Just a quick reminder- this Saturday is going be a general hangout instead of the usual devstream! Nekochan, Conash and I will be drinking, playing Pretend You’re Xyzzy with HC fans, and just generally having a chill Christmas-type time. It will be streamed on Picarto and the voice chat will be happening on the Bad Kitty Games Discord channel. Nekochan and Conash are confirmed to be joining in, GusBus and PeaSea might make it if they can escape their family obligations, and I’m also putting some invites to other H-game devs, so we might have some special guests! Also, don’t forget to check out the Bad Kitty Games website on Christmas Day as there will be a small present for all HC fans.
So today I’m going to go over some of the new mechanics that have been added to Harem Collector which will show up in the December Mini-Update as well as the big 0.25.1 update in January.
The first big change is with the Cover mechanics. As you probably know, there are a number of frustrating and/or challenging fights where enemies will protect one another, making it so that your well-coordinated, carefully targeted attacks are wasted on some big dumb asshole with a lot of HP but doesn’t pose a real threat.
Well, no longer! From now on, status effects which inhibit or hamper movement (knockdown, stagger, pin, grab, stun, paralyze, etc.) will also cancel an enemy’s Cover ability. Many attacks that have a chance to inflict one of these status may also cancel Cover even if the status effect doesn’t stick, if you’re lucky enough. Further, most enemy cover ability now completely cancel the user’s evasion- no weird situations where a Kellos Spearman “hides behind his shield” and still manages to perfectly dodge an incoming attack. The only exception for the Evasion debuff is Pack Tactics, because werewolves are awesome.
Seriously, though, some other enemy types for whom “evasion tanking” seems appropriate might also be exceptions to the evasion debuff, so be aware that not all Covering enemies are a guaranteed hit.
The second big change are the collectible armour sets. From now on, seeded throughout the game will be collectible armour pieces that aren’t equip-able on their own, but when brought together Kevin and Ino will reform them into an ultimate armour set for one of the characters. There might even be a Kamidori-style additional sex scene when the armour sets comes together for a harem girl, but that’s TBD- there’s plenty of sex scenes in the game without it, so it may be a resource/time issue. Anyway, some of these ultimate armours haven’t been designed yet, so if you pick up an item called “Meline Armour Part 3” or whatever you’ll know what it is.
The armour pieces aren’t going to be intensely difficult to find. Don’t expect a Dark Seed level of dickishness from me, but they’re not going to be just given away like the weapon upgrades. I’d say my dickishness level to be at Strange Note level- some might require completing mini-quests or solving puzzles but nothing’s going to be hidden in hard to reach background elements or buried in locations you can also visit once. I haven’t decided whether I’ll take the time to add some method of filling in armour pieces for people who have late-game saves and don’t want to do over, or just say “Tough, go visit the New Game Plus fairy.”
If I have time, I also want to go and make the Mourning Wood a re-visitable area. I think it’s a cool location, I still like how the ghosts appear and disappear based on the player’s movement, and there’s still a dearth of early-game re-visitables. Also, please be aware that some of the weapon upgrades are being rejiggered to make room for the new quest.
Anyway, I think that’s it for now! Thanks as always, have a great holiday, and we hope to see you all on Christmas Eve!