Monthly Update!!

Here's June's Monthly Update!! We got a small UI update, new Soul designs, and the new move that was featured in the new twitter video!

It's a lot, to update, so here we go!!!

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I think it was in June(or maybe we added it in May and I forgot to showcase it?) that we added Shotgun Spike: A Gerbera-like movement ability in Triburst. If an enemy is close to Rutie during the animation, they're carried with her in that direction! However, if they're at max range they get spiked down to the ground, creating a LOT of distance.

We also added a simple dodge move (Because yes, there will be run and gun gameplay moments here that you need to worry about!): Curve Shot. I don't really know where to put this move into my combos too often because of my muscle memory and its range, but it's a move that you use after dodging backwards in Triburst. It shoots a bullet that curves upwards and, if it connects with an enemy, launches them straight up. Most of the time I use it as a long range combo starter.

I will go over what new moves we plan to add after the rest of the updates.

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As for UI and Miscellaneous additions, we have revamped how the Souls look in game!

Common Souls: Souls of the fallen that were consumed by Remnants. For some reason, Remnants do not destroy any Souls they consume, but rather hold them within themselves like very dangerous containers.

These are the main "currency" that you will collect form Remnants. Foifoi is able to extract Soul Dust from these souls to empower Rutie and use her Soul-Fire Forge to make items. The extraction process only collects residue from these Souls, and they're all safely returned to the High Coven without any damage!

Brave Souls: Souls of those that banded together for the greater good during the first wave. 

While these Souls are a little rarer than Common souls, you will still see many of them. Turns out that there are more people out there looking out for each other than you would think! Foifoi makes a point to mention that people's Souls aren't "worth more" simply because they did more good in their lives, but rather that Witches like her are able to use the "good karma" that people have accumulated for different purposes. The type and amount of karma changes the shape of the Soul at different thresholds, and some are more rare than others, but she doesn't want Rutie to think that there are some people that are simply more valuable than others. Rutie disagrees at first, only seeing the value that rarer Souls hold to herself with regards to her mission. 

We will show off the other Soul designs with more lore tidbits once we complete them!! There will be the Courageous Soul and, of course, the Heroic Soul to come.

And finally, we updated the health bar. This thing needed a long overdue update, and it was only recently that I was inspired to make it look like her gun and be all white and ethereal, taking inspiration from the DmC reboot, actually.

Before: 

After:

The portrait in her health bar that was just a static image has changed to show Rutie's soul fire in her gun and denote what style you currently are on by colour. You might not need this information once you remember what every style is by reticle type or just looking at Rutie's stance or what have you, but I thought it would just be a cool thing to show off like Dante's style switching cross. the MP bar is also now a gauge that fills underneath her health bar as opposed to the very placeholder-y look it had before.

Wasn't sure if I should have added grunge like this, to emulate DmC's health bar further lol. However I'd have to add this grunge to the style rank, the radial style menu on the bottom left, and maybe event he enemy health too. I don't think a grunge-y look is what we're going for here, but it looks fun like this

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For planned moves, we're making this update pretty long winded so I will simply list what's in store to try and complete this month if we can, based on what we have planned. This is in order of importance:

Caster:

• Caster's M2 moves will be light-based, so she should have a light whip that acts like Wire Snatch bound to neutral M2. When locked on, it pulls the enemy towards Rutie. If not locked on, it does a circular area attack similar to Nero's Rawhide Break Age (without the grab part) that knocks enemies around her away.
• Should consider also adding Caster's other elemental combos if we have the time (lightning, water and fire spells). Those will be based on combo strings (M1, M2 is currently Ice Blast, so M1, M1, M2 will be the lightning attack, etc.)

Snipe:

• Add a charge up time to Snipe's aiming mode (hold M2), similar to Sniper or Widowmaker. Add FX to show taht the shot is charging up like a Tomboy EX. At full charge, Rutie becomes rooted and must fire or dodge.
• Add a ricochet bullet that bounces between enemies, and a more powerful ricochet that shoots multiple bullets that bounce off the area around her. (Slightly homing so that they don't simply miss the targets?) Will have to figure out if you can maybe toggle between the two shot types using the lock-on button while zoomed in, since hold M2 in snipe mode disables lock-on.

Blade:

• Add a Round Trip to give Rutie access to bare knuckle moves - Call it Rondo
• Activate it by holding down the attack button. There are two levels, where one stays out for a certain time and another where it stays out until the MP meter runs out or it's called back.
• While Rondo is active, either disable style switching (might feel bad bad but maybe a high risk/high reward sort of style gamble?) or have the gun come back to her immediately if she style switches (might look jank but would be most accessible).
• Rutie's bare knuckle moves will be a mixture of Muay Thai and Eskrima. Mainly focused on kicking, knees and elbows, because she tells Shadia she isn't confident in her arm strength for punches.
• Just figured out that it would be as simple as recalling the gun with an input, like Back+M2, to allow for Round Trip to disable style switching without feeling gross.
• This one might take a while to implement so it might not be out until August's update

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Alright that was a huge update, but I thought it would also be cool to let people know where our thoughts are lying right now with respect to moves planned in the future and also what we plan to do to flesh out the game before September rolls around! 

TL;DR we're going to add new moves to Caster first because that's the most unfinished one, before looking at Snipe and then revisiting Blade.

Thank you all for your support so far and we hope to see you next update!

(P.S. I'm also gonna add a "LORE LORE LORE" tag because I love gushing about Duskwitch's world as we develop it so any posts I make talking about the story or characters will have that tag on it)