, her unevolved form can only be found in the open plains. 

NEW MONTHLY POLL:

I hope you’ve all enjoyed huge breasts and chubby monster girls because WIND type is going to get fleshed out, and these avian chicks are bringing JUSTICE. (Well maybe not vulture).

This month’s poll is between the VULTURE AND THE RAVEN, both carrion eaters, they are well suited to living in the wide open plains, which are littered with the bones of (hopefully) long dead monsters and people. The Raven wears a blindfold out of respect for the dead, and judging by vultures expression she doesn’t give a fuck what anyone thinks. I think both these turned out great, and whoever loses the election will have to be a future redemption poll challenger. 

Monster special moves damage upgraded from 20dmg base to 25dmg.

Caves are less dark. 

Fixed: In an earlier hotfix I corrected the Kihikihi fight and Mamamole fight to offer the correct monster when the fight is won. GET OUT OF HERE DRUII.

BUG: Don’t have a monster mount a scout in the stables and then pull the monster out and then jiggle them around your roster. The game gets really confused about where this monster is when you do this. 

The game also gets confused (still) in general about the party slots. If you start doing weird shit in there, I will be looking into this, and you won’t be able to mount a monster then pull them out of the stables while they are mounted in the next update.

Camping and questing is coming. It has to come at the same time, which will almost certainly be this month.