Holo Ranger: Prototype

--This is a prototype. I am working on a total remake! (see devlog)--

Once upon a time, there was a man named YAGOO who had a dream... a dream of his very own idol agency, with idols who would capture the hearts of millions. He went on to create Hololive to make that dream a reality. And one day, his dream became so powerful... that it sucked all the idols and their fans inside!?

Holo Ranger is a simple teambuilding RPG based on Hololive, where you create your own team of idols and help them on a journey to escape from YAGOO's dream. "Help" any fans you run into along the way!

Your chosen idols will battle automatically as they make their way across multiple platformer-style levels, progressing on the world map as they beat the bosses of each area. You can click and drag them around for more precise control, too! As you level up, assign stat points to your team as you see fit, and equip your favorite items you find along the way to craft your very own strategy! The game autosaves every time you move to a new stage, and you can have 4 files.

The game is still in its very early stages, and you can consider this a prototype. As the first game I've ever made, it took about 7 months for me to create the game up to this point, with my passion for Hololive fueling me to learn both programming and pixel art from scratch. Please have mercy! I will continue to make improvements and add content as my knowledge grows, as long as the motivation is there.

Plans for the future:

• Remake the game! I originally planned to build upon this till completion, but I was just so bad at coding, making the whole thing a mess on the inside. You can now just consider this a prototype. I'll be switching to a whole different engine, also learning that from the ground up, and I'm still no total programming master, so it'll be a journey still. I also work full-time, so it won't be very fast. But this is my dream game, and I'm gonna make it.
• The characters I want to have on release are Laplus, Cecilia, Su, Biboo, and Kobo. I'm just going to be adding my personal favorite talents first, so I can give them the proper love and attention to detail they deserve. I also have ideas for Hajime and maybe a few more, but I'm gonna start small.

Known issues:

• There are only 3 battle areas right now, and the last 2 don't have bosses, proper items, or balancing. Flatlands 2 and Rolling Hills 1 are meant to be harder than they will be in the final version, just to give you a little challenge while content is scarce.
• There is currently no way to delete save files. For now, go to file explorer under users > [your username] > AppData (you might need to enable viewing hidden folders) > Local > Holo_Ranger to delete save files directly.
• The UI and a lot of the visuals in general aren't awesome. Art is not my forte but I'll do my darndest. 
• Not all the Japanese text is currently added, and some Japanese characters don't display correctly. In the final version, I might hold off on adding Japanese until a later update, once I know I've got all my text handled well.

Credits:

• The GameMaker Community for helping me out whenever my head was ablaze in confusion from programming. Special thanks to RