Domina [Ongoing] - Version: 0.1.5

What's New in Domina Version - 0.1.5?

This update requires a brand new game to start. Hopefully this is the last time this is needed.

Plugin Changes:

• Massive increase in performance. This was the main reason for this update. I have replaced about a dozen plugins with more lightweight alternatives (and replaced all related code), which led to even my crappy Android running the game in 60fps now (was like 20 before). Yay.
  • Note that some dips still happen. If your machine is very low-end, some of the bigger maps will still dip the framerate seemingly at random. Entering/exiting rooms can usually help. Playing for a while will usually help too, as the engine warms up and caches a lot of the assets. Having your device run at a good condition (high battery, actively charging, memory drive not filled) will also help. Unfortunately this is the nature of this limited game engine, the only thing left for me to do to improve FPS is to scrap the whole lighting system, which isn’t something I really want to do.
• Various changes to make the game compatible with phones. Also added complementary big UI buttons for easier movement and menu access when playing on mobile.
• The following are all changes that needed to happen not because they were problematic but because I had to replace the plugins that implemented their functionality. The goal here was to replicate what we already had, but obviously I improved stuff at every chance.

Lighting:

• New plugin means every single light source needed to be remade one by one.
• Overall less ambient light, much higher importance on actual light sources. Some areas are significantly darker/creepier.
• Most lights that had light pulsing (like the various crystals) had to be turned to static ones. Full pulsing still exists in various items.
• Added Llavanya’s Grace: Create a bright light around you at the cost of Stamina per second. Enable or disable at will. This is the first of the ‘special skills’ that can be used right from the map UI, they have their own little buttons now beneath the health/stamina/devotion bars. Llavanya’s Grace is unlocked right from the start, but the second special skill will probably be unlocked at Narcissa, these will be rare plot-locked abilities.
• Redesigned the Reaper’s Harvest to be less of a disco party. All graves that are interactable (open perk trees) are now decorated with red candles that give off very deep red lighting. Unique colors for each Aspect were interesting, but I think the new atmosphere is much better (and eerie).
• Blood pools (Catacombs + Blood Engine maps) now pulse with light, like they have a heart of their own. Super happy with this effect.
• Increased the light range of lantern posts significantly.
• Event labels (the icon+text popup that happens when approaching some world items) have a tiny float animation and slightly different fade in / fade out logic (but still similar).
• Added icons to the “Pick Note” and “Open” labels for notes and chests.
• Ambient sound was remade (again) using a different plugin because the previous one occasionally just stopped working after reloading a save.
• Scrapped the Quest Journal. The game doesn’t have a plethora of different quests running at the same time to justify needing a whole menu to manage them, so this felt unneeded and bloaty. I have instead added a new small section in the regular UI that writes what your next objective in the main plotline is. Side quests aren’t tracked, but they will usually be simplistic enough that this won’t be an issue.
• The detection cones of mobs have less opacity (so they don’t completely ruin my precious atmosphere) and are also affected by light, which means are going to be very hard to see if there’s no torch around or your Llavanya’s Grace is off. This gives an incentive to light every torch you find, and also makes the mob areas creepier by not immediately giving their positions away.
• New dust effect when sprinting.
• Diagonal movement is unfortunately removed for now.

Resolution:

• Increased resolution to native 1920x1080p. The screen will automatically downscale/upscale and stretch as needed if you are on a lower/higher resolution. This is a pure quality increase, and the boosted performance has finally allowed it.
• Some ancient CGs made by Shakie were stuck at a 1200×900 resolution. I have looked for the best possible method to upscale these a bit without losing quality, so they don’t look tiny on the screen or stretched and blurry. I tried half a dozen popular upscalers to decide on one and I think it’s pretty good. Still if any of you have more experience with this stuff, I’d love to see your own remasters of the original artwork and if it’s even closer to the original than mine, I will use it! I am also considering doing this through an artist for potentially better results (?) but I am a bit worried about loss of style. Some CGs need to be touched a bit regardless, like some buttholes being way too high up the crack, etc. Regardless, it will have to wait for a time when both our artists aren’t absolutely buried in work lol.
• All newly made artwork (and even some of Shakie’s later work) already exist on a higher resolution and won’t need any extra treatment.
• Repositioned every CG in the game as intended for the new resolution.
• The UI looks smaller than before. This was actually the original design; I made the UI when I was still developing the remake in 1920p last year, and after I was forced to downscale to 1280p the UI naturally took up more space on the screen and it’s what you’ve been seeing. Still, let me know if some text is too hard to read.

