TLDR: I am working on the game, changing stuff. :)

Happy Thanksgiving (almost) for everyone who celebrates it. It's been a rough year! I've recently been able to sit down and start working on the game again, and I'm actually grateful I've had so much time to distance myself from the project. I've worked on it here and there, but last year I was able to devote hours each day. With work and college back in full swing due to Covid-19 settling down (or at least, because we've all accepted it at this point), I'm putting in what time I can.

Having some serious reflection time, I'm gutting a lot of things and focusing on my core gameplay: tight, mechanical gameplay that's elemental focused and a decent story with good characters. I never had a big budget or the talent to make a game stand out graphically, but I'm hoping I'll be able to update and improve the graphics over time when money comes in. I've had several talented artists work on the game, but there's much more work to do to make it stand out. 

Boss challenges - There will be a hard mode difficulty option that can be toggled on and off at any time. Defeating a boss on hard mode will earn you currency you can spend for fun items. Hard mode bosses will have at least one unique gameplay factor, but I'm still playing with details.

On screen encounters - This is for performance and lack of art budget. In it's place, a set number of random encounters will exist on each map. Defeating an encounter will deplete a gauge. Once it's empty, there's no more encounters (ever!) on that map. There will be methods to reset the gauge. This exact method is still up in the air, but I do know I want to have a controlled random encounter system.

Threat system - It allowed for too much cheese. There will be a standard taunt ability available through items and certain Alter abilities, but it will be limited due to....

Streamlined status effects - I had too many unique status effects, which was clunky (it got worse past the demo). A character may now have one stat buff (HP Boost, Attack Boost, etc) and one unique buff (Haste, Reflect, Taunt, etc) on at a time. Trying to use Haste on an ally that has Reflect, for example, will do nothing. You have to wait for the buff to fall off before applying a new one. There will be limited ability options to remove buffs. This isn't final, but I feel like it adds more depth to a choice (you may be stuck with it for several turns). 

Targes versus Manuals - Targes are gone, completely. I am working on adding many more manuals to the game, so you'll just pick whatever manual has particular abilities that suit your character's build. 

I added a screenshot of character number 5 and his Alter screen with all of the abilities. His name is Seik, and he'll have a vital role shortly past the original demo. If the world is kind to me, I want to have a few people beta test early next year.