Hi everyone!

Today I want to talk about one of the biggest changes currently being worked on - the new combat system.

Originally, combat was planned to be fully interactive and happen in real time without pauses.

But after reading your comments and thinking more about how the system actually feels during gameplay, I realized that this approach doesn’t fit the project as well as I first expected.

The main problem is simple: if you focus too much on the mini-games, you can easily miss what is happening in the scene. But if you focus on the scene, it becomes much harder to react properly during combat.

I didn’t want to completely switch to a traditional turn-based system either, so I decided to try something in between - a hybrid of interactive and turn-based combat.

Since this is a fairly large rework and requires rebuilding most of the current combat system, the changes will be introduced gradually across several updates.

Now let’s talk about how it will actually work.

The first stage of the rework will already be included in the next update, which is currently in active development.

Previously, combat worked like this: you pressed the start button, and a sequence of mini-games began.

Now, at the start of your turn, you will be able to choose between three actions:

Each action will consume a certain amount of stamina and produce a different result.

Each one will also have its own set of mini-games, so choosing an action will affect not only the outcome, but also the type of challenge you receive.

Monster girls will have their own reactions to these actions:

This means that some actions will be much more effective against certain enemies than others.

However, you won’t be able to simply memorize one perfect pattern and repeat it forever. Monster girls will gradually adapt to your actions during combat, so relying on the same choice too often may become less effective.

The goal of this first stage is to solve the current pacing problem while still keeping combat interactive.

I don’t want battles to become completely automatic or turn into a one-button experience. You should still need to make decisions, watch the enemy’s reactions, and choose the right approach.

During the second stage, the number of available skills will increase.

Tenderness, Temptation, and Pressure will become full skill categories rather than individual actions.

Each category will contain several different skills with their own stamina costs, effects, and mini-games.

Monster girls will also gain ways to fight back.

Under certain conditions, they will be able to apply status effects to the player during combat.

Some effects may activate after a certain number of turns, while others may be triggered as a direct response to specific actions.

This should make each enemy feel more unique and give players more reasons to adapt their strategy during a fight.

The third stage will focus on expanding the system even further.

More skills will be added, along with additional properties and tags attached to individual abilities.

These extra properties will allow skills from the same category to work differently and create more specialized strategies for different floors and enemies.

The exact details may still change during development, but the main goal is to give players more freedom without turning the combat system into an unnecessarily large or confusing list of abilities.

I also want to talk a little about how skills will be obtained and how many of them the player will be able to use.

I don’t want to create one huge permanent skill list where players eventually unlock everything and always use the same strongest abilities.

Instead, the number of skills available during a dungeon run will be limited for each category.

This means you’ll need to decide which skills are better suited for a specific floor, enemy, or planned build.

New skills will be unlocked through certain characters and by completing their quests.

This should connect combat progression more closely to the story and relationships with the characters, rather than making skills feel like simple menu upgrades.

This is one of the largest systems I’ve worked on for the game so far, so some details may change as I test and balance it.

Still, I think this direction fits The Dungeon Of Desires much better than the current fully real-time approach.

I’d really like to hear your thoughts, especially about the three action categories and the idea of enemies adapting to repeated choices.

Thank you for supporting the project.

Happy descent!