Scenes:

• Added missing CGs to Helena’s torture scene. Also made them breathe.
• Added first commissioned scene: Bianca’s Punishment [Lesdom] (accessed by talking to Bianca at the end of Katrina’s questline – must have sided with Katrina during her plotline AND gained access to the Dungeon by hurting or killing Piotr during the whipping scene).
• Added breathing effect to the starting 3 scene choices + ass/farting scene.
• Sex scenes with Katrina from her bedroom are now only unlocked at the end of her plotline. Serving by talking to her directly is still enabled earlier.

Perks:

• As mentioned previously, I am no longer using the previous UI plugin so all these menus had to be remade. Too many micro-changes to report, but I tried to copy the old design as much as possible.
• Fully implemented the first 3 perks of every perk tree. You only get 3 perk points until you defeat Katrina, so this is enough for now, until next update at least lol.
• All weapons are now equippable from the get-go because it felt weird looting all these weapons but not being able to use them. Unperked weapons simply deal half damage instead, and the first perk of each perk tree now makes them actually useful.
• Also redesigning many of the perks. Previously we had perks that either unlocked a skill or added stat boosts, and usually the stat boosts were more important than anything else. Stat boost perks still exist but are significantly weaker. Instead, skill perks also offer some stat boosts to make them more attractive (and to offer a smoother progression).
• The section that was previously meant for perk flavor text now gives a static breakdown on the perk tree itself, letting you know what playstyle it involves. Choosing which build to play is much easier now.
• Perk flavor text still exists as it was, just moved together with the perk effects (UI was edited to give them more space). Also rewrote some of them.
• Edited some perk icons.
• Toned down brightness/saturation in some backgrounds to make the text easier to read.

Stat Changes:

• Renamed the Defiance stat to Debauchery:
  • Suits the effects it provides better.
  • Carries a negative connotation like the rest of the stats.
• The Debauchery stat has a pink Harp as its icon.
• The Debauchery stat dominates Agony generation for you and Pleasure generation for the Dominas. These are already very powerful and important effects, especially for builds relying on Agony-based attacks or Finishers, so the effect of making Grapples easier is moved to Feral Instinct instead (this effect doesn’t fit with ‘Debauchery’ anyway). Increasing Counter damage, which was also a Defiance effect, is scrapped as a stat effect and will instead be handled purely through perks.
• Feral Instinct inherits the previous Defiance effect of making Grapples easier to break out from, but it’s losing the effect of gaining a bonus Action Point every 25 stat points. Action Point acquisition will be handled purely through perks (and still, perk trees that are big on Feral Instinct like Narcissa’s will give the most bonus Action Points, so the connection is still there).
• Doomsense no longer affects Agony generation, since this is now Debauchery territory.
• Doomsense now symbolizes the MC’s growing knowledge of the Domina worlds and the aura of dread that comes along with it. At the start of every Domina battle, your Doomsense is compared to the Domina’s:
  • If you have lower Doomsense than her, the difference is added as a bonus to each of her stats (except Health and Stamina). This means that if you have 6 Doomsense and the Domina you are fighting has 9, the Domina’s Cruelty/Blasphemy/Apathy/Debauchery/Feral Instinct all get +3. The Domina will hit harder, act faster, resist more damage. The fight will be harder.
  • If you have higher Doomsense than her, the difference is subtracted from each of her stats (except Health and Stamina). This means that if you have 9 Doomsense and the Domina you are fighting has 6, the Domina’s Cruelty/Blasphemy/Apathy/Debauchery/Feral Instinct all suffer -3. The Domina will hit softer, act slower, suffer more damage. The fight will be easier.
  • If you have equal Doomsense, nothing happens.
  • Note that each Domina will have higher Doomsense than the previous one, so you are always advised to increase your Doomsense as much as you can, otherwise the fights will be extremely hard due to pure stat inflation.
• Dev Note: I personally love this implementation, since the main source of Doomsense is finding and reading the various notes left behind by past Champions and slaves. You are learning more about the Domina, about the suffering she has caused, and about the nature of the world. This now directly makes her fight easier. It’s also a very organic way to control the game’s difficulty; if you want increased challenge, simply skip all Doomsense sources.
• Doomsense still offers bonus Critical Chance on top of your standard Critical Rate stat. As a reminder, having more Doomsense than your opponent increases your Critical Rate against them. Having less, increases their Critical Rate against you.
• Recolored the Apathy icon to Mary Green.
• Changed the Counter stat’s icon to something more fitting.
• Added missing section about Feral Instinct on the ‘Damage Calculation’ article in the Tips and Tricks menu.
• Updated the Tips and Tricks article about Stats with the new changes.
• You can no longer increase Doomsense with the Reaper when dead.

