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Just a Liora update today. This week I worked on pushing the frontier on the main dungeon further ahead.Usually I focus on developing content as much as possible in vertical slices (that is fully playable sections), but as mentioned in the project plan, this dungeon area specifically is highly interconnected, so I decided to start with a whitebox approach.

I got further than I had planned (but for negative reasons I will talk about below) so despite spending the first two days on just drafting dungeon layouts, I was able to decently map out the first of the new main dungeon areas (Highwarden Inner Bailey) and already create the regular encounters for it. Although there isn't really a point in fighting these difficult encounters (or sneaking around them) this week yet as I only managed to close out the regular encounter design today and didn't move to working out the loot yet.

The new dungeon comes with various special features:

• You can not only access it via the main path of the Highwarden Entrance Area, but also through the level 2 areas in the side areas by passing some difficult checks (Except for Darklake right now, for that one you will need to pass an Air check that requires Air Bubble II so until that is in the game, I won't be connecting it into the overall structure)
• The Resistance mechanic from SKA's Draknor Fortress area makes a reappearance. This time around, instead of getting a curse, Rean will be forced to retreat from the party. Note that his retreat for the day is final, so if you use Highwarden to access a side dungeon and Rean has to retreat, Liora will be alone with Edgar in the side dungeon as well.

The overall areas are roughly structured into three parts: Inner Bailey, Wing Building, Cellar, and the overarching goal is to enter the Main Building using one of the three entrance ways that can be found on these parts.

For now the Wing and Cellar will remain placeholder maps until we start the development of part 3, but producing enough content so that you can properly challenge the Inner Bailey will be the next goal.

I'm also not sure which level I will end up choosing for this area. Initially I wanted this dungeon to have one common level 30 but that ended up not feeling good, as you would not be able to revisit HIghwarden for quite some time. I then tried making the Inner Bailey 20, the Wing 25 and the Cellar 30 but apparantly with the level reduction mechanic, a base level 20 is fairly beatable for regular enemies. Also due to the way the game is implemented, each enemy is associated exactly with 1 area and you see the stats of the monster in that area in the compendium, so I decided to go with Inner Bailey = Wing = 25 and Cellar = 30 for now. But maybe that will change again.

Moving on to a different topic, our assistant developer Trihan has made further progress on the QoL side. Have you ever wanted to blitz through segments of SKA or Liora with x50 Skip speed but got a headache from all the SHAKING AND BLINKING? Well I certainly have considering how often I have to do that, so we added some options where you can turn those effects off. The feature is also available on SKA but I don't plant to do a prerelease for it, so there it will be coming with a build next week probably.

Finally, regarding art production and the reason why I am a bit ahead of schedule: Our artist for Liora doesn't have a lot of time until the 18th December and will also have little time in January and Feburary it seems. His goal is to work a lot during the second half of December to get ahead of the schedule to deal with this. This usually turns out badly because there is always some personal stuff that pops up and suddenly everything is delayed but he was in a similar situation in June and did manage to catch up again in August, so for now I decided to trust his work plan.

Anyways, since I don't have artwork to integrate, I will be just focusing on dungeon content the next week as well (well, except for the Lorraine CG for SKA) and probably also already add the next set of spells and martials or something like that.

Changelog 0.3.0-prerelease-4 (05.12.2025)

• Moved main area designation from Highwarden Entrance to Highwarden Inner Bailey
• Implemented Resistance mechanic and forced Rean Retreat in Highwarden Bailey
• Added area Highwarden Inner Bailey
• Added on entry dialogue for Highwarden
• Added stub map Granitite Mines 2
• Implement +2 days until Impatient and -2 Days for triggering Cunning after 10 Area Clears

Balancing

• Increased value of Date effect from 15 to 20 and If Edgar Pays condition from 20 to 30

Bugfixes

• Fixed Frilly Dollwear pulling enchantment text from Low-Cut Magewear
• Fixed wounded not being removed when going from Intro to Main Game
• Fixed Side Tail adding Wavy Hair passive
• Fixed Clinical Trials not triggering exclamation marker
• Fixed spacing between message window commands
• Fixed Skeleton Soldier using wrong class and class having wrong element rates