Hey guys! Yana here, and I'm super excited to dive in to this MonMae devlog, as it's one of the biggest updates so far, and MonMae is, yet again, better than it ever has been before!

As always, your time is important so, let's quickly list the major changes this update has brought us:

• Full color tileset (interior and exterior) + countless new tiles (multiple new biomes added)
• Several new monsters, new move animations, and 5 new battle backgrounds 
• Completely reworked typechart system let's you assign the typechart extremely quickly and easily
• "Choose a Playable Character" system has been added, activates when you start the game for the first time 
• Multiple new battle types, and the ability to pick and choose between them from the visual editor
• New, in-world battles that let you battle right in the world you walk in, get ready for immerse battles like never before!
• Teleport points (up to 20 points per room) let's you jump around your world in-game while deving to speed up workflow
• Portrait dialogue system adds portraits for all playable characters, you can toggle portraits on for character objects in the world
• Simple OST audio system (tutorial and big upgrades to this coming soon)
• Theme system has been completed, and we've started adding it to the visual editor
• MonMae: Moves list has been greatly improved allowing you to find and edit moves much quicker than before
• Easy toggle nurse system (simply click the "nurse" button on an NPC in the room editor to make them heal your team after chatting)
• More cutscene functions and some cutscene examples
• Demo fully converted to full color
• Quick "re-branding" feature, allows you to rename Dokimon (and other things) to the name of your choosing

This is a "brief" list, we have also laid groundwork for a ton of other features that we will be adding in as soon as possible. I will list those below, but first, let's check out some screenshots of the new features!

Now, outside of the main changes listed above, as you can see we've also updated the "new area" artwork, and, we also reworked the graphics for in-grass, so you know have a combination of an animation and a static grass overlay that jumps bush to bush as you travel within them^^

As mentioned, we also added several new monsters, backgrounds, moves and so on, some of which are really cool!

New backgrounds we've added include water, snow, lava, two indoor backgrounds, and also a new, better psuedo-3D background for the people that are using that battle view :) And of course, the in-world battles don't require backgrounds, as the battles take place right in the world instead^^

All in all this has been a huge update and a very long journey, but we're not done yet! This update has laid so much groundwork for new things we'll be adding (hopefully this week), including:

• Finished theme system in the visual editor
• New area system to simplify setting areas (zones). This will allow you to set monster encounters much easier
• Trainer/NPC setup within the visual editor, to work hand-in-hand with new area system 
• Trainer team setup in visual editor, which will allow you to manually set trainer teams, or randomize them as you please
• This will also mean you can set all NPC messages within the visual editor moving forward!
• In-world battle animations (simple animations to give more charm to world battles.) Possible also unique UI for world battles!
• New UI for the "simple" battle mode (current is simply blacked out version of the normal UI)
• Theme system extended to both battle UI as well as the dex (monster dex + monster dex info screens)
• Inventory system

Now, I know the inventory system has been a long time coming, and honestly, I've had a working version of it ready for a LONG TIME now. However, it's been more important to me get the key monster taming functions as polished as possible first, as with the addition of the inventory system, it's gonna be fairly difficult to use (at first). Thus, I was waiting until I could first simplify, and streamline the other major parts of MonMae first before moving on to that.

For example, the recent elements rework, and the upcoming area rework, and NPC addition to the visual editor will by a life changer. Once these are added and working fluidly, I think it will be a good time to both: add the inventory system, as well as: start adding complex events to the VE (like questing, side quests, character events, cutscenes (and so on)).

Without further ado, I'd like to make a small announcement, we just added a new item to our store, called the "[COMPLETE] bundle pass". This pass works very similar to the other two [COMPLETE] bundles. However, unfortunately, if you purchase either [COMPLETE] bundle, and we later add new assets to that bundle, you won't receive the new assets (this is an itch decision, not a personal decision).

I've thought for a long time how I can solve this, and I finally came up with this method. Upon purchasing the [COMPLETE] bundle pass you will be given an item that then opens you up to a "sale", which effectively unlocks all Dokimon / MonMae assets for "free". Fortunately, when we update this "sale" with new assets, they will be instantly available to you, since you own the[COMPLETE] bundle pass. I hope you can consider picking up the pass in the near future!

Additionally, if you've purchased either [COMPLETE] bundle in the pass, and would like to upgrade to the [COMPLETE] bundle pass (spoiler alert, a lot of you will already have it!), please contact me on discord and I will work out a discount for you^^

Lastly, as always, I'll go over some last few screenshots that have become possible with this update. Cheers and happy deving!