Hi again everyone! Been a while huh? >vv</ If you were here for it, I made a devlog 10 months ago going over what I had done for Chapter 2! I said we were halfway from Chapter 1 to 2 and... yeah I was just a little off >vv< (Chapter 1's last patch was 17 months ago)... that said, I've made a LOT of progress, especially with the help of a friend or two, so I wanted to update what I had done! This list isn't entirely comprehensive and it's probably a little vague in areas (if I went into depth about each, it would be really really long), however I will hyperlink some of the Mechanics section if I made a video/post about it though, so you can check it out if you're interested! ^vv^

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First, this is a list of additions in Chapter 2 that are (or are basically) complete. Afterwards, I'll go over what still needs to be done.

Mechanics:
Stamina
Clock (Locale time) + nighttime (quest ender currently)
Mystery Charms + Monster Dens
Currency + Shopping + Banking
Storage
Rank Pts
Swapping Skills and Genes when one is gained through leveling and there isn't room for it
Empty Gene Slots unlocking every 5 levels
Eating + meal effects
Chitchat with staff at the Burrow
Recruiting monsters
Deployment + team management
Team Cards + sending Team Cards to friends through ID
Subquests + sending Subquests to friends through ID
Abandoning quest + returning from quest w/ Subquest completion
AutoBackup restores itself automatically if save is corrupted + corruption warning on save and on load (I hope we don't need this!)
Guidance (list of guides/tutorials that expands as the game progresses) (this will be pretty small at the start, I'll expand it more later)
Scrolls (ability to teach monsters Skills from other monsters) + Rite of Channeling (ability to move a Gene from a monster to another)

Content:
The Burrow (the guild) + a bunch of characters there
3 new locales
31 new monsters (complete with spritesheets and portraits)
3 types of traps
New ways maps can generate (rivers, obstacles, shadows)
1 new type of special tile (mud)
8 Mystery Charm types
4 new blights, 6 new ailments
5 ingredients
8 new consumables
11 new accessories
End of locale scene + bosses
1 new rare gene
8 types of Subquests
Level cap expanded to Lv 20

Options:
PQ Restriction- can set restriction of player/partner selections. (You can manually allow duplicate monsters, primary element, or select any recruitable monster in the game)
Lv Dialog- can reduce the messages that appear when leveling up. (They will still appear if a Skill or Gene is gained and there isn't room for it)

QoL:
Skills for a monster can be accessed through the Team Menu instead of only through the Skills Menu
Monsters will warp to the closest available tile if caught too far away from land (if they can't swim, etc) or if they're inside a wall

Little things:
More monster puns
Chapter 2 play-early badge available until Chapter 3 (and removed Chapter 1's play-early badge accessibility)
Empty slots for play-early badges are now visible on save data and Team Cards
Main menu backgrounds are given for accomplishing a variety of things
Good morning and goodnight scenes
New HUD, including new bottom menu

and of course
30+ bug fixes
25+ tweaks to graphics, AI, saves, and more

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It's a bit of stuff >vv< The full devlog + patch notes and stuff will be available when Chapter 2 comes out.

As for what still needs to be done:

Story cutscenes
Tying some things together, like story bosses and the end of locale scene
Losing items and currency on loss/abandon (I've been holding this off because I need to abandon for testing stuff lol)
2 monsters (so close... >vv<)
1 NPC's sprites
lots of Skills, Genes, and Rare Genes (unknown how many currently, but working on it!)
1 locale (this one is a bonus one that'll just need some code, not a new tilemap or anything)
Some more decorations for the Burrow since it's pretty barren looking >vv<
A better credits screen (since I've gotten help/ideas from a couple of people)
Lots of testing (and probably fixing things!)

I hope this gets across that I've done a LOT more since the devlog a year ago. I'm a bit of a perfectionist who's bad at managing scope, so my apologies again that this is taking so long. I'm being honest when I say this is an early-development foundation-laying thing. A lot of what was mentioned above that took the most time (like the mechanics) will not have to be done again, and so Chapters 3 and onwards will not take as long. And since I won't hold you back from playing around, collecting, etc, I can even drop a few bonus things while you wait for future chapters, so that's fun!

Thank you so much for reading! I hope for Chapter 2 to be out within the next 2 months, I'll keep you up to date in the descriptions under my art, as usual! I guess I'll see you soon! ^vv^/