December 18 Progress Report

Made solid progress last week! A couple of new scenes for Sarah, Sam, and Memetron, including the first fight scene I've done in a while - hopefully it's fun to read. Sarah has a new CG now in progress, lookin good from the sketch, and in process on some more music. Worked out two new martial arts, Crane and Tiger, which will be available right from the start so you can be a martial artist for the full game if desired. 

They also introduce the Form system, which is a slightly fancier version of channels; similar to Harp songs they are free but mutually exclusive and only work if you have the required weapon equipped. Each gives some amount of a stat, and changes something about almost every ability in that martial art. In this case, Tiger adds bleed on hit and Crane has a chance to inflict stun (if possible) or strip some resilience if they can't be stunned. Existing martial arts will get more abilities/Forms over time, tho those that are still in progress (sorry Ashley) may have to wait for it until the character figures out what the form should be.

Unlike Traits, you can easily switch between them in battle, but making them mutually exclusive encourages you to actually, you know, switch your fighting style when you switch between forms. We'll see how it goes over in practice.

I didn't bother with a break after last update cuz I wanted to try something different this time; a shorter update window, about two weeks. So I'm gonna aim for the next update around the end of this week, around the 21st-23rd, and just kinda see what I can fit into it. I'm pretty optimistic so far, I think I can get a surprisingly good amount of stuff in if I really burn the midnight oil, and then I can take an actual break afterwards.