#fys:ahs

The menu is really filling out with equipment-type items now that I've got all of the accessories and most of the head/neck equipment added in (only skipping the Dodgy Cape because it'll need a bigger sprite, and a few others that you can't actually get yet.)

Currently I have it arranged so that healing items are first, then weapons, then items that can be used in battle (like Stink Bombs, Chiba Balls, and other things you throw at enemies), then armor and other equipment, and finally miscellaneous things like books and keys.

This one's a bit of an inside joke that I doubt anyone will actually get!

One of my teachers made a janky zero-budget/zero-editing movie with our class as the "actors" during my senior year, and the credits of the movie mentioned that it had won the "Avery Award"... which doesn't actually exist, the teacher made up a fake award name on the spot just to put that in there as a goof.

As far as I can find, there doesn't seem to be an actual thing just called an "Avery Award" -- especially not one that would make sense for a movie to win, since the only exact matches seem to be an "Avery Scholarship" which is sometimes also referred to as an "Avery Award."

One of many upgraded pieces of equipment that Jay can cobble together for the party out of scraps and other items found lying around.

With this, every currently available weapon equippable by Joguo and Bridget has an entry in the Notebook's "Items" section!

I've been saving Eddie and Damuru-J's weapons for last, since most of them are longer stick/staff type things which will probably need a bigger sprite to look even sorta-kinda to scale with the other items.

I've also started adding in other equippable items besides weapons. Since body-armor-type items (mostly jackets, though there are a few that would count as actual "armor") will all need a bigger sprite, I figured I'd start with the smallest equipment items -- rings and other miscellaneous little things.

So far the only way to get a Class Ring in the game is to unequip the one that Adam Nebozu starts out with during the brief time he tags along with you. There will be other ways to get one later, though it's a really weak item by that point in the game. The best use for it is, of course, selling it to the Yagziknian jeweler's shop for extra cash.

Along with the rings (all very ordinary and pretty much only worth equipping if you have nothing else to put in that slot), I've started filling out these pages for the much more useful elemental resistance items.

The Notebook menu's "Items" section has been implemented for a while, but until today it was pretty incomplete.

It had entries for pretty much all of the consumable items (food, drinks, single use throwables like Stink Bombs and in-battle power boosts like Hamster Scrolls) and a few other miscellaneous things like keys and books, but no equipment at all.

Today, I finally went in and started adding entries for some weapons! The Ruler is the first weapon you can find for Eddie, lying there on a classroom desk just waiting for you to walk up and take it.

Previously it was just a very weak bashing weapon with the upside of a slight increase to Accuracy, but today I fiddled with it a bit so that now it sometimes lands a second hit (unlike all of Eddie's other weapons, which are built for delivering a single heavy blow.)

For most of the game, new equipment is either found lying around somewhere or dropped by enemies. These are Bridget's and Joguo's first weapon upgrades (replacing the Fake Nails and Pocketknife that they start with), occasionally dropped by enemies in the Cafeteria Dungeon and the caves below.

I might tweak the description of the knives/claws' chance to land a second hit so it doesn't take up quite so much space. Maybe a similar format to the Ruler's version that only filled one line, rather than the current version that explicitly spells out that it's a chance that scales with the user's Shiznit stat?

Last but definitely not least...

Compare this one to the previous weapons for an idea of how much of an upgrade the Yagziknian equipment is, especially if you missed some optional items and are still using weaker early-game stuff.

In addition to the Armory which I already showed off, now there's...

...another shop named "Jewels and Junk" (rough translation from the original Khurbyish name, of course.)

Here you can buy a variety of miscellaneous shiny accessories like necklaces, rings, and circlets.

As for the "...and Junk" half of the name, that's because at the second counter here you can sell them your old items for extra cash... which helps a lot with actually being able to afford Yagziknian equipment.

Such as the Darkclaw weapon for Bridget!

Of the Yagziknian weapons, the Darkclaw stands out among them as the most unusual. It's the only cutting weapon in the game that does normal damage against blobs and other rapidly-regenerating enemies... because it cancels their regeneration upon contact! In the case of these Yuckworms, it's guaranteed to kill them in a single hit, so they can't split into two like they usually do when cut.

There's also a restaurant, "Marujai's Cafe," where you can buy food items that are much more effective than the stuff you'll find in the school vending machines.

Because only lunatics knock on locked bathroom doors... instead, you only give the handle a try, stopping when you realize it's locked and occupied.

