[POV: i gently push another audio preview in your general direction]

...Why the heck does this song bring Concealed the Conclusion's OST to mind? It's not depressing-sounding enough for that game.

 

Anywhodles, guessing time! I'm gonna make a couple guesses: either we're looking at the Bladestar-colored place with Keta trapped in it from Jan's first shared screenshot of V13, or for V's lair when we inevitably raid it. I'm leaning strongly toward the former since everything about the Reject District has been tied to sidequests so far, and I'm not sure there'd be much a reason to go across that chasm outside the context of the Ana Quest. Seeing as we already know that sidequests are being pushed back a bit, it would be silly to post a song associated with one now, don'cha think?

[Regarding V13 (Major Update!)]

"Ew! How dare you add DLC to the game! This is just a cash grab!"- some fool who hasn't figured out that the game is both naturally downloadable and, more importantly, free

 

Don't worry too much about splitting this in two. You guys have stated that this Version was going to be substantially larger than the previous two were even before taking Gen. 8 and the extra work Jan put in earlier in the year. It isn't exactly surprising that it wound up getting to be a bit overwhelming once all the extra bells and whistles were taken into account. 

[(slaps v13) this bad boy can fit SO many new songs in it]

The soft wailing synth in the background kinda reminds of part of the Hades OST. Curious...

 

I've got two guesses: either this plays within the Garufan spire next to Sashila Village, or when the Puppet Master unveils some less-than-savory schemes. I don't recognize the melody or the distinct focus on sharp-sounding bells, though, so it's most likely something we've only had surface-level contact with so far, if we've run into it at all...

[Crest Suggestions! (CLOSED)]

Not exactly, Lowie. Leafeon and Glaceon have had Crests ever since they were introduced, and still are the only two to have one despite a second major batch being added.

[Crest Suggestions! (CLOSED)]

18 hours ago, The Fangame Connoisseur said:

Only have one suggestion, but I hope you like it.

Spiritomb Crest: Multiplies Defense and Special Defense by 1.2 and grants it Prankster.

Unfortunately, spiritomb already have a Crest (noted in-universe to have been especially taxing to make due to the species' nature), though it's a pretty special one for another reason. It's actually one of the few Crest designs that were submitted last time an opportunity like this arose to actually make it into the game! Credit goes to a fellow by the name of Solniste, whose original concept can be found here.

 

Anyway, I'm back with some more ideas of my own!

 

Probopass Crest- The holder and allied pokemon take 25% reduced damage, and allies deal 30% more damage with Special Attacks.

(The idea here is to strengthen the magnetism that lets it control the Mininoses so that they can run interference against the opponents and provide support to allies, effectively simulating the effects of Friend Guard and Battery, respectively)

 

Porygon-Z Crest*- Partially guards against an attack, and Glitches the battlefield; ignored by Infiltrators. 

(Functionally, post-nerf Disguise that causes problems on breaking, 'cuz sometimes, the firewalls just make things worse~! The Glitch Field interaction is an interesting trick that's exclusive to the Porygon line <and Smeargle, that cheating cur> but currently requires them to be literal sitting ducks for two whole Rounds to trigger- and Porygon-Z's natural frailty means that it certainly doesn't have time for that. Because the Crest takes up the Item slot that would normally be dedicated to stuff like a Life Orb or- dare I say it- Normalium-Z, it shouldn't quite as abusable a Surge Ability, especially since being unable to hold an Amplifield Rock limits the Field Change to 3 Rounds as it is...)
*Partial credit goes to my brother for helping brainstorm this one

 

Solrock/Lunatone Crest- Amplifies gravity, reduces damage from Super Effective attacks, and ignores the downsides of weather.

(Become a miniature planet, complete with a thin atmosphere to Filter out bad stuff! A major problem I ran into is that all of the celestial body 'mons are either Legendary/Mythical or would lose an Immunity with Gravity applied... except for the Solatone fusion. Thankfully, it gets some Ground coverage, and enough lowish-Accuracy moves to benefit from the other half of Gravity as well~! The last clause is mostly there to make Morning Sun and Moonlight more reliable, which should help with the survivability issues that naturally plague Analytic users; note that this only affects the celestial being's moves- they're still going to get savaged by a Rain-boosted Hydro Pump!)

