aura-dev

Star Knightess Aura Internal Release 0.22.0

Added 2022-08-26 23:03:59 +0000 UTC

https://aura-dev.itch.io/star-knightess-aura-prerelease/patreon-access

Note that the public release will be in 2 weeks. You can also skip the waiting time by buying Star Knightess Aura on itch.

https://aura-dev.itch.io/star-knightess-aura

It is that time of the month again! Let's do the usual routine and have a quick look first at a summary of what got added in this update. There is a one new area, one area extension, 2 new lewd scenes, 1 new H-CG, 3 new mental changes, 9 new corruption scenes, 8 new boss encounters, 1 new quest, as well as a bunch of new books and items. As you can see, it was a fairly colorful month with additions on pretty much all fronts. One thing that didn't make it into the release is the Hermit 1 CG, Emubi is still working on the facial expressions and will probably finish it up tomorrow.

Summarizing the main additions, in Roya we have two blocks of content. One is the new area unlocked by the quest "What Lurks Within The Mountains" and the other is the last map for finishing the "Hand Of The King" quest line. The latter also includes the first main boss fight of Chapter 2. In case you have been able to beat Kerberos by now, you can now die to James :'D

I have managed to beat James on a high lewdness run, so I can guarantee that he is beatable at this stage, but have yet myself to figure out how win with a purity run (although I do have some ideas I need to test).

Anyways, besides the dungeon crawling content, we also have quite some additions in lewd content for Roya. One is the H-CG for Customer Service 3 that you have probably already seen. The other one are the two remaining Hermann lewd scenes to complete his event. If you marry her to Hermann and get her under withdrawal affects, you can already get Aura caught in a pretty decent loop of constant sex. Funnily enough, I keep thinking it's already been an entire update since the Hermann scenes got added, haha.

Other than that, there are plenty of new books especially to be found in the new areas, as well as a reward book from the abductees you have rescued in from the Underground City. Although that one is probably only relevant for those who are aiming for a low-corruption playthrough and have managed to protect Aura's interest in reading.

Then, let's switch over to the mind and the real world. In the mind world, we don't have too much progress. It's mostly just a contnuation of the Knowledge Room mental changes from last update. You can now insert the Advanced Makeup Knowledge Orb and watch Aura's life spiral just a little bit more out of control as she becomes more and more obsessed with always looking her absolute best. This also unlocks the last remaining mental change of the current set, the colored nails.

We also have some progress in Rose's side of the story and can also finally conclude the Aura Dev event chain which has been going on since nearly the beginning of the game's development.

Aura giving some well-meaning tips, lmao.

Besides these main additions we also have a bunch of smaller stuff. The Spellshop prices in Nephlune have been rebalanced and got a new addition. Goblins got a new look so I can have a bunch of different goblin type enemies. The Mana Catalyst also gives some more Max MP since I believe that stealing it should take you a decent way towards the 100 MP goal for learning Open Domain II.

There is one QoL mini feature which is that the standing image of non-speakers is now slightly dimmed. Our UI artist suggested the feature and hopes that it can further improve clarity of the dialogue flow.

For the UI itself, the UI artist has now also now finally finished all the mock-ups. The coder I have hired to implement them is slowly but steadily making progress, but there were quite some walls to overcome. Mostly because the UI mockups heavily rely on strongly stylized fonts and I wanted everything to be rendered in-engine (instead of just displaing the by photoshop rendered text) which shoud future proof against many scenarios when translations become a topic. I sat down with our coder for a bit this week and I think we managed to get the last elements we needed to be rendered by RPGM, so I hope we can see some faster progress. Also, since the UI artist no longer is eating money, I will probably also start searching for another coder to support us here because I want to finally get at least the Main Menu overhaul out so that we can start collecting feedback on it.

Also, personell wise, I have found two new candidates for the assisstant writer position and given them a test assignment for writing a scene. I will put it up when they send it to me. Right now they are familiarizing themselves with the game.

Alright, that was a longer post. Regarding the plans for the upcoming week, await the Project Plan post for September and otherwise if you want to read up on more details on the changes for this update I recommend checking out the weekly devlog posts or simply the changelog below.

Changelog 0.22.0 (26.08.2022)

Integrated H-CGs for Customer Service 3
Added mental change "Implant Advanced Makeup Knowledge Orb"
Added mental change "Colored Nails"
Added mental change "Increased Corruption Speed"
Added scene "Aura too late for school 2"
Added scene "Aura too late for school 3"
Added scene "Aura Changing Home 2"
Added scene "Aura Dev 5"
Added scene "Aura Dev 6"
Added scene "Going to Nail Studio With Cheerleaders 1"
Added scene "Going to Nail Studio With Cheerleaders 2"
Added scene "Rose Seduced By Richard 2"
Added scene "Rose And George Meetup 1"
Integrated lewd scene "Hermann Sex 1"
Integrated lewd scene "Hermann Sex 2"
Added area James Home
Added area Northern Mountain Ranges
Added Avian and Mothercrow boss encounter in Northern Mountain Ranges
Added Ogre King boss encounter in Northern Mountain Ranges
Added Goblin King boss encounter
Added Medium Earth Slime boss encounter
Added Mature Spider Queen boss encounter
Added Minotaur + Venom Scorpio boss encounter
Added Lilim boss encounter
Added James Boss Fight
Added quest "What Lurks Inside The Mountains"
Finished quest "The Hand Of The King"
Added item "Formula: Acid Bomb"
Added item "Acid Bomb"
Added item "Skillbook: Bomb Proficiency II"
Added book "The Art Of Light"
Added book "The Art Of Thunderbolt"
Added book "Skillbook: Reading Proficiency I"
Added skill "Bomb Proficiency II"
Added skill "Reading Proficiency I"
Replaced default Goblin artwork for different goblin types
Scripted Paulina variation
Added pink sheet bed variations
Added crafting option for Acid Bombs after delivering formula to Alchemist
Improved warning message upon starting Festival
Dim standing image of non-speaker
Add Mana Capacity II training at Nephlune Spellshop
Added artifact "Lifeshaper"
Added reward for rescued Underground Abductee Refugee
Increased max killed bosses to 63
Increased max mental changes to 86

Balancing

Removed corruption increase from upgraded drugs, instead selling drug formulas produce 1 Corruption
Lowered prices at Nephlune Spellshop for learning advanced techniques
Increased MP gain from Mana Catalyst to 30
Added effect to Useless Knowledge to negate reading speed increases

Bugfixes

Fixed typos
Fixed Fullfilment getting added twice if it's also triggered through a real world scene
Refactored implementation of Tenacity II for enemies so it also works with auto-spells
Fixed passability issues
Fixed recollection room glitches involved with appearance changes