Today I added in walkabout and portrait sprites for a Stage 4 Burijeoo wearing armor, intended to be used primarily as guards patrolling Yagziknia's streets (and possibly a few other places later on.)

The transition from Stage 3 into Stage 4 involves an increase in height and, more importantly, the growth of a tail. You can see this guard's tail in these screenshots if you look really close.

Oh, and... I finally started on mapping some indoor areas! Shown here is the Armory, where you can buy a variety of equipment.

All four of the new weapons available here are actually depicted here, hanging on the racks against the back wall. There's the Xoozum Staff for Damuru-J, the Yagziknian Mace for Eddie, the Crystal Knife for Joguo, and the Darkclaw for Bridget. All of these have some unique attributes rather than just being "plain" weapon upgrades that only increase physical attack power.

The Darkclaw is definitely the most unusual of the bunch -- it also increases Accuracy slightly, does more damage than usual on critical hits, and counteracts enemy regeneration (stopping enemies like Zos and Yukkohs from gradually restoring their own HP, bypassing some of the resistance amorphous enemies usually have to cutting attacks, and instantly killing Yuckworms rather than causing them to split and multiply like most cutting attacks would.)

The Burijeoo Robe is the first new armor that Damuru-J gets, since she can't equip the various "heavy-duty" armor items (things like a bulletproof vest, haz-mat suit, and so on.)

Lower Yagziknia also has a restaurant (Marujai's Cafe) where you can buy various food and drink items, a jeweler's shop that also has a secondary shop counter where they'll buy your old junk (the idea being that they use any salvageable scrap to make assorted bling and such), the hot springs where you can go to rest (recovering HP/EP), and finally a Snuzzoo Pit, which is a sort of communal daycare for larval Burijeoo.

Only when they reach the point where their legs grow in do they begin to develop mentally, gaining the capacity to speak and understand language on at least a basic level. At this point, they are finally considered to be "true" Burijeoo, classified as Stage 1.

Before now, I've always drawn Stage 1 Burijeoo as having two pairs of clawed legs... but I'm thinking it would make a bit more sense to have them grow in their "front legs" (which later will be their arms when they start to stand upright) first, since it's already an established thing that many Stage 2 Burijeoo have a hard time keeping their legs (which would have started as a Stage 1 Burijeoo's "back legs") in solid form and tend to keep them in a half-goo state if they don't really need solid legs at the moment.

Also made it possible to actually check the signs in front of the various shops and such that you can find throughout Lower Yagziknia.

So today, I went into the game's item data and added some Yagziknian food items!

A bottle of Yagziknian spring water is much better than the standard bottled water you've been finding throughout the game (which only restores a measly 10 EP.)

It doesn't do the job quite as well as Mountain Dew (which restores 100 EP), but it's better than anything else you'll find in a drink machine, which is an accomplishment considering that it's... water. Just plain water.

And there's also, uh... grilled bug leg. Yum! 🤢🤣

Though it may seem a little icky, the Cricket Leg is the third-best item for restoring hit points in the game -- just a bit behind the Pizza (which restores 250 HP.)

Of course, the availability of Pizza in the game is pretty limited. You can buy some from the school cafeteria during lunchtime, but after that, the only way to find more is to get lucky enough to have a randomly-encountered enemy drop one. And speaking of random enemies dropping items... the Cricket Leg can, of course, sometimes be found as a dropped item when fighting Cave Ickets.

As of tonight, Lower Yagziknia finally has some more NPCs to talk to!

I had already made walkabout sprites for Stage 2 and Stage 3 Burijeoo (these two stages make up ~75% of the adult population) with three different hairstyles, and three different palettes set up for them to use... so all I really needed to do graphics-wise is add the portrait sprites for those who didn't already have one.

This one, of course, is a palette-swap of the brown-haired Burijeoo who greets you at the entrance to the city and demonstrates the magic spell they use for taking on a human form.

Oh, and there's a few benches and tables around town now! Yagziknia and the surrounding caves are using a combination of two different tilesets, and they are both packed full as of tonight... I think I've only got room to add maybe another 5 or 6 tiles at most.

Another new addition: bioluminescent mushrooms, growing in two differently-sized patches. I might go back and add a single mushroom later if I end up with any empty space in the tileset by the time I finish Upper Yagziknia's map.

I also did a little bit of work on the game yesterday -- I filled out the next entry in the "Journal" section of the Notebook menu, which is unlocked after you reach Yagziknia for the first time.

The Journal basically summarizes the story so far, updating as you get further into the game.