 

Golisopod Crest- Emergency Exit passes stat changes to the next pokemon.

(With so many people trying to work around EE, someone oughta take the other route and lean into it, right? Swords Dance into what is essentially a free Baton Pass can be pretty scary on some recipients, though the fact that the Crest prevents it from also passing Seed bonuses is admittedly kinda sad)

 

Delcatty Crest- The holder's moves become Fairy Typed, ala Pixilate.

(yes I'm aware that the loss of STAB would actually make it lose 10% to its damage output this is a terrible joke entry plese don't kill me!)

 

Lastly, I'd like to say I really like Generic Gamer and Joy's Vespiquen Crest designs (they're pretty similar, admittedly, but take slightly different directions with the ideas)... and sincerely hope Rejuv. doesn't follow through with SwSh's gutting of the poor sovereign. Seriously, cutting Heal Order from existence and pulling Roost out from its movepool was not a nice move to a pokemon that's statted out to be a tank...

[Did someone say... Caves?]

Goodness, these are utterly fantastic! The bases are already pretty sweet on their own, but the extra mile on the details definitely helps out quite a bit.

 

As for easily replicable backgrounds you could do if given the chance, might I suggest the city streets? There aren't a whole lot in the way of places that use them, after all.

...Assuming I am not underestimating the variety in GDC, anyway. That'd always a possibility...

[[Character art update] The grand finale.]

I could spend this entire post complaining about we're still missing WLL's addition to the Riftdex (though given how long Gloria and Chandelure were in their respective Rifted states, I wouldn't be surprised to it return in the main story at some point), or that I'm actually kinda irked that Kieran doesn't have his hoverboard, but like... what's the point of being such a nitpicky when the overall collection is so marvelously well done? That'd be rude, and a massive disservice to Goomink, Sakitron, Narcy's Chandelure, and Dylan's unexpected OJ-sunset t-shirt, all of which collectively serve as the peak of this batch's iceberg!

 

...Apparently it's a bit of a small iceberg. 

 

Anyway, it's all pretty dang good, so feel free to take a moment to rest if need be! Doing this much drawing and whatnot in such a comparatively short amount of time has got to have started getting at least a little uncomfortable towards the end there, I'd think. I, for one, would say you deserve a little downtime between this project and all of the spritework you handled beforehand.

[[Character art update] The sand being rough and course and everywhere joke is just as old as Hiyoshi city, I swear]

Man, I just kinda love the juxtaposition between Haruki's "ready to cut some heathens down" attire and Nymeria's "I'm just out to get a cup of joe while waiting for the paint to dry" look. Gotta respect the hat, though- always kinda liked those things~

 

Reina just looks like the Queen of Hype^tm here, with how much energy she's got in that otherwise still pose. I wonder if she's as excited for V13 as the rest of us are?

[Progress Transparency/Quest Overhaul [Patreon Post]]

Now I gotta wonder how dusty the Quest Card in Sashila are gonna look. Hmm... 

2 hours ago, SilverAngelus said:

Hi Jan

Does the Flora/Florin/Erin decision count as a factor towards one of the endings?

Given it's one of the choices that eventually leads to

Spoiler

Florin's execution

if you choose wrong all three times, I'd honestly be surprised if it weren't on the list of decisions that impact the ending. The question is probably more along the lines of whether the game would let you know which choice goes where at the time, or wait until they all of your decisions in the chain come together- it was the ambiguity behind the choices on one's first run that made it so compelling, after all, and these gears would pretty much ruin that aspect of the situation.

[Minor Progress Update]

It took me waaay too long to realize that the reason there was an image of the Daycare was because Sheridan's architecture's changed again. And they now grow trees on their buildings? Hardly seems like a safe way to handle things to me, but at least it lessens humanity's impact on the local nature somewhat. 

 

Does this mean that we're getting character portraits cropping up every time a new major character/Sygna Suit outfit is introduced? That's pretty neat~!

 

And it seems there's more detail to the Voidal Chasm now as well. Sure didn't take too long for that place to get the graphical overhaul all the older areas have had/are currently in the process of getting, but it does look quite a bit nicer~