Update 60
Hey there!

This week was the first I worked full-time on the game. I finally decided to focus on coding and as a result, I got quite a lot done on the programming side!

First, I finished adding the turn order display to the battle UI. Take a look:

As you can see, the current target is highlighted so that similar enemies can't be confused with one another.

I also worked on fixing the pause menu. It was almost two years old and so buggy we had to remove it from the demo build. Now the pause menu is almost entirely functional. After fixing the last bugs, I'll spend some time on visual improvements. Here's what I have at the moment:

The layout is more or less final, but the rest is 100% placeholder.

See you next week!
Cheers! 

Good luck!

Thank you! We will need it!

Update 59
This is it. I am free! Starting tomorrow, I will be working full time on Blade of Victory! I a bit nervous but very excited!

I spent the last few days working on a new turn display system. It took a bit more time than expected, but it is now 90% done. Once the last few bug fixed, I will replace the placeholder graphics so I can show it to you next Sunday.

Since CorazonAzul mentioned Chrono Trigger last week, I went back and played it again. I noticed that the animations had fewer frames than mine, but were very readable and expressive. I am considering doing the same for Blade of Victory and removing most in-between frames. The animations will be less fluid but the process has several advantages:

• It makes adding animation easier.
• It reduces the cost of screwing up.
• It shortens the iteration time.
• It is easy to add in-between later if necessary.

I will try this on the new batch of sprites for the next demo.

Pierre is currently working on the monster and UI design. I hope we will soon have some eye candy to show!

Next step: wrapping up the battle UI code (for now)

See you next week!

Cheers! 

For now I had to squint at everything- I'm sure in full screen it will be fine. Colorful world and the character design is nice- like Toriyama's they're not too busy looking. So when I found out I could hit things with my sword, but not monsters on the field until in-battle, I immediately thought: maybe there could be some small benefit in battle if I managed to hit them on the field

First of all, thanks for playing the demo and for the kind words! Glad to hear you liked our sprites, we try to keep things as readable as possible!

Sorry about the screen size . It is indeed hard to read on small screens or at a very high resolution. I tried enabling the fullscreen button and enlarging the canvas on itch.io, but it only add a blank space around the screen. I will try to have pixel-perfect scaling up and running in the next demo so that no one has to squint at their screen anymore!

Finally, trying to hit enemies with your sword on the field was the right idea since it lets your characters act first in battle. Unfortunately, we forgot to add fast enemies in the demo and since there is no feedback of any sorts there is no way you could have guessed. There are lessons to be learned here:

• Without proper feedback, a feature is useless to most players.
• Letting the player act first is not a very interesting mechanic.

I think inflicting some damages on all enemies would be both easier to feedback and useful against slower enemies. I will have to discuss this with Pierre, but I promise to improve this feature for the next demo!

Update 58
Hey there! Today's update will be quite short.

This week was quite busy so I didn't have much time to spend on the game. I modified the skill code as planned, fixed some bugs and made several small improvements such as basic visual transitions between maps. There is always room for improvement and I could spend months on polishing the UI, but I think it is time to add features again.

Pierre took a break from the character portraits and UI to focus on monster design so I can work on new sprites starting next week.

Next steps: display the turn order during fights.

Cheers! 

Update 57
Hey there! I'm now two weeks away from working full time on the game!

Another week, another update without code since Pierre and I spent most of the week planning the future of Blade of Victory.

We've decided I would work a bit on the dialogues and sprites every week rather than cramming them into sprints. I'll spend one day a week making sprites, one day writing dialogues and the rest of the week coding. Improving the visuals will both keep us motivated and help us communicate on the game.

We're now working on Blade of Victory v0.5. After that, we'll work on a vertical slice polished enough to be sent to game journalists, bloggers, youtubers, etc. Once it's done, I will implement all the features required to play the game from beginning to end: save system, events, cutscenes, etc. Then Pierre and I will work on greyboxing the entire game, add dialogues and minimal cutscenes. Finally, we'll iterate on this minimal version until the game is done.

We also spent quite some time planning the UI. We want to keep it simple so we try to convey as much information as we can through animations or other visual effects rather than using text or displays. This means I'll have to slightly modify the skill code this week. We're also working on other small visual improvements, but it's a bit too early to show.

Next step: more visual improvements!

Cheers! 

Update 56
Hey there!

Today's update is a bit light on the code side as Pierre and I focused on improving the UI this week. We split our work between improving existing elements and designing new ones.

