September Game Update - Arcanus Ruin

Hi everyone. A bit late to post this update today, as I slept and went somewhere this evening. Now, I can finally let you all know about the progress on the game so far! 

The most important announcement about the game is that me and my team will be shifting from doing 3D art for the CGs to 2D art instead. It's due to the fact my team member, Ren, who wants to release the game on steam. But given the strict EULA from Koikatsu creators, we mostly can't release the game on Steam due to using Koikatsu assets. So, I hired or commissioned an artist friend to take care of the CGs for the game: P-Hans. His work is astounding, and I've commissioned him multiple times in the past. Here is the most recent works he did for the game: Guiying. I hope you guys like how she looks :P 

Due to these changes and the shift to 2D art CG scenes, the game will most likely be delayed for playable release for supporters around early 2026, depends on the amount of art needed for the game build. 

Speaking of commissioning/hiring artists for the game, I found a pixel artist on Fiverr that did some tilesets for me and I really like how they turned out. He will be handling the tilesets for some areas that need custom tiles or furniture, and he'll handle character sprites in game. I'll be looking for someone to handle or create Parallax mappings in RPGmaker as I do want to release a quality game to the people.

Now. Let's talk about gameplay and other stuff related to the game that me and Ren handle. 

I handle pretty much everything: Lore, story, game mechanics, and mapping so far. Ren handles the writing but does help me with other things like some lewd scenes. I'm not great with lewd scene ideas as I'm focused on story and everything. It's my first time with this, so I do apologize about it.

The game will have interesting combat that will be tied to the story and lore of the characters and world. Originally, each character will have their own skills and abilities. But recently, that is changed where now characters will now have universal skills that can be carried by other characters, if they share the same element. Each character will have their own playstyle and abilities as usual to make them different in game. 

One mechanic that will come to our game to make gameplay interesting is Weakness Shields. Thanks for VisuStella plugins, we can achieve this type of mechanic that is very similar to Honkai: Star Rail's Break shields or whatever it is called in game. You can see Icons on the bottom of the enemy to see what elements they are weak to, and which can break their shields. Give them a few hits with the right elements, and they break! Falling into a stun-like effect that makes them very weak to elements in game. 

And when it comes to Mechanics, there comes where things don't work. So, I've been dealing with issues on trying to fix some plugins not working right or issues with the engine. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done to make the game look good, so this isn't the final product. 

Anyway, I think that is all I can share with you all. I might do another update around November or October. Will see how things play out. I do hope you guys look forward to the game and offer support to it as it would so much to me and the team behind it! See you guys later ^^ 

• Groundage