Pacing:

• Sprinting costs Stamina again, 21 points per second.
• Sprinting is implemented in a better way than last time, and will now only count when you are actually sprinting (and not for example if you are trying to sprint against a wall).
• Stamina regenerates 6 points per second. This applies while sprinting too, so sprinting actually costs 15 points per second. This also means that increasing map Stamina regeneration through items/perks will make sprinting cheaper too.
• Sprinting plays a breathing sound effect.
• “Brace” restores a flat 10 Stamina in addition to the previous 7% it already does, to help out the early game and low-Stamina builds. Also in the case you get caught by a mob while sprinting mindlessly and you enter battle with 0 Stamina.
• Limiting sprinting means your trips to and fro the Castle will be longer and boring. So, I added a chance for Black Panther encounters along the way

Dev Note: People are going to hate me for this, but I legitimately hate free sprinting in games. If sprinting is free there is no point to have it as a mechanic, just increase base walking speed to sprinting levels and save the player the effort of having to hold SHIFT. Sprinting is supposed to be a short-term boost to use in dangerous situations and this is how I am going to treat it as. I recommend only using it when you know the area is safe or when you want to avoid fights so you are sneaking past enemies / running away from them. Using it everywhere all the time will inevitably lead you to entering fights with 0 Stamina and I think that’s the player’s fault, not mine for wanting it as a mechanic. Still, I have made it easier to regenerate Stamina to help out in those situations.

Crafting and Items:

• Added 2 fetch quests for Agatha and Valnus. Also some new dialogue.
• Added Fine Leather as a resource. Used in smithing most weapons/armor.
• Night Panthers and Giant Rats drop hides that can be tanned into Fine Leather in the smithy.
• Added extra alternative recipes for the various metal scraps, so you can melt two of the same gear instead of needing it to be different equipment.
• On the contrary, changed all alchemical recipes to require all different reagents that have the same property to brew a potion. This works much more intuitively for alchemy and requires you to, ykno, mix ingredients together. This also means that some potions basically can’t be crafted right now, and you need to obtain new ingredients from other realms to do so.
• Added 1 new property to all reagents to somewhat make up for the above change.
• Removed potions for cure infection and bone mending, since I have scrapped the injury system.
• Fixed Copper Knuckles having the wrong recipe requirement.
• Overhauled the loot tables (again):
  • Mobs no longer drop real weapons, but ‘chipped’ or ‘rusted’ versions of them, which are still usable but slightly worse than Copper tier. You are meant to meant smelt them to create real weapons. This is done to both smooth gear progression so you maybe get to use Copper/Bronze weapons for a bit, and because it annoyed me how mobs that clearly carried swords could drop scythes etc.
  • Loot amount is reduced. Iron+ tier equipment is rarer than before.
  • Added guaranteed Iron Scrap drops in the chests found deep in the Catacombs.
  • Increased Iron Scrap chance for killing Devotees of Katrina. They are also guaranteed to drop a Rusted Iron Sickle that can be melted.
  • Note that you can see what each mob drops in the ‘Codex Daemonum’ menu inside the Lorebook tab. I’ve updated it with the recent changes.
• Fixed chest in Kravoth’s Lair being accidentally bound to another chest in the Catacombs and becoming looted if you previously looted that other chest.
• Fixed some chests getting the wrong graphics after being opened.
• The popup text that generates when gaining an item had a limited max width and caused the text to get smudged together when the item name was large. Fixed.

