It Might Snow

Oh man, the birds have finally come back after their winter moving about business. After weeks of absense, they've shown up and immediately demanded, by standing at a fairly close distance, that I feed them. Luckily I always bring food, just in case of days like that where they will suddenly show up again. The birding will soon begin again!

Gate 6 Questions

Question 1
The question that popped up the most after the last blog post was: "Is the parry mandatory in the game?"

There is very rarely ever a case where I'll put in a mechanic that isn't necessary at some point. However, I am trying to make sure that for most scenarios, there are other options. All the non-boss enemy types with shields, even the one that doesn't put the shield to the side when attacking, have other methods the player can use. That said, most other methods are not optimal to parrying, and the beginning of the Gate when the player has very little offensive options, parrying is super useful there. I've made sure that it's not too hard to execute and counter afterward, since the usefulness of the parry is in the counter. There is a boss fight that will require the parry, and Nightmare Gate boss will definitely require it from both characters.

So for the tl:dr answer; yes it is absolutely mandatory, but only in a small number of scenarios.

Question 2
Another question that I thought I had already answered, but I was probably too vague on was: "Is the Gate 6 ability set useable outside of the Gate like the other abilities?"

No, this ability is exclusive to this Gate and its Nightmare counterpart. It doesn't work well alongside the other ability sets, and it was never the intention after the Gate redesign to make it that way. Althrough, there is a mobility based action that is gained within the Gate that is usable outside once the Gate is complete. Since dashing is never usable in Gate 6, the player is given the chance to become familiar with this action without dashing/air dashing.

The other abilities are also not usable inside the Gate even after it's completed. This isn't a technical issue, this is by design. I'm finding that the number of technical limitations I run into that are brought on by my own inability to code something properly, is declining by quite a lot.

And now for a screenshot! Claire may have dealt damage, but at what cost?

Wrong move Claire!