0.6.0-prerelease-1

Like every week, grab the latest prerelease at:

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

Since most work went into the bugfixes available in the public patch, there won't be much to report here this week... is that what you thought? Well, kind of, but I think for those who follow Star Knightess Aura for the more visual novel style sections, there is some fun content available!

Saves should be compatible. Just extract and copy & paste your /save folder over.

Pink scenes. This isn't too relevant right now, as there are not too many ways to decrease Aura's willpower / increase the corruption limit, but still I think it's good to have this system going on as soon as possible. Whenever you get Aura below the lewdness threshold, you will now see the locked lewd option marked in pink. Kind of to strenghten the association with the option being forced by Alicia taking over.  But this isn't just a visual thingy! When you watch a pink scene you will get a couple (really just 2-3) text boxes with additional lewd content. The extra text has also pink marked text.

After forcing Aura into a choice, she will now also regain 20 Willpower as she shakes of Alicia's influence. 

You can see all new pink variations in the recollection room! 

New common scenes. There are two new common scenes that you will encounter as you pass your days! A certain rowdy student who still doesn' t have a name because I can't decide if he's important enough or not, tries to exact revenge on Aura. Check out how that works out! The other scene shows what Alicia and Richard are up to in the real world and introduces two new minor characters on the villain side that will make appearances in the upcoming corruption events! I apologize for the last scene getting a bit longer, but Alicia and Richard really like to hear themselves talking...

Paper doll system. This won't be too interesting right now, but I extended the sprite system to compose the character sprite out of individual images. This way we can get all kinds fo different combinations of expressions, clothing, etc. You will notice that the file size of the game decreased by 10MB. This is because I was able to delete a lot of images (such as collar / no collar variations).

Search for an artists. This won't affect you either, but I would like log here about my activities for starting the search for an artist for the game. I started last sunday posting the ads and I already got a lot of decent applications. Right now there are 3-4 artists in my closer selection. As I am still getting lots of applications everyday, I will wait a bit more for determining the closer selection. But I expect that I will soon be posting a poll where you can vote on which of the artists I think are suitable should be the one. All patrons will be able to vote, it's your guys money after all. 

If you haven't pledged yet, please think about it! We are close to the goal, if we keep it up we can start commissioning maybe for the mai update. In fact, with only 150 to go, it might even be possible to start this month!

Of course the prerelease also contains all the bugfixes and improvements of the 0.5.1 patch. There are also some minor further technical changes and convenience features. I give below a consolidated changelog of all the changes of the week.

Changelog

• Put shadows on NOT IMPLEMENTED objects in Aura's mental world
• Added sparkle indicator for empty relationship slots
• Added scene "Bullying 2"
• Added scene "Bad Guys Meetup 1"
• Refactored standing image system into a paper doll system
• Extended choices to support hidden options
• Extended choices to support special colors under special conditions
• Previously (???) marked choices are now hidden
• Added "pink" versions of lewd scenes
• Added maximum distance for playing duel animations in Trademond/Refugee Camp

Balancing

• Learning Tailwind I from Nadia no longer has a (???) condition
• Triggering a forced lewd scene now restores 20 willpower

Bugfixes

• Fixed various typos
• Fixed Enhanchement skills being cast instead of cancelled when cancelling them during battle
• Disallow starting a duel while enchantment/autospell/summon are active
• Added missing +1 Lewdness message at Slime Summoner lewd scene
• Fixed Jacob's dialogue for Winged Pig Thief not triggering when Charlotte didn't join 
• Fixed Aura being shown on wrong side when interacting with sleeping John 
• Fixed game deadlocking when entering Forest of Runes after talking to Julian
• Fixed items being usable in mental world
• Fixed tile passability issue in Northern Mine Vault
• Fixed Cancel (ESC) skipping enablement check of choice
• Fixed missing workshop level condition for crafting Viality Potions
• Fixed enablement checks when jumping down into Robert's shed
• Fixed Venom Scorpio not being able to detect player or being ambushed