Hello everybody. There's been a few new development updates in Killer Dolls Dark Abyss, in various areas, and I wanted to share them with you. I made some more work on the enemy AI to make them react to the traps better. In a previous demo update, traps could damage enemies. Now, if enemies are hit by a trap, they will move away from it. Overall, enemies avoid walking into traps, but there's always the chance they come in contact with one, so with this update they will get away from the traps if they are hit by them. This will make it into a demo update soon-ish. In the previous update I hinted about some enemies and attack types that can deplete or completely wipe out a Doll's magic bar. I explained the reasons for that, and I showed a video. Now I have an updated video that shows the full idea. [previewyoutube=BZnSYYV5QY4;full][/previewyoutube] In the video you can see a few things: her magic goes down. There's some pink particle effect around her lower belly, that is somewhat reminiscent of the "magic sucking attack" you see near the end of the trailer (four-ear purple demon sucking the energy from the Doll's belly). When she recovers, she goes into a "pain state" that shows in her idle, walk and run animations. Actually this "pain state" will also affect gameplay. When in "pain state" she still moves at the same speed and she can still attack, but she can barely dash, she cannot jump, and she cannot use magic attacks (blood-stone spells and special moves/executions). Some gameplay aspects stay the same because it would feel too penalizing if she is crippled too much with these attacks. Still not sure if the dash is reduced too much, so we will have to test that. Another idea I was debating is whether or not magic attacks should just be disabled or if we should put an animation that shows she's unable to perform them (like some kind of "pain reaction" for trying to do the attack). I think this will need an additional tutorial to explain the effects of that kind of attack, so players know why certain things don't work if they are attacked that way. You won't be able to experience this in the demo because these enemies don't show up here. However, if you want to test that out, maybe I could add some "demo-only room" in the demo level with a special type of enemy that performs a similar attack so you can test the "pain state" mechanic and discuss what adjustments it may need. And now, time for an even darker update. The caves/mines enemy is fully functional now. The boss has some really disturbing and sinister detail that I added after discussing it with a couple of people. It's very disturbing, but I think that's what makes it cool. This was actually inspired by the "Labyrinth Madman" enemy from Bloodborne, which you can see [url=https://www.bloodborne-wiki.com/2024/08/labyrinth-madman-corpse-gallery.html]here[/url]. The caves/mines enemy has a top-level Doll apprentice (known as "Little Chicks" in the game and also the demo) tied up to his improvised mace. There's a catch, though. The girl is alive. You can see the boss and his peculiar mace in the images below. Moni added for size reference. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43808061/0705a9a995d027e68897e1c8f5f4832b31ae8ef3.png[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43808061/ad1e400a334bd3d597fe135b80094ae936b5fac9.png[/img] The mace has some shards of magical obsidian embeded to it (the same one used for the "Nishumas"), and one of them is slightly piercing her lower belly. This gives him "magical abilities" that he can use during the battle. You can see some of his moves in the video below. [previewyoutube=Oy0USAT7lZg;full][/previewyoutube] You can see that, whenever he hits with his mace, a purple aura surrounds it. The idea is that magic is pulled out of the girl and transmitted to the obsidian shards every time she experiences pain. You can also see her react to the hits and hear her tiny screams when the mace hits something, which makes the whole thing even darker. As you know, Killer Dolls Dark Abyss is self-published. Originally, I wanted to get a publisher and funding, but that didn't work. However, maybe it's for the best. One of the nice things of making a self-published game is that it can have a lot of different things that would be forced out of the game by a publisher. Something tells me the things you see in this update would not be allowed by a publisher, and some of the other stuff I will show in the future would also not be allowed. Not to mention publishers would (and the ones I spoke to actually did) complain about the designs of the girls. On this same subject, someone on YouTube asked if KDDA will make it to consoles. The plan is to port this to PlayStation, but will only be released if it's allowed "as is", meaning sexy outfits and dark elements. And now I think it's time for a more pleasant update. In the post about Moni's outfit redesign I mentioned Moni's red hair in previous versions of the demo was a bug, not a deliberate choice, so her hair was changed to brown, which was her intended hair color. But, to compensate for the change, the game would feature a red-haired Doll. I was playing around with the character design program and made the red-haired Doll. Her name is Vero (Veronica), and she's hot. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43808061/52fd88d88ae53137c81eceec4448ee139711c06b.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43808061/0a5a5a3f1e0411ab9394168bf853b4bb0ad6835e.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43808061/db89def0255c83e58529a8896c0fb0c5df579e77.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43808061/6741ed761dee7546671b9126f5795b49c4c3d641.jpg[/img] I still don't know what her outfit will look like (she's just wearing a generic leotard used as base for the "festive costume" outfit), and I don't know what weapon she will use. I also have two more Dolls, and I wanted to share them with you: Additionally, I am happy to show you the next two Dolls that will, eventually, make it into Killer Dolls Dark Abyss. This is Pame (Pamela), The Feathered Serpent. Just like Vero, she still has no outfit and this leotard is a generic leotard. I already have her outfit design, though. It was designed by a girl working on the game a few months ago. She's going to be the shortest Doll, with barely 155 cm of height. She's also the "small boobs but big butt" Doll of the game. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43808061/dd42511249d33d38d67f0460346693fc4e576e1c.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43808061/e1d575d2082b9bc7b3fbd92026cdcb34e5e5bc24.jpg[/img] And this is Vale (Valeria), The Daughter of The Moon and Cami's twin sister. I don't have the outfit design yet, but I have a solid idea of what it will be. Since she's Cami's twin sister, and Cami is The Daughter of The Sun (hence the red/pink costume), Vale's outfit will be similar to Cami's but with dark-blue and black colors. She's virtually identical to Cami, but the shape of her eyes is slightly different, and she will also have slightly different (bigger) body proportions. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43808061/e1318ce88c0c8fcc9ba0ec003511d7cc5638edcf.jpg[/img] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/43808061/5cd3681d9c69f074c4380bd3fde5e6af53dcef32.jpg[/img] And that's all for this time. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. If you like what you see, and you like the idea of a game about cute girls fighting monsters, please wishlist Killer Dolls Dark Abyss! Also, this game has a [url=https://patreon.com/thedomaginarium]patreon[/url]. Joining the patreon is free, since there's no rewards at the moment, and there's only a few subscribers, but you have the option to donate in case you want to support the development.