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Alright! Lady Fight Battle the Weaver it is!



This typo isn't as simple to fix as some others, because it's part of the intro video. Whoops!


--swallowed by a horizon of snow, fog, and mountains. A last point of rally before the void, and then nothing else; ice, wind. Miles of solitude distance this village from the last sketch of a road.


--everyone has forgotten it. It is only by hazard that one reaches it. Erased from all maps by the passage of time and snow, it stretches, a long garden of grey stones, at the entrance of a small valley of naked trees and frozen cascades.


--at the entrance of a small valley of naked trees and frozen cascades.


--a weaver's loom. Here, no other form of technology has prevailed. Neither the steam trains nor the telegraph can arrive.


--Every day, they return.

Sometimes, a house becomes available.



Music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9igkVvDySY

A very weird and cool main menu. Going straight to New Game.





For the mechanics run-down, I'll be only slightly lazy and mostly quote myself:
The combat consists of isometric, turn-based encounters. Except the monsters are (probably) not real. They are memories, shadows, and inner demons, and you defeat them using a suite of abilities you select from your skill snowflake. Yes, it's not a tree, it's a snowflake, and each point of the flake represents a general method people use to deal with trauma, remorse, and emotional pain.

For example, there is the Flight ability, which allows you to literally run from your problems by giving you more movement points. You can also take Endurance: each time something hurts you, you gain resistance to further damage. And one of my favorites is Imaginary Friend, which generates another character on the battlefield with different bonuses depending on how you speak to them. Other examples of skills and their enhancements include Self-Mockery, Altruism, Super-Ego, and Self-Flagellation (not all methods of dealing with pain are healthy, though they can all help you win encounters).

For the attributes:
Humor reduces the amount of damage you take, and also opens up the more light-hearted dialogue options. Since this is the Weaver class's primary attribute, she gets a bonus to it of +5 per level.

Willpower's main effect is determining your Energy, or “health.”

Memory increases the experience points you gain from battles, but also increases the damage enemies do to you.

Perspicacity determines how much Psyche, or “mana”, you start each battle with, and how much of it regenerates per round.

Charisma helps mitigate debuffs some enemies inflict on your movement or psyche points.

Intuition increases your Dodging ability and improves trap detection.

In addition, many Skills you pick up give your attributes additional effects. For example, a high Charisma makes a lot of healing abilities more effective.

As for the secondary attributes below...

Energy points are your health. Psyche points are your "mana" for casting "spells." Movement points are how many squares you can move per turn. If Fatigue drops too low, mostly based on story events, you have to sleep, and with sleep, come dreams. Mitigation is a damage multiplier based on your Memory attribute. If we played a Volva with the maximum rating in memory, it would be a whopping 80% more damage. Absorption is damage reduction. Dodging is a chance to avoid each attack that comes at you. Regeneration is the amount of Psyche Points you regain every turn. Dissipation Resist and Flaw Resist both protect against various enemy debuffs.

First thing we do is pump as many of our 50 starting points into Humor as we can. Gotta get that damage reduction. Also we increase Memory because it gives more experience, including from conversations, and the Prologue has a TON of conversations. But a warning displays when we do.



Bah. It will be fine.



Charisma just because we're going to need to be charming in case our jokes fall flat, and Willpower so we can go full psychic tank.



Trading a lame dress for this sweet fur-trimmed jacket. Let's start the game!


--a little further out, a small house hangs over the west part of the village. A man is standing out front.


--They are not speaking. From time to time, she glances at him, curious, in silence.

As you're approaching them, you recognize her.


--You must have been seven, maybe eight. It was, most likely, a day in October. The man who is standing next to you is your father.

He does not smile at you.




--on these motionless lips, under this cold stare which fixes the horizon and leaves no room for compromise.


--and has never seemed, to grant you any significance.