Our main concern at the moment is to display all the information needed in a limited resolution: we're basically trying to fit a PS2-era UI on a SNES resolution. We want to avoid the battle UI getting cluttered and the layout may drastically change in the future.

Next step: more visual improvements then back to displaying messages.

Cheers! 

[I am quitting my job at the end of the month and will start working full-time on Blade of Victory!]

Update 55
Hey there!

I have great news today: I am quitting my job at the end of the month and will start working full-time on Blade of Victory! Huzzah! I think I will keep posting once a week, but hopefully I will have a lot more content to share every Sunday! I will tell you more about what that means for the game at a later date, I have a lot of thinking and planning to do first!

Regarding the game itself, I spent most of this week working on the user interface as promised. I tried to make damage labels more readable by adding an outline and gave them a non linear speed for some extra oomph. MP-related labels also have a different color now. I spent some time improving the HP (and MP) bars by making transitions smoother. Here is a little preview (with placeholder colors):

It still needs some work, but I will be sure to post an animated gif once it is done!

Pierre finished Latharn's portrait and I think it is pretty amazing. It really makes my sprites pale in comparison! See for yourself:

Next step: displaying messages about what is going on in the help window.

Note: I found a game breaking bug yesterday that can be reproduced in the demo. I will upload a fix later this week on itch.io.

Cheers! 

Update 54
Today's update will be a bit different.

I had some friends play the demo last week and saw them experience a number of crashes. It seems these were caused by the way the game handled assets back when we built the demo. So I decided to update it and fixed quite a lot of bugs. The new build finally seems not to have any missing assets! Hurray!

The user interface has also been improved thanks to the new font and cursor system.

On the graphic side, Pierre is still working on the portraits. Here's a comparison between Latharn's portrait in the demo and the new one (WIP):

     

Next step: migrating the bug fixes to the master build, then back to the UI.

Cheers! 

My first thought when I saw the battle system was Breath of Fire 3 (and Nut People, to be exact)ーwhich is a good thing!!　

Thanks! Breath of Fire was the first JRPG I played and the series had a huge influence on Pierre and I. The isometric perspective during fights is indeed borrowed from those game, as it was something we wished there was more of.

That is a fantastic portrait!

Thank you very much! I'll let Pierre know!

Update 53
Hey there! Another week, another short update.

I updated to Unity's last version: it introduces many features I want to use but also many bugs I had to chase down. I also added a simple cursor system and sounds for the UI. I'm now working on general readibility.

(The cursor sprite is a placeholder)

In the meantime, Pierre is working on character portraits and they are looking pretty great, so it's eye-candy time! Here is a comparison between a quick coloring of a sketch I did for the demo and the new portrait:

     

Much, much better.

Next step: displaying messages to the player when things happen during a fight (so, more UI).

Cheers

Update 52
Hey there! This week's update is a bit on the short side.

The new buff system completely broke the buff-related UI code, which was written at the last minute for the demo, so I fixed it this week.

I am currently working on improving the menu navigation and fixing some UI bugs. It is proving a bit more complex than anticipated but it should be done pretty soon.

In the mean time, we looked for a better font and settled on Arpegius by Hazel Abbiati for now. Not perfect, but it fits the game a lot more. Here is a little preview:

What do you think? Is it readable enough? Any font you would like to suggest?

Next step: more UI.

Cheers 

Update 51
Hey there! Time for an update!

I just wrapped up the new combat system and recreated all the assets that were made for the demo (it still needs some testing though). With this, Blade of Victory v0.5 is about 30% done.

Previously, buffs were updated with various timings: attack buffs were updated after attacking and defense buffs after receiving damages. It turned out to be quite confusing, so now buffs are simply updated at the end of the caster's turn (even after his death).

The action enhancement system introduced in the 35th update also received a major overhaul. We had to remove it from the demo at the last minute because of balance issues. We finally came up with the following solution: the player has to build a "deck" of enhancements and each enhancement can only be used a limited number of times per battle. We hope this will introduce a new element of strategy during and outside of battles.

Finally, charged attacks, which were only available to the AI, have been recoded and can now be used by the player.

Next step: improving the UI during battles.

Cheers!

Congratulations on the demo release!

I know I don't really say much, but I really enjoy following the updates. :'3

Thanks for the kind words! Do not hesitate to leave a comment on the itch.io page if you played the demo!

