Unnie
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Coffee Story Update 20241023
🕑 Added 2024-10-23 20:34:06 +0000 UTCThis release brings Coffee Story up to speed to Ukuzala's improvements while fixing the soft-locks from the WIP build.
It also aims to loosen some of the mechanics and make them more forgivable as well as removing enforced story progression.
Some of the following features were already added in the WIP build. Some of those features were also changed, i.e soundtracks are different, mechanics are different etc.
Please note due to some drastic changes loading a legacy save file may cause softlocks or other unintended behaviour.
I've tested the changes by doing 2 runs to story completion and some puzzle completion. Unfortunately, I don't have the time or manpower to test fringe cases, irregular behaviour and deviations, but there are no softlocks as long as you don't try to cause one.
For the purpose of consistency, I've included the patch notes from the WIP build. Note the Important Mechanics as those changed a lot.
Sorry to say the forest dream area is not done.
I've decided to close the loop instead of leaving out a 4th area for a future release.
This set back development a bit as I would like to review the other 2 areas to make the experience whole.
This decision came because it's demoralizing to continue development while knowing the mechanics and puzzles will have to change again to accommodate a future area.
It's also become unmanageable to plan for puzzles months, if not years, in advance, while implementing content that won't be accessible for a very long time.(People to this day ask me what the colored orbs are for etc...) I simply cannot wrap my head around the level of complexity necessary to account puzzles that far in the future area.
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New story event
-Dream occurs after the sleepover event. Transitions into the cafe introduction.
You can force this dream by pressing F1. Will likely break the game later on, this is only to show case to players that just want to see it.
New real world areas
-Cat-Cat Cafe.
Accessed through the street corner after a story event. The mini game is still in a filler state. This will elt you earn money once finished
-Park
Just a conversation location at the moment. Alternative to the cafe.
Minor visual changes:
-Changed Nanami's eyes to red. I liked how she looked in Ukuzala.
-Some of the grass is now animated.
-Mall lighting doesn't change depending on time.
-Changed title screen.
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Sound:
-The game has a functioning sound system now.
-Master, soundtrack and sfx are controlled from the menu and saved globally, rather than per save.
-Various sound effects, ambiance and soundtracks have been added to most locations. These change depending on the location, time of day or the weather.
Weather:
-There is now a weather system. Light rain and heavy rain affect sound, indoors and outdoors and create particle effects outdoors.
-At the start of the day the game rolls for each period starting from dawn to see if it rains. Current rate is 20%, which is very high, but this is for a demonstration.
-If it hits, that time period and the next 2 will have either rain or heavy rain.
-There's also snow, but it's currently unused. Though I won't be surprised if something breaks and it starts snowing.
Items:
-The usage of real items you bring to the dream world is now tracked. If used up, they disappear upon waking up. Dream items disappear regardless.
Important Mechanics:
-Nightmares are no longer locked per area and are randomly selected instead.
-All nightmares are now unlocked: Flesh Wall, Spider Huggers, Tentacle Jungle (renamed "green hell"), Slug Tube, Squidrabbit Tube and TSF Sludge.
-Any pregnancy or stomach changes from nightmares will reset after the nightmare ends, for now. Slugs are an exceptions since they are technically used in puzzles.
-Have reworked how nightmares, health and mind interact:
Rather than locking into a nightmare when Mind goes to zero, the game will now instead check if it goes to zero when going to bed/passing out, after dissonance/cohesion checks.
If it does, the nightmare is randomly selected, rather than being tied to the last dream area.
If it goes to zero by any means in the dream world, the nightmare triggers immediately.
It can also go below zero, however it's not visually represented and the stat resets to 50 after a nightmare.
The same applies to Body. In addition, Body no longer acts as a threshold for Mind and Will. Not sure what I was thinking there.
Basically, this should allow players to have better control on when nightmares and death states happen, while still enforcing some necessity to maintain stats if they don't want to get them.
This will have strange effects on saves that have a nightmare in the queue, but I don't have a solution for that other than a restart.
-Transitioning between maps takes up 2 time units now, instead of 5.
-Saves only take 1 time unit now instead of 5.
-The bed can now skip straight to Evening.
-Making Will/Mind choices caps Cohesion increase to 2 per girl per day.
-The game doesn't prevent you from using some interactables in the Morning And Dawn. The idea is to let the players experience the story at their own pace where possible.
-The game doesn't restrict the location you can go to or when anymore, for the most part. The initial 2 day sequence is still enforced.
-Some of the story events don't progress unless you do what the character asks. (i.e when Kari asks you to meet her at the Mall after class the story will only progress once you do)
-Passing out from lack of Stamina deducts Mind as per dissonance-cohesion formula, rather than being free. Also, deducts from Body.
-Lowered lab door usage in dreams to 1 stamina, same as mansion.
The stat economy is a little too easy right now, but I'll re-balancing the numbers next patch
Notable bug fixes:
-Screen won't double fade when transitioning areas.
-Chastity cage doesn't appear by default on two of the poses anymore.
-Baldness when using the needle on the first dream in freeplay.
-Movement with mouse won't move the animation to the clicked destination.
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Stuff that was added in Coffee Extra: Ukuzala is now implemented in Coffee Story as well.
This includes the below.
Item changes:
-Every inventory item will have a sub menu: Use, Equip, Drop, Back.
-'Use' and 'Drop' function as they did. 'Back' is self explanatory and is the equivalent of just pressing the cancel action (default Ctrl and X).
-Equip puts the item in hand. Visually, this works with the 4 directional standing poses and 1 isometric pose.
-Special action keys (default C and Num 0) now have been re-purposed to function as use hotkeys for the equipped item.
-Clothes still function the same as they did, but are taken off via menu rather than by pressing 'C'
-Middle Mouse triggers equipped item hotkey (i.e 'C').
Control Changes:
-Inventory now has mouse support. Left Mouse selects the slot or option, clicking the the same slot or option actions it.
-Dialog choices and interactables now have mouse support as well. Unlike with the inventory, clicking an option actions it immediately, while hovering the mouse over it selects it. There are some exceptions that don't have this implemented yet. (i.e storage units and fridge. Irrelevant for this side project.)
-Pressing and letting go Left Mouse before ~0.3 seconds moves character, as before.
-Pressing and letting go Right Mouse before ~0.3 seconds equates to the cancel action (i.e 'Ctrl' or 'X')
-Holding Left Mouse for ~0.3 seconds equates to pressing the action key(i.e 'Enter').
-Holding Right Mouse for ~0.3 seconds equates to pressing inventory key (i.e 'E').
-Text input prompts limit controls to 'Enter', to confirm and 'Backspace' or 'Control' to erase.
-'Esc' toggles menu, rather than only brining it up.
-Cancel keys move the menu one layer back, instead of going to the route.
-Last selected menu remembered, when navigating back. Sometimes.
-Movement with mouse is now more stable and won't cause the player to "overwalk" when a stop is meant to happen.
-Default pose cycle key is now 'R', as well as 'P'. As this function is now used in puzzles, I thought it would be appropriate to have it closer to WASD.
GUI changes:
-The menu screen ('Esc') no longer pauses the game. This was done simplify the workload for myself.
-Menu screen transparency increased.
-Menu layout consolidation.
Dialog Changes:
-Portraits don't retain the same hand position when NPC portraits change. Previously on a portrait swap, the arms would start off at the position of the last portrait before moving to a new random position. Could still random into the same position I guess.
-Increased log limit from 100 lines to 1000.
-The log gets reset when you close the game and doesn't get loaded in when you load a save.
-Saves are less bloated because of this.
-There's a number next to each line in the log now.
-Marked when conversations end with ***
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