Your story begins on a day in October. What do you have left, from this moment in time? The little girl fled, on a night of weariness. She disappeared in the fog, many years ago, and you have never talked about it since,



Fifteen years later, lying in bed, worn out, he would still look out the window, his face turned towards the light. Even yesterday. On a day in November. You don't quite remember at which point he closed his eyes, but even afterwards, a long time afterwards,



Okay then. So this is perhaps not the most normal of families to be born into.





We turn to face him, but no jokes come to mind yet.



Veikko: (He stays quiet for a moment, undecided, then leaves the room without a word.)

Now we are free to walk around, though there's nothing of interest in this room.


(Unfortunately, changing the resolution doesn't reduce the amount of empty black space on the screen. The interface was designed to include it, I guess because most maps do fill it up. Just not these tiny indoor rooms.)

After moving through the doorway, the game gives us a goal. And since there's only one other room in the house...









Music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHM7rK3yWn0

Our first combat encounter! The Dusk Shadows don't do anything to us except talk and stare. The main problem is the Terrifying Shadow, which is blocking the path, and has some tricks up its sleeve too. But first, they have more talking to do.

The worms do their work: Weariness, Sleep.
They stretch, they crease, they weave the years together miraculously.
They mold the human shape, they shape the differences,
They are close to the roots, where the tree begins.



Dialogue options at last! One difference veterans will notice is that our Weaver only knows that the words are from the Voluspa, whereas a priestly Volva would be able to quote the exact verse numbers. I love little details like that.

Hallucinations. Go away.

But they don't respond.



Blue squares are where we can move. We can also hover over enemies like this to get some basic information, and orange squares are the range of that enemy's attacks. Like us, most enemies have Psyche Points for casting spells and Movement Points for moving around. This poor thing cannot move, however.

Taking a step, the shadows interrupt. And their talking saps our remaining Movement points. Perhaps this will not be as easy as we thought!



I... don't see what you're talking about.

Now, there's an enemy that can't move in our path. The solution? Make it move!



The game gradually introduces us to what powers to use when. This is one of the most basic and important. In fact, it's the center of the skill snowflake.



It can be cast in straight lines away from our character, up to 10 squares away unless blocked by something.



That's better. And with a use of Flight, we have enough Movement to get into the square it occupied.



After that we have to end the turn by clicking the little circular arrow next to our power bar. We can take as many actions as we want on our turn, as long as we have the Psyche and Movement points to pay their cost, but there isn't really anything else we can do at this time.



Mainly posting the full screenshots of the dialogue choices so you can see the variety of options the game gives. I won't do it quite as much in future updates. They don't always matter except as roleplaying, though occasionally our responses will affect experience point gains and other stuff.

He is definitely stiff as a poker. (laugh)

I don't blame the Shadows for not responding to that one.

Next turn, the Terrifying Shadow uses some of its PP to cast Terror on us (imagine that), which pushes us all the way back to our starting point!



The Dusk Shadows don't say anything at the start of the turn though, so we have enough MP to go straight to the door.



Oh, don't worry. It's not like he's going to move, you know.







That's a fair goal after that experience, I think.







I am not scared, I am cold. It is SNOWING outside, alright?



Mom? Damn, it's like a family reunion here... I didn't remember you were so... translucent.

Mocking Shadow: You always had a sense of humor, my sweet... But it doesn't make up for loneliness, you know? You're only avoiding the obvious. Isn't it sad to be the only one laughing at your own jokes?

I would have thought ghosts were more spiritual. Ha, ha. Hum.

This encounter has a bigger enemy, the Shadow of Doubt.



The Shadow of Doubt can use Harrassment, which causes damage to our Energy.



If EP falls to 0, we collapse and can either give up or start the encounter over. Some battles allow us to continue the story even if we fail, but not this one.



We can also retry to get a better score (based on what the objectives are) or if we missed something, but there's no point at this stage. We can't get better than 100 here and we didn't miss anything.



Ah, fresh air.

Narration: (While you take a moment to breathe a little, you hear footsteps coming up towards your house. The silhouette emerging is one of a man in his forties. You were not expecting a visitor at this hour, but talking to someone may do you some good.)





I stepped into an avalanche... it covered up my soul.

...Dad?