Now that I'm finally done with the game, it's time to write a postmortem devlog! In this devlog, I'll be talking about my dev process of the recent update, which would naturally contain some spoilers regarding the newly released content, so you might wanna turn back now and finish the game first if you haven't already done so. If you're just interested in the patch notes, you can find them here.

As some might already know, I overscoped and could not finish the game by the deadline of MGGJ9, and had to rush to ship the game in its incomplete state. Fortunately, thanks to the Magical Girls FOREVER Continue-It Jam, the game is now finally complete!

Designing the new story character

My initial plan was to have 4 new plot-relevant playable characters, which, together with the free summon you get at the start of the game, would amount to a full 5 member party. Of course, that plan fell through, and I never even got to designing the 4th character... until the continue it jam, that is.

While I was rather busy during the first half of the jam period, I did have a lot of time to think. I wanted a character who would be a foil to Yume, introduce a new gimmick or two for players to use, as well as compliment the existing party composition. Ideally, I'd also like for them to have 'yu' in their name, to fit the theme naming I have going on. And so, after much vacillation, Yumi was born.

Yumi may be Yume's sister, and their designs may both be inspired by stars and clouds, but they are quite different from each other. Unlike Yume, who openly shows her affection and concern for the player, Yumi is a tsundere. While Yume is primarily a support character, Yumi mostly excels in dealing damage.

We already have Ayumu as a damage dealer, so of course, Yumi has to be different. Ayumu is a purely physical damage dealer, while Yumi can deal either damage type, and introduces a couple of new gimmicks.

Her basic ability, Shifting Shot, introduces Adaptive damage. Unlike most offensive abilities which have their damage reduced by a specific defensive stat (DEF for physical, RES for magical), Adaptive damage picks the lower of the two, making it much more versatile for dealing damage. Shifting Shot even has a different animation depending on which stat is lower (if same, then it picks the animation randomly.)

Aphotic Arrow introduces the Incurable debuff, which, as the name suggests, prevents foes from being healed. (It's also got a crit effect of reducing foe's MP, but crit effects ain't exactly anything new...)

Umbra Eruption / Umbra Burst is an ability that changes depending on Yumi's current mana. With full MP, it becomes Umbra Eruption, which is more powerful but costs more mana. Otherwise, it becomes Umbra Burst, which is more efficient (in terms of damage per MP spent) but less powerful. It's also a multi-target damage dealing ability, because we didn't really have much of that on free characters.

And finally, there's Awakening, which, unlike most other buffs, never expires. Instead, it lasts until you decide to cancel it, continually draining sanity while active. (Strictly speaking, Hime has something similar with her Phantom Phase, but she's a gacha character whom players might not pull.) Awakening's effects were mostly meant to synergize with the rest of her kit; it offers increased crit chance (to help trigger Aphotic Arrow's crit effect) and MP regeneration (to help with Shroud of Mystery/Umbra Eruption's MP requirements). As for the sleep immunity, it can counteract Yume's Dreamland, potentially allowing Yumi to act while everyone else gets put to sleep.

As for passives, Yumi has Shroud of Mystery, which grants bonus evasion based on her current mana. In contrast to Ayumu's Keep Moving Forward, which grows stronger as the battle drags on, Shroud of Mystery is kinda the opposite: it's strongest when you first enter battle and mana is full, but loses effectiveness over time as you deplete your mana reserves. While Ayumu might be content to simply unga bunga with little consideration for strategy, Yumi would benefit from more carefully managing her mana.

Her second passive, Facing Reality, allows her to recover her Sanity when it is low. In addition to foreshadowing the events of chapter 6, it was also meant to complement Awakening, which drains Sanity.

Other new characters and spirits

As mentioned before, Yumi introduces the Incurable debuff. While this will be helpful against foes who can heal, it isn't strictly necessary. Nonetheless, this is a gacha after all, and I wouldn't want players to feel forced to use Yumi for Incurable, and so I've added some new stuff to the gacha! In particular, Dark Spirits can be equipped to any character to grant them a chance to inflict Incurable, and one of the new characters, Oldhar, can also inflict Incurable with his Dark Edge ability.

The other new character I've added is Ennea, the magical soldier and mascot character I designed for the banner submissions of MGGJ9. And since this project started in MGGJ9, it seemed only fitting to have her return as the final gacha-able character (for now). More importantly, adding her means that we now have 3 different heroes who fit the tank archetype (excluding Mayu, who is obtained for free via the main story), which means I can make another banner, the Tanky Tank banner. With this, it should hopefully be much easier for players to try and make their desired party composition.

Admittedly, part of the reason for adding new characters was also because I wanted to have more options than in my previous gacha game, Gacha Hell, which had 15 characters. When I first released Dream Magic Heroes, it had only 14 characters. However, with the recent update, three new characters have been added, bringing the total to 17.

New chapters

Spoilers for Chapter 5 & 6 ahead, turn back now if you haven't already completed them!

Based on feedback from early players, a common tactic was stalling the enemies with sleep and paralysis. I don't wanna be a killjoy and nerf stuff, but I do also want to encourage players to try different strategies, especially since stall tactics tend to make battles longer than they need to be. To that end, I've introduced a couple of new enemy gimmicks in chapter 5. There's an enemy that can kill their own allies, so denying them their actions might not necessarily be for the best. There's also a new debuff, Discord, which can potentially get worse as the battle goes on, and can only be cleared by killing the enemies who inflicted it, which should hopefully encourage players to try and end the battle ASAP.

Narratively, Chapter 5 aims to introduce Yumi, who will play an important role in the final chapter. Admittedly, there's not a lot going on here lore-wise, but hey, at least I can say I've fulfilled the 5th MGGJ9 theme (Life's but a Walking Shadow) with this, which was the only theme I didn't already fulfill in the previous version. As for Chapter 5's boss, it reuses a couple of gimmicks from earlier chapters, as well as some abilities of the free playable characters. It's meant to be sort of like a refresher course; one last recap of everything you've learned thus far, before moving on to the sixth and final chapter...

And finally, Chapter 6. The final chapter. The one we've all been waiting for. Or at the very least, I've been waiting for. In this chapter, we learn of Yumi's motives, as well as the protagonist's and Yume's past. There's also not one, but two endings!

I've actually had a general idea of chapter 6's plot since the start of the project, so I didn't have to spend as much time writing it. In fact, if you look closely enough at the earlier chapters, you might have noticed that they've been foreshadowing its events. Overall, I'm quite satisfied with how it turned out, and am glad that with this, I can finally say the game is pretty much finished. Hope y'all enjoyed it!