Happy Trailblazer Twosday! 

This week has some big, big news! First is that the Beta of Trailblazer Chapters 2 and 3 are going to be being streamed on Friday Feb 25 by BennyMakesGames, the creator of the RPG Maker Cola podcast. Benny is a phenomenal content creator who not only loves RPG Maker, but is a student of RPGs and gaming as a whole. He is as sharp as he is wholesome, and you can really tell he truly loves his audience and the games he's. If you haven't already, go check out his Twitch, and give him a follow:

https://www.twitch.tv/bennymakesgames

But now onto the big new for Trailblazer itself!

Those who have been involved in the Beta have been incredibly helpful! I'm so thankful for all of your support. The enormous amount of quality feedback I've received has helped to improve Trailblazer immensely - from streamlining story elements, to making combat and skills more intuitive and engaging. In short, massive changes have come to the Beta, making for a much more streamlined and fun experience. As a result, I've decided to do something that's been long overdue and update the public demo. 

While there isn't any new content in the new version of the demo, there's been a number of system and presentation updates. Here's the rundown of a few of them:

More Legible Font
The font used has been updated for better readability. While many players have expressed how much they love how much Edmunds (the Cowboy Font) fits the theme, I did get some feedback, particularly from players who suffer from astigmatism, that the font could be hard to read. While I'm limited in some of the accessibility options I can provide, font isn't one of them. I'm generally against sans serif fonts as a whole, but believe that FTY Jackport is a good middle ground - a semi serif font, if you will. I'm a huge proponent of accessibility in games, so this change was a no-brainer.

Skill Tree Revamp
Skill Trees have been rearranged for better flexibility and rebalancing as the result of data gathered from testing. While some of the exact positions may have moved slightly, the bigger change is the visual presentation of the menu. Now all Trees a character has access to will be visible without the need for scrolling, and the size of the nodes has been changed to make navigation easier. I've also changed the order of the trees to better align with my findings from testing my Body/Mind/Heart player style theory. Overall, the new Skill Trees should be a big quality of life improvement for players.

Combat Rebalance
Not just one change, but many. As the result of testing, nearly all skills have been improved and rebalanced. Don't worry, I'm a big proponent of Buffs are better than Nerfs, so none of your favorite skills have been nerfed. A full list of changes can be found in the changelog, but some of the biggest changes include:

More versatility added to AoEs: Shotguns and Whips now target a vertical AoE, while "splash" attacks like Dynamite or Virgil's Brews have kept the horizontal AoE players are familiar with. This has also resulted in all horizontal AoEs now sharing the same size, instead of having different sizes for different attacks. While these improvements seem small, they have already resulted in adding more depth to the system. Testers have found it much more engaging having to weigh certain attacks and looking for the right attack shape for the situation.  But this change hasn't been made in a vacuum. Enemy Troop placements have been modified to take advantage of these changes, and additional Weaknesses have been added to enemies to encourage the use of aligning the shape and element of your attacks.

Character Mechanical Redesigns: While all characters have received buffs and rebalancing, Jack and Virgil have been the biggest beneficiaries. I was seeing players accidentally pidgeon-holing themselves, only using Jack as a Healer and ignoring many of his other Paladin-like traits. As a result, I made some of his strengths much easier to understand, setting his default Skillset as Enforcer, and starting him with a Shotgun. To further build into Jack's Strengths, his Grit Ability has been changed to buff his resistances, and to cause recoil damage. Meanwhile, Virgil has been switched to a Gunslinger and had his attributes adjusted to fit his role more clearly. The main goal with these changes has been to further help players to experience the game's different playstyles. Jack now fits the "Body" style of play, Virgil fits the "Heart" style, and the first character the player recruits in Chapter 2 will fit the "Mind" style of play. The goal of these changes is to really help players find a playstyle that they find enjoyable.

In-Game Manual
While not the most technically impressive or "OMG" feature of the game, I feel like it's something that's been long overdue. The most recent version of the Demo will include an in-game Manual that covers all the game's basic mechanics in bite-sized chapters, and organized for easy reference. While the game does a great job with its tutorials, and engraining the basic mechanics onto the player, one place that I have seen a number of testers struggling is with Dueling. There is a tutorial at the beginning of the game, but the Dueling system is so far removed from normal combat, and is a system that is completely optional afterwards, it was easy for players to forget the systems. Instead of just adding a "Dueling" reminder, I opted to include an entire reference manual, as well as two additional features to make dueling more accessible: Autosaving and Menu Access. Now, before every duel, the game will Autosave right before the "Choose your Duelist" popup. This popup has also been enhanced to give the option to "Open Menu". This way, a player who has lost and is reloading has the ability to swap around equipment and accessories to make themselves more viable as a duelist, as well as open the Game Manual and get a quick refresher.

Overall, I'm very happy with the changes that have been made, and I'm excited to share them with everyone. Everything mentioned in this update will be available in the public demo, so give Trailblazer a download if you haven't played in a while. Check out some of the new systems, and let me know with a comment how you feel about them.

Below is a full changelog update for the demo:

============
 Version 0.12.0
============

 - In-Game Manual as been added to the Mission Log
 - Updated game font for better accessibility and legibility
 - Skill Tree Streamlining
      - Change Skill Tree design for improved visibility and navigation
      - Knockout no longer appears in any Skill Tree, is an inherent Feat for all characters
      - Skill Tree choice on New Game assigns 2 Feats instead of 1
      - Jack now has access to Enforcement and can use Shotguns
      - Streamlined Pistolero and Desperado Skill Trees into Gunmanship Skill Tree
 - Adjusted starting skills for Jack
 - Jack's Grit ability changed to Crusader's Armor
   - Self-Buff that causes Jack to resist all damage types and deal Recoil damage
 - Better differentiation between types of AoEs, radius balance change to Shotguns and Whips
 - New Item: Peace Pipe - Transports you to the Spirit World where you'll avoid encounters
 - All "cannot move" status effect types now make the target immune to that status effect for 3 turns 
 - Stun status effect rebalanced to be more intuitive, immune for 3 rounds after effect
 - Status effect application and resistance calculations improved to match descriptions
 - Antivenom now makes target Immune to Poison as intended
 - New Items available from Donation at the Church
 - Improved Tutorial popups
- Improved visual functionality of Taking Cover and Prayer
 - Improved crit functionality of multi-hitting Skills like Ogoun's Flame and Sunlight Spear
 - Buffed Virgil's Quickness
 - Further tweaks to Boss AI
 - Game will no longer softlock when loading to the Autosave Point prior to the Bloody Bill or Jack Wesson Duel
 - Fixed a bug where enemies using Aura skills would cause graphical glitches for the remainder of battle
 - Fixed a bug where some Prone enemies would never stand up
 - Fixed a bug where Recovery Gear did not trigger Chakra healing
 - Fixed visual bugs in some menus
 - Fixed a bug where when fear was removed/expired on an enemy, the wrong popup occurred
 - Fixed minor bugs and typos