Hey all, 

Quick update for you. I cleaned up the main site a bit today and organized the front page to make a little more sense. Last night I also updated the screenshots on the page, and I'm planning on adding a few more. 

I'm working on play-testing and making sure things don't break and explode. Good news: I made it through all of Chapter One and fixed everything that would break, including Shaniqua's quest, which involved a mini game! Also fixed some of the movement routes-- I noticed that sometimes during cutscenes they weren't looking at each other? And I was like, y'all, I get you're teenagers, but please, look at each other? So hopefully some cutscenes are less awkward. 

Continuing to work on the combat system. I have added all the skills for the game and finalized the classes. I wanted each girl to have her own unique set of skills based on her personal interests and attributes. Candace, for example, is the brainy girl-next-door who wants to be a nurse, so she has healing skills and reads books to inflict the damage of AWESOME KNOWLEDGE on her opponents. Being the sweetest one in the group, she also has skills like "Kill Em With Kindness" and "Blow Kisses," which can inflict poison damage. Seri, the dancer, will kick ass with dance moves. Carmen knows karate, so she will perform headlocks, karate chops, and roundhouse kicks. And Brandy is just the loose cannon--when she fights, she goes all out. She pulls hair, scratches people, and she can also inflict damage through song. 

Problem is, for some reason, I haven't programmed these skills to give damage yet? You can perform them in the game but they won't do anything to enemies. Gotta fix that. Also had to address the amount of MP used by performing these particular skills. This resulted in adding more items that can help you recover MP. You can buy and drink Squeezits to recover MP. 

Also need to resize battlers, and make sure that for the final game, the difficulty level of the enemies increases as the player's level increases. Right now, combat isn't much of a challenge. I'm trying to make it challenging enough to be fun, but I don't want it to be just SO hard that you can't progress through the story. This is a story driven game, so that would totally suck if someone couldn't get to the next chapter because they couldn't beat up Kenny. 

What else do I have left to do? Clean up expressions. You may notice when you're playing that the bottom part of an expression will "clip" into another expression. I'm also going to give Seri a nose (XD) to make her facial features and expression more consistent with everyone else, who... has a nose. I think that honestly she's the only person who doesn't have a nose, and that's weird because everyone makes fun of her for having a large nose. Seri also needs a dance outfit expression sheet, since she's a dancer. And another expression sheet which will come in handy for the Lake Lanier scene. 

I also need to start work on the trailers for the game. Animated trailer is coming along! I wanted to share with you my progress. I have very limited animation experience and a nonexistent teeny tiny budget, so it's going to look a bit rough and that can't be avoided. But 

Lastly, I wanted to thank those of you who left reviews for the game.  As a first time dev with little to no prior coding experience, there have been a lot of challenges and hurdles to overcome. It hasn't been easy, but I'm so glad to see this positive feedback. I wish I could find a way to message and thank you individually, but I guess itch doesn't let me do that? I feel so bad because I didn't even notice these reviews until now, but I'm so so happy that you posted them. It makes everything that I'm doing worth it.