Hey, it's November

It was brought to my attention today that I haven't posted since October, and it is now almost the middle of November. I haven't posted because I was waiting to make some progress on my battle system, but between all the tests and papers and mapping out my future, I just haven't had the time.

I'm happy to say that I have, indeed, made enough progress on it that I can at least show a quick preview. It took me a long time to figure out just how I wanted to go about doing it; I was torn between a static system, where you would just choose an attack from the list and go with it, or a grid system, where you would have to strategically map out the formation of your party and would have animated sprites (that I can't afford...). In the end, I found an online game that combined the two and pretty much copied the format.

The result is a grid of portraits, the placement of which makes up the formation. Attacks will have ranges within the grid, so that fighters in the front will take the brunt of physical attacks, while mages and archers can attack enemies from further away. The six gray slots to the left are your active attack slots. When a character learns a new skill/attack, you'll be able to add it to their active attack slots from the character menu, up to six slots. The three slots below that will be for general battle actions: transform (which will only be active when the rage meter is full), focus (which means you pass for a turn, which helps refill your stamina), and retreat. You'll also notice that all the fighters will attack in a certain order, based on some stat that will be equivalent to quickness. The order here is kind of inaccurate, as rogue types will generally have more quickness than warrior types.

With all this thought about the battle system, I started thinking about the original stats I had from the old game - Intelligence, Strength, Charm, and Kindness. They were meant to be part of the whole dating sim aspect, but this time around, there will be a lot more choices and therefore more opportunities to earn affection that don't involve raising stats. So these stats kind of became useless, except that the one you said you wanted in the beginning determines your class. But then I got to thinking "Hey, I could incorporate these stats into battle!" Strength would be melee attack power, while intelligence might be dexterity or something. Kindness would be changed to Divinity and would determine magic attack power. Not sure about Charm yet, but I'll figure it out.

And yet another addition with the battle system will be more characters you can add to your party. The biggest one is Ahzi, who will be able to join the fight as a mage, but many of the side characters I'll be adding throughout will also be able to fight alongside you. That can be seen in the example above, where Lilah is helping you in the fight against Kirile. They won't be companions in the same way that the love interests are (except Ahzi, of course),  but once you've recruited them within the main plot line, you'll be able to add them to your battle party at any time.

Suggestions? Critiques? Please leave a comment.

P.S.: Here are previews of the loading screens for Kirile and Duren. Yay. :)