Hello everyone!

I hope you are all having an excellent Friday!

Today, I bring you the build 0.13 of Ethereal Sunder.

We continue the story from when we left off: You must go with Anne to two locations in the district where you will find the objects keeping the haunted mansion's defensive barrier. This part of the story was trickier to implement than I expected for two reasons.

First, since you are technically walking around with Anne (even if she is not on the screen), it would be odd if you were to do erotic activities and minigames or get assaulted by perverts and bandits when she is there with you. Therefore, to avoid this continuity error, I disabled the ability to go to other maps besides the ones from the objective, play minigames, and participate in erotic activities when she is still with you. Also, if a bandit or pervert attacks you, this will trigger a conversation of them noticing Anne and then running away.

The second reason this part of the story was difficult to implement is that one of the locations in which you will find one of the objects is a very special place in terms of erotic activities. (I’ll not go into details to not spoil the event 😊), and it took me some time to write the conversation for that location since I wanted it to branch into different pieces of dialogue depending on Eilayda’s previous erotic experiences.

Please remember that you cannot currently see the other branches of this conversation since the events that trigger them are part of erotic scenes that have not been implemented yet. You will have to wait a few months to see the other dialogues.

Now, into the erotic scene. This update has only one erotic scene, the third event with the potions merchant. We wanted to do two but discovered a problem with the illustration we wanted to use for the second scene, so we had to start from scratch. To make up for this mistake, I’m working to have this scene added to the following two that we are working on for build 0.14.

On the other hand, for gameplay, I added a method to earn mana at the bar, which requires you to spend money. So, if you have many gold coins but lack mana, this option should be perfect. You will have access to this method after speaking with Sebastian when you are done with the Red Hornets Base dungeon.

Other additions to the game with this update are three new functionalities.

First, is the option to skip the prologue and read a summary instead, just for those who want to get quickly into the game. However, be aware that you will skip the erotic scene of the prologue and all its tutorials if you choose to use this option.

Second, I coded the ‘P’ key to allow you to move the day cycle forward to the day phase you want. So, if you are interested in playing a particular erotic event or minigame but are not in the correct day phase for it to be available, you can use this key to fix that problem in 1 second. This key can be activated anywhere in the district that is not on a dungeon map and is enabled for use as soon as you finish the prologue. Check the Tutorial Book if you need details on how to use it.

Last but not least, I added an on/off button to the settings for a new mode called “Passive Mode”. When on, this mode disables combats with enemies that are not bosses or are not carrying a key and even makes them run away from you. I have heard a few players commenting that dungeons are challenging to explore since there are a lot of enemies or comments about finding combats tedious after some time playing; while I don’t share this opinion, I can understand it; my wish with this game is to provide entertainment, not frustration. So, I decided to add this button to assist this group of players in their experience without modifying the game's design. You can enable/disable this mode anywhere, so feel free to use it however you need.

Well, this is now a long post, huh? Maybe it's the most extensive post I have written. . . Anyway, thank you if you have read this far!

That’s all for this update! I’ll leave here the list of content added in this build for those who are interested:

• New: Added the third scene with the potions merchant.
• New: Added the next part of the story in which the places marked by the location spell are scouted.
• New: Added a function to the P key that allows you to move the day phase while outside dungeons when you press it.
• New: Added an option during new game to skip the prologue and read a summary instead.
• New: Added a mechanic in the bar that allows you to exchange mana for gold. Enabled when you speak with Sebastian after completing the Red Hornets Base dungeon.
• New: Added an option to activate/disable Passive Mode in the settings menu. This mode disables combat with non-important enemies (those who are not bosses or are not carrying keys).

Thank you for playing the game, and I hope you enjoy this new content!

Important!

Before closing this post, I want to reiterate what I said in this other one: https://etherealsunderdev.itch.io/ethereal-sunder/devlog/821568/announcement-reg...

This update, 0.13, will be the game's last public version and demo.

Once the game is complete, a final version will be released for the public.