Misc:

• Submissive Headspace cooldown increased by roughly 3x. This is still not set in stone, might change it again later.
• ‘Serve Her’ costs 2 actions points.
• Renamed the ‘Apathy-Piercing’ property to just ‘Piercing’.
• Removed the ‘Raceplay’ fetish toggle because I’m unsure if it’s actually going to ever be used and could give the wrong impression to new players about what this game actually is. Yes I am scared of the BNWO fetishists flooding in lol.
• Cleared up the skill side table of stats and properties that are unused (or are otherwise covered by the description box).
• Gamepad will rumble when being connected to the game.
• Blocked accidental access to Narcissa’s realm. Oops!
• Added a slight breathing motion to map sprites that didn’t already have it, including the MC.
• Torches don’t cost Stamina to light in the Catacombs. The prompt was changed to “Light” instead of “Cast Flare” since you’re not using magic to do it anymore.
• Fixed some plants (mainly in the Catacombs) being harvestable but actually giving no reagent.
• Added floating pointers to chests.
• Added missing water splash animations to the waterfalls in the double panther room of the Catacombs.
• Added a new lamp post next to the Dungeon door.
• Increased save slots from 20 to 50.
• Multiple bug fixes around stats not properly affecting their related uses, like Healing Magnitude affecting insta-heals but not healing over time, etc.
• Fixed the kinda messed up letter position of your name in the name input window.
• Added control explanation in Notes screen (just in case people don’t know they can switch pages etc).
• Increased font size in Horace’s notes because the old goat’s medieval scripture is hard to read.
• Added giant rat and night panther attack CGs.
• Increased the size of the night panther in combat.
• Vampire bats visually float (more).
• Laudanum now removes 1 ‘Insanity’ type debuff from self, since the Sanity mechanic no longer exists. Also reduced its drop rate since Insanity debuffs aren’t supposed to be all that common (unless you are going about casting Abyssal spells without Selena’s first perk).
• Made enchanted armors equippable without needing to be devoted to the enchantment-aligned Domina. You probably didn’t even know these existed in previous versions cause you couldn’t use them.
• If you fought and lost against Katrina during the slave escape scene in the portal room, the loss didn’t count to the 3 losses you had to gain to get devoted. Fixed.
• If you manage to get close to beating Katrina in the same portal room scene, she will give up and try to negotiate with you. Helena will successfully escape regardless of past choices. You can’t do this without cheating or excessive cheesing, but if you do, hey, here’s a small payoff.
• Added back the little anim of Katrina playing with your soul shards after you die to her.
• The Lost were unable to deal criticals by accident. Fixed.
• Text being written on the screen now has a little sound effect.
• Clicking will make your character walk to the destination instead of sprinting. Click and hold to sprint.
• Added missing key for that one cell in the Dungeon that contains a note. The key is hidden.
• Edited the radiant pop-up thoughts:
  • Replaced and rewritten all ‘low Sanity’ lines to ‘high Devotion’ lines. High Devotion means the MC is increasingly infatuated by the Dominas and is getting mentally enslaved to them.
  • Removed all ‘gameplay tips’ pop-ups, since we are now using the Tips and Tricks menu to explain mechanics.
  • Added Llavanya messages to the random pool. She can communicate with you to try to keep you strong.
• Expanded Tips and Trips article ‘Character Stats’ to add breakdowns of the secondary stats in the game.
• Added new articles for Death&Rebirth and Soul Shards.
• Colored many keywords in all Tips and Tricks articles and fixed some issues like sentences cutting and changing line to early, leaving too much empty space.
• Katrina buffed, to make up for you being able to reduce her stats by increasing your Doomsense. Also because Disty said Katrina ain’t shit.
  • Cruelty: 11 -> 15.
  • Blasphemy: 15 -> 19
