Hi, everyone. Welcome to another week's developer's diary.
It's almost summer and the weather is getting hot in the north half of the earth. Thus, it's common for people to find somewhere with a lot of water to enjoy themselves. Thus, I have expanded the map of the Egypt area a bit towards the east, reaching a large water body.
However, swimming in unfamiliar water can be evidentially dangerous. For example, we learned a Russian tourist somehow invaded the living space of a shark and consequently got eaten. It looks just like this.

I don't know many details on this matter. But, I think the tourist shall stop screaming, calm down a bit and start to work on negotiation with the shark so that a peace deal may be achieved. Alright, I am just such a terrible person. :)
Well, technically, that part of the map is still far away from the sea. It's the bank of the Nile. Thus, a shark is uncommon. Nevertheless, there are other predators in this area. Here come the crocodiles.

They are categorized as wild animals. All rules apply to other wild animals apply to them. Thus, you can turn them into your pets, blow them up with booby traps, take them down by surprise, or do other interesting things you want to them.
Even though we've not reached the sea yet, we already can find some seawater. You can use seawater in alchemy and cooking. It's a good source to make some salt. Before we reach the sea, you can at least find a certain captain in the Oasis Teahouse selling seawater. It's cheaper to make salt from seawater by boiling them with a device that can heat it than purchase salt directly from vendors. Of course, you can now also use a glass bottle to collect water from any water body. When we reach the sea, if you want to collect water by yourself, feel free to do so.
In order to reach the sea, we also need allies who are good at counter-offense. Thus, Harold Yin is now a playable story teammate. The Kung-fu master has a special attribution known as "Counter Master" which can increase the chance of counterattack. It also allows him to trigger a counterattack even if he has been hit. During the main story mission, even if you chose to play as a lone wolf, he will join you to break the defense of the enemies outside the Black Pyramid should you have an empty slot in your group. For now, he is just a temporary teammate. But, I intend to make him a permanent one later. Thus, a lot of preparation has been done. Meanwhile, as I was working on a new teammate, some issues of Trump got fixed along the way. Once again, I respect different views about him, feel free to change his portraits to your liking and that change shall now reflect in dialogs. Additionally, I know people are using/abusing him to do some questionable things. :)
To those who wish to achieve their goals in a much darker manner, shade corruption mechanics also got some changes. Yet, what dark power you can harvest is yet to be revealed. Before we awake such unspeakable and malicious power further, you can try to use a liquified version of shade to corrupt yourself or your teammates to prepare for what is to come. However, your story teammates will all reject that. Even just asking them can damage your relationship with them. But, feel free to test it on your customized teammates. They are yours to play with.
But, where is the sea? We are heading there. More details will come next week.
Today's changelog:
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[Story Teammate]Added Harold's data as a new playable story teammate.
[Harold]If you recruit Harold as your teammate and change his portrait, such change will now reflect in dialogs.
[Harold]Added character initialization data for Harold. (He has a set of random gears that come with him.)
[Harold]Added weapon proficiency data for Harold.
[Perk]New Perk: Counter Master. (Previously, Director Ishida has this perk as well. But, it was not localized.)
[Harold]Added "Counter Master" perk on Harold.
[Harold]Added his dialog on refusing to use liquified shade.
[Harold]Harold will automatically leave your group when you go back to the Safehouse.
[Lost in the Sand]If you are on the lone wolf path to break through the defense of Aten Cultists outside the Black Pyramid and have a free slot in your group, Harold will now join you as a temporary teammate.
[Lost in the Sand]You will now be informed that he will join you in this fight if you have an empty slot in your group before you decide to attack.
[Trump]When removing Trump from the group, his equipment will no longer be automatically unequipped.
[Wiki]Expanded the page about Harold on the wiki to include information about he becomes a teammate.
############System#################
Added functions to dynamically change auto-tiles during the gameplay.
If dynamic data try to save a skill/weapon/item/equipment in the space of default skill/weapon/item/equipment, an error message will now display. (But it will not stop you from playing the game.)
The game system will now automatically detect dynamic data incorrectly stored in a default space and not load them from a corrupted save file.
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