7/20 Status Update

This last week was the most time I've spent on making Apollo Seven stuff in a long time. I was deep in the trenches working on Netoria Tactics 2, solidifying game mechanics, adding new features, and writing the beginning of the game. I have a whole lot I could talk about, but let's focus on the game mechanics this week.

This is what the unit card looks like in Netoria 2. There's a few big changes here. First of all, level and exp are gone. Experience as a whole is completely absent from the sequel, characters gain power by gaining new skills, weapons, and changing classes.
Speaking of skills, that's what the new AP bar is about. Characters now have a limited resource called AP that you can use to activate skills. 

Skills can do all kinds of things. Buff allies, debuff enemies, deal damage, heal, grant extra abilites, etc. For example, Vashti here has three skills she can use. Empower, which raises her magic stat, Viper Strike which poisons the enemy, and Curse of Slumber which puts an enemy to sleep. These are additional actions she can take beyond just attacking enemies with her weapons. You only have a set amount of AP per battle however so be careful to manage which skills you use and when.

What skills a unit has is determined by their class. At the start of Netoria 2, each character has two possibilities, their normal class, and their POV specific class. If you're playing on Shahrazad's POV, she'll be an Assassin:

She uses daggers and has the skill Night's Blessing that lets her melt into the shadows becoming hard to hit for a few turns.

But if you're playing on another character's POV, she'll instead be a Slinger:

Her sling is a skill, not a normal weapon. When you use it, you'll lose AP. After hurling a few stone at her enemies she'll have to take a turn to reload and restore it. Different characters use AP in different ways. For some it powers a toolbox of different abilities, for some it limits how many times they can use powerful skills, and for some it's a renewable resource they have to take turns off to restore. Hopefully this will make each character feel different from each other and unique in how you use them.

On the lower right of the unit card, you'll see that units still have abilities like in the first game. These are effects that are permanently on, you don't need to spend AP or use your turn to activate them. Slinger Sharazad has three abilities. The first, Object of Affection, means that she's a gropable target. The second, Non-Threatening, means that if she's standing next to another ally enemies will leave her alone. She's just a woman with a little strap after all, why attack her over the big guy brandishing a sword next to her? And the third, Lover's Guard, means that if she's standing next to another character with the same skill, neither can be groped.

And look, Zaman has Lover's Guard too!

He also has high defenses and defensive abilities. Ah, so we just stick Shahrazad next to Zaman, and they'll keep each other nice and safe! Well that's nice, guess we're getting those pure romance endings easy-peasy, right? But wait, look at Assassin Shahrazad again, she doesn't have Lover's Guard! The same happens with Zaman and his POV class, Rebel. If you're on they're POVs, you lose that groping protection and keeping them together becomes harder. And if you're on Vashti or Azar's POV, the two characters who actively want to grope and break up the couple, Shah and Zaman will be in their base class with abilities that want you to stick them next to each other and become immune to gropes. So just like in the first game, achieving the main character's goals whether that's avoiding NTR or causing it will make you go against the grain of the mechanics and raise the difficulty.

I hope this has given you an overview of what's changed in the core gameplay of Netoria 2. There's additional wrinkles and small tweaks I didn't talk about here, but this should give you an idea of how the sequel will play differently from the first game.

That's all for this week. As always, thank you for your continued support.