Update 50
Hello everyone and sorry for the long silence, I have been busy moving for the last couple of weeks!

I am currently working on the skill system and making a lot of progress.

The main idea of the battle system is to combine atomic elements (heal, bonus damages, buffs, etc.) to create complex actions.

The previous demo showcases a limited version of this system. We felt it was appropriate for a first demo but it only allows for very simple combinations. Thus I decided to break the game for a week and rebuild this system completely.

The previous system only allowed for one list of effects to be applied at once when using a skill or an item. All effects had to be applied to the same target, so it was impossible for instance to add a life-stealing effect to an attack.

The new system allows for several lists of effects to be applied in sequence and on different targets. It is also possible for a single attack to hit several times or attack random targets. Furthermore, we keep track of how much damage and heal have been dealt at each step. The code is also much cleaner and more flexible, so it is easier to add new features!

I promise it would be more impressive with better art. Just imagine raining arrows or something.

The only downside is that adding new skills and items is now a little longer. Also the system is not backward compatible, so all previous skill and item assets have been lost. Fortunately, there were not that many of them.

Next step: buffs. After that, I will properly recode features that were hacked together for the demo, then start working on the UI.

Cheers! 

[here]

Update 49

We did it! The demo is out on itchi.io!  

You can play in your browser of choice here (not mobile friendly).

It was a great learning experience and we are considering writing a post-mortem in the upcoming weeks. We will now take a little break and wait for feedback before resuming development.

The next step is making Blade of Victory v0.5. This new iteration will focus on improving the combat system, the interface and fixing the menus to provide you with a better and more polished experience next time. For those intersted, we added a roadmap to the next demo to the itch.io page.

Have fun and do not hesitate to send us feedback!

Cheers !  

Update 48
Brace yourselves ladies and gentlemen, we added a boss to the demo! You will be able to test your long-term planning skills at the end of the demo.

It required some dirty little hacks to get it working properly, but it was a good way to test the flexibility (or lack thereof) of the battle system. On the bright sight, I now have a pretty clear idea of how to improve it.

Just like in the Persona series, strong enemies have a different color (red means danger). Consider yourselves warned!

Cheers! 

Update 47
The level build is done! 
It still needs some thorough testing, balancing and polishing, but it is essentially done (at least for the demo). Now that I can finally show something else than a big green rectangle, have the first screenshot in a long time:

I also implemented some basic enemy behavior, as mentioned in the previous update. Enemies now randomly move around a small portion of the map and will chase the player when approached. Unfortunately, our current setup does not work well with Unity's pathfinding tools, so do not be surprised if enemies get stuck in trees or bushes.

And with this, Blade of Victory v0.4 is officially over!

Cheers! 

Update 46
Maps are about 25% done! Setting up our content pipeline took a bit of time, but we are now churning out maps. Also here is a sneak peek of the level design, for those interested. We tried to aim for "simple and functional".

Our current level build process is the following:

• Pierre uses the Tiled map editor to place tiles
• I add collisions using Tiled
• I import the map in Unity using X-UniTMX
• I place exits and other interactive elements using the Unity Editor
• We test the map using the good old "run into every tree and bush" technique
• Rinse and repeat

Pierre and I are currently considering adding a couple more feature to the demo, such as enemies that chase after the player, to spice things up a bit. It would probably delay the demo by a few more days, but it could make the experience a lot more enjoyable. Any advice and/or though on the matter?

Cheers! 

I dig it. Seems very readable to me!

Thanks!

Update 45
Blade of Victory 0.4 is code complete! Hurray! All that is left is adding content and removing some debug tools for the demo!

On that note, Pierre made some nice little bushes for you to cut to pieces (some may even drop health)
In fact, Victoire can cut things with her sword, and she will have to clear a path through the forest.

Since there is no town or village in the demo, we added some foxmen statues that will restore your health. Keep an eye out for those!

Cheers! 

Update 44
Hey there! Happy Valentine's Day!

I am currently fixing the last batch of bugs and about to wrap up the v0.4. I had to write a few quick workarounds for bugs that would have further delayed the demo, but there are very few items left on the to do list.

We also added some new skills to the game. I hope you like buffs and debuffs! While most of the battle screen is made of placeholder art, I spent some time making visually interesting visual effects for these. Here is a little preview:

     

I try to keep animations that will appear often such as these short so that the combat is not slowed down. I hope it is still readable though! (Please tell me if it is not.)

See you soon for more eye-candies!

Cheers!