  • Apathy: 15 -> 18.
  • Feral Instinct 5 -> 9.
• Added little dialogue with Llavanya when you first enter the Realm of Dusk.
• Increased base Agony gain by x3. By the way, receiving HP damage (as a % of Max Health) and the Passive Agony stat are the only ways to gain Agony and this remains unchanged.
• Pleasure gain for Dominas is multiplied by the differencebetween your and her Debauchery stat.
  • If the player has higher Debauchery than the Domina, Pleasure gain increases depending on how large the difference is.
  • If the player has lower Debauchery than the Domina, Pleasure gain decreases depending on how large the difference is.
  • This means that builds focused on Debauchery, Pleasure and Finishers must constantly seek to increase their Debauchery, as each new Domina will have higher stats. This also means that this type of build can be viable from early on, since the first few Dominas have very low stats.
• Fixed some typos in the multi-Vampiress toilet scene specifically.
• Added title graphic, patreon/discord buttons and game version inscription.
• Improved the attack impact effect and centered it on the screen. Also unfortunately removed the secondary chromatic aberration effect from many attacks since its plugin had to be scrapped.
• Critical Hits have a different effect.
• Added Lazarus. He appears at the little graveyard outside the castle and chills around for a time during Katrina’s plotline, then vanishes away. He has some lore dialogue.
• Properly implemented Finishers:
  • When a Domina has a full Pleasure bar, and it is currently your turn, your basic attack switches the FINIS-HER skill.
  • Finishers are a special pseudo-attack that is guaranteed to hit. It’s implied that this is you making the Domina orgasm after extensive foreplay (the battle), not actually attacking her.
  • The Finisher’s damage formula is: 200 flat damage + 2.5x your Debauchery + 0.5x your Cruelty + 0.5x your Blapshemy +0.5 your Feral Instinct. The final damage has 20% variance. The result can also be affected by perks.
• The Grim Reaper’s dialogue graphic now breathes. This doesn’t actually make sense, but it looks a lot better than just a static PNG. Say it isn’t actual breathing, it’s just small body movements.
• Fixed some dialogues that were placed on the wrong side of the screen, as per usual.
• Fixed an Experimentation Chamber scene where Katrina could get stuck and redo her movement/dialogue if you exited the room and returned at the wrong time.
• Reduced moaning audio of the Dungeon further.
• Moved the chair Helena ‘sits’ on to the side, because she’s obviously not sitting on it and just clipping through it and it looks ugly. Helena is now trying out these standing desks instead.
• Fixed blood rain stopping sometime during the plot.
• Invisibility potions now work. Good way to skulk around and loot chests before getting your perk points.
• Fixed a cave entrance changing graphic for half a second when activated.
• Changed Soul Shard of Thomas the Quiet Scribe to focus on Blasphemy more than Doomsense, since Doomsense is much more valuable now and the previous effect was beyond broken.
• Fixed Katrina not taking Remi’s Soul Shard from you upon delivering it.
• It was possible for a Katrina Cut-in (the face close-ups when you land a critical hit or finisher) to play wrongfully at the start of the battle, if you ended the previous battle (even against a different enemy) by scoring a critical hit. Fixed.
• Reduced game saturation and bloom.
• Trying to enter the Dungeon when you’ve defied Katrina after the portal scene, tells you that the Dungeon is locked to those who do not align with Katrina (instead of just ‘locked’).
• Soul Punch additionally deals 10 flat damage, so it’s not completely worthless if you’re not running a Blasphemy build.
• Soul Punch correctly stuns exposed targets.
• Katrina won’t be open to getting serviced or talked to immediately after you defeat her. Give her some time. She will open up again once you leave to the Cerulean Fields and return again.
• Devotion can’t get reduced below 0 anymore.
• Nemesis Charge gain is hidden from the loot messages after a battle.