Mahou Arms News

Hotfix Build 0.4.2036 is now live! It addresses the following bugs:

• Missions should no longer mistakenly lock when loading a game. This previously required a game restart to fix
  
• Holster now works after you load a game. This previously required a new game to fix
  
• Activate Helper Button in Journal now displays the input properly when using gamepad input mode
  
• Game no longer gets stuck in cinematic mode after pressing "Nevermind" at the bed when there's a queued quest reward present
  
• NPCs in Exodus's entrance no longer have clones
  
• Performance in New Inverness has been improved due to a level being mistakenly streamed in at runtime. This also caused the Exodus NPC clone bug
  
• Game should default to 60fps when running for the first time. (After this update, your settings will reset, but it shouldn't again after this)
  
• Player should no longer see a pure fog screen when loading into New Inverness briefly
  
• Projectiles should despawn properly now when their owner is killed
  
• Hole in floor collision near Exodus entrance fixed
  
• Default Inventory rewards will now be granted when there's an update to the default inventory items. This means that you will get a bunch of extra potions when you load in from an old save, and your Holster might reset. This is intentional.
  

Thank you for the support!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Build 0.4.2027 is live! This build includes a new story chapter, new places to explore, side quests, NPCs, towns, soul retrieval, an overhauled spell and holster system, and much more! There are also various tweaks, bugfixes, and some general QoL tweaks and fixes.

--

Sorry about the especially long wait on this one. This is a massive update that sets the game's structure up for final release and it required a herculean art and coding effort to tear up the foundations of the game and rebuild where necessary. Chapter 1 to Chapter 4 are now directly connected, which means Act 1 of the main story is now complete. With that said, here's an expanded list of the changes:


This is a chapter that takes place in cyberspace. Seiko is a secret AI project created by a defunct techno-cult prior the warlock invasion. Her datacenters are being targeted by Jen's army. How does she end up as an ally of the human resistance? Find out in the cybernetic out-of-body experience that is Chapter 2.


The Vanaheim is a pre-war aircraft carrier that serves as GARDA's home base. All your immediate comrades live onboard, including Amelia, Jack, and Yin. Also onboard is a settlement of refugees named The Ark. You will also find the the Crew Quarters and Commander's Office here, which houses the main characters.


New places have been added to New Inverness. Within, you'll find a bounty of items, enemies, and survivors in the snow.

[h2]Astoria:[/h2]

Your efforts in Chapter 1 lead to the resettling of Pier 48. The new residents have named it Astoria after a town east of New Inverness. The residents decided its name upon finding a displaced Astoria sign that made the ten kilometer journey unscathed.

[h2]Exodus:[/h2]

Some survivors have settled in an underground mall east of the Main Street area. You don't have much business here yet, but you get the feeling there's something strange going on.

[h2]New Quests:[/h2]
Foraging with Piro: After finding your way to Rockefallen's entrance in Chapter 3, Piro asks for some help reclaiming lost items. Should you take this chance to know her better?

Survey Drones: Arthur, a crew member onboard the Vanaheim, wants your help jump starting the Search-and-Rescue Drones program.

The Hermits: You've heard rumors of a hermit family in New Inverness somewhere, all alone. Can you convince them to move to a safer place?

Lost Souls: What's this eerie flame in your room? Follow Seiko's instructions and find out.


It's not just you, Piro, and the 'Locks in New Inverness anymore. Say hi to your new neighbors! This one took a lot of work...


The bones of the Spells system have been added. Spells and Toolspells can be selected in the new Equip menu, accessible from the Pause menu. Currently only Butterfly Ball and the drones are accessible, but new ones will be added.


Patrons who submitted a Soul Retrieval Form can now have their Souls retrieved inside New Inverness and placed in drones. This system will be expanded later.

• Clothing Battle Damage no longer automatically heals on partial health replenishment. To repair clothing, replenish a character's healthbar to full.
  
• Character models got a minor art polish pass on the faces and skin textures.
  
• Characters now look at each other when talking.
  
• Background music will now continue to play while levels load.
  
• Equip menu added.
  
• Inventory and Quest Journal Menu received a face lift.
  
• More tutorials added (WIP).
  
• Tutorials now all have a reminder for how to find them again on the final page.
  
• Quests now have images in the Journal.
  
• Items now get directly added to the player's inventory when interacted with.
  
• Skip button added to dialogue.
  
• Dialogue Text Size in Accessibility Settings now affects Manga Text Bubbles.
  
• Onscreen UI indicators have been added to doors, fast travel elevators, tilt-rotor travel, etc.
  
• UI should now gracefully respond down to narrow aspect ratios down to 4:3 and up to ultrawide resolutions.
  
• Enemy AI now assign a Priority Enemy in their behaviour when they are attacked, which does two things:
  - This allows for Defend-the-Objective combat scenarios to work since you can aggro them away from an objective.
  - This also slightly optimizes the AI code since they no longer need to iterate through the Tracked Characters array every AI tick to check Threat Level.
  
• Combat balance adjustments.
  
• Background Music for Chapter 1 has been changed.
  
• Fix an auto-repeat button bounce issue in Menus.
  
• Fixed a bug where you can load a save even where there isn't one in the Rest Point menu, which softlocks the game on a black screen.
  
• Fixed a bug where Use indicators pop up above tutorials.
  
• Various optimizations all over the game, including UI, Game Systems, Models & Materials, Rendering, etc.
  
• Various edits to screenplays, item descriptions, UI, tutorials, etc.
  
• Quest rewards have been added
  
• After Chapter 3 is completed, if you have a save with previously completed quests, sleep in your bed. When you wake up, Piro will call you and drop the owed rewards in your inventory. This will work in the future as well if an update adds more rewards to a quest you have already completed.
  
• Quest journal no longer lets you activate completed quests
  
• Beds and sleeping added to the game
  
• Additional furniture added in human environments
  
• The player should no longer fall through the ground if the survey drone is activated and the player flies it outside of the character's level
  
• More physical materials have been flagged for various mechanics that rely on the flags
  
• The Tasks widget on the top right of the screen now shows the quest name
  
• Sound implementation adjustments and additions
  
• The leaderboard for drone races can save previous race's data into the wrong leaderboard, corrupting the leaderboard data. This has been fixed.
  
• Mortar fuse time for the Arbalest enemy has been lengthened from 1.5s to 1.75s
  
• The crosshair widget should no longer double when the hud is hidden and reshown
  

Hey all! Just wanted to show a couple things we've been working on for the next build.

[h3]Spellcards:[/h3]
The girls will have another tool in their combat arsenal: Spells and Toolspells. Spells can be executed any time in combat as long as there is enough MP. Here's the basic spell "Butterfly Ball" being used mid-combo:



"Butterfly Ball" is a basic, lightly homing shot that launches after a short warm-up period. It explodes on contact and deals AOE damage. It has a cooldown of 5 seconds. It costs one MP bar. (100MP)

[h3]Toolspells:[/h3]
Toolspells are utility abilities designed to be used out of combat, though some have combat utility as well. You're already familiar with the Scan toolspell, which aids in exploration by highlighting enemies and items. One toolspell that's being added to the game is the Survey Drone toolspell, which is used to get detailed information from scannable entities and aids in locating survivors and items for certain quests.

[h3]Survey Drone Toolspell:[/h3]



The new Spells and Toolspells consume MP. We've updated the combat systems so MP is slowly gained by dealing damage. If combat isn't replenishing MP fast enough, MP replenishing items have also been added:



Spells and toolspells can be equipped in the new Equip menu, which can be accessed from the Pause menu. More spells and toolspells have been planned and are currently in the works.

[h3]Holster 2.0:[/h3]



The Holster has been updated so that any 3 equipped items and spellcards can be ready at a time. There's also two sets of holsters per character, expanding the total of ready items to 6. Holsters are unique per character.

[h3]Equip Menu (WIP):[/h3]



The Equip menu, accessed from the Pause menu, is used to change holstered items, spellcards, toolspells, combo meters (WIP), and cosmetics (WIP). Each character has their own equipment. It is currently in a very WIP state, but will enter the next build in its current state as it is still useful.
[h3]World Traversal:[/h3]



We've connected the new Vanaheim Carrier Area (the base) to Astoria in New Inverness via the dropship. With this, the various missions are finally connected, and the mission selection menu will no longer be needed to progress throughout the game. The girls can simply travel around the world as you would expect them to.

This update is by no means all-inclusive: there's lots we can't show publicly quite yet. There are also various small updates not discussed here, like bugfixes and the new Henshin particle effect for Amelia that we've quietly added.

We'd also like to apologize for the delays on this update. It's been really stressful for us too making you all wait so long. The majority of the things we've been working on requires tearing up the underlying connective tissue of the game, which makes it particularly hard to push smaller builds. We're trying to set up the game for the final story / progression structure, making it a little hard to release chapters piecemeal until the new connections are done. Once everything is reconnected, it will be easier to add smaller bits of content again.

Thanks for reading and we deeply appreciate your support all this time.

-softmode/paperbag, edited by VolatileCarbon

Hello Everyone!

I know it's been a while since our last update and timeline, so we wanted to take an opportunity to show what's coming up and our plans for the future.

[h2]The Next Update[/h2]

First up, let's talk about what's coming in the next update. It's a fairly big one. Here's a quick summary:

• GARDA aircraft carrier base (new level/mission and home base for the player)
  
• 3 New Settlements Populated by NPCs
  
• Sidequests available from NPCs
  
• The long awaited Soul Retrieval functionality. You can find souls and imbue drones with them, who will wander around your base!

Please enjoy some screenshots/videos of the upcoming content. We're hoping to release it in the next couple months. You may have seen some of these pictures/videos before on our social media, but not everyone follows us on other platforms so we thought it was important to share it here as well.

Soul Management System: New Drone Model GARDA base: Ark Settlement (Inside the GARDA base):
GARDA Dormitory: Air Vents (for side quest): Astoria Settlement: Exodus Settlement: NPC Customization (for internal use):
[h3]Videos[/h3]
Butterfly Character:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Updated Drone Racing
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Server Room 1:
https://twitter.com/mahouarms/status/1744706509572124797

Server Room 2:
https://twitter.com/mahouarms/status/1744707111014318317
[h2]Coming Soon[/h2]
In addition to what's planned for the next update, I'd also like to discuss and show some of what we've been working on. There are some mild spoilers here.
[h3]Sea of Souls[/h3]
This is a new level which is mostly narrative-based. Pretty.


[h3]Siberia[/h3]
This is a new combat level where Susan will be introduced in the narrative. It is quite large and will contain another settlement with NPCs and sidequests. This area is still a work in progress.


[h2]Future Plans[/h2]
We're a very small team with high standards and this has led to a slower production process. However, we, like everyone else, want the game to be done and available for everyone to play as soon as possible. We feel like there is now enough content in the pipeline to deliver a satisfying experience for our fans, once it's polished and released.

Therefore, we plan to refine this content and get it done by the end of the year. We will consider the game to be complete at this point, although we may continue to work on it post-release if we can't finish everything we hope to. Those updates will be free, of course.

Thank you as always for your support!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Build 0.3.1581 is live! This build includes photo mode (accessible for now using P on keyboard, hold left special button on gamepad), a new codex (very WIP, accessible from main menu), the start of brand new accessibility options, and a new drone racing minigame! There are also various tweaks, bugfixes, and some general QoL improvements!


[h3]Photo Mode[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]Drone Racing Minigame[/h3]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h3]Codex[/h3]

[h3]Accessibility: Dialogue Text Size[/h3]

• Accessibility options added: Dialogue Text Size, Camera Movement (reduced option reduces camera shakes and FOV changes)
  
• Helper icon fetching code optimized, in some cases rare 60-100ms lag spikes are mitigated to ~8-20ms when spawning UI menus with lots of helper icons
  
• Additional helper icons added
  
• Tutorials have been added; can be turned off in Gameplay Settings
  
• Update the UI styling for Inventory and Journal in-game menus
  
• Additional particle effects added to some enemies
  
• Quest names updated
  
• When using Amelia's Gun Mode, the crosshair no longer auto-positions (shots still have a small aim-assist)
  
• Gun Mode crosshair style updated, also turns red and converges when placed on a valid target
  
• Drone Racing minigame added. Turn left upon entering Rhyme's Square in Chapter 3 to find the pilot chair to access the first racetrack (currently the only racetrack in the game)
  
• Leaderboard UI menu added; currently only used for Drone Racing minigame
  
• List, grid, and popup menus now support autorepeat key input when the gamepad joystick is kept in a direction
  
• Ocean shader updated and stylized
  
• Fixed a small gap in the background for Settings and Pause UI
  
• Fixed a bug where choice menus don't support D-pad navigation
  
• Fixed a bug where some drill attacks don't respect master volume sliders
  
• Fixed a couple bugs where pausing during transitions are playing soft locks the game
  
• Fix a bug where Amelia would loop her run stop animation when she is running at a boundary speed between running and walking
  
• Fixed various bugs when transitioning between Drone Mode, Pause, and Gameplay
  
• Various other bugfixes
  
• Fixed a spelling inconsistency for Dragon Fall
  
• Fixed a level streaming error in Rockefallen Dining Room
  
• Fixed a glitch where interacting with a UseTrigger makes it impossible to respawn
  
• Enemies standing higher than Susan can now be pulled a little more reliably when there's a vertical bump in the way between them
  
• Enemy markers no longer vanish on the map
  
• Ch3 Quest properly named Ch3 instead of Ch1
  
• Fixed a bug where dying in Ch1 makes the UI vanish
  
• Fixed a bug where standard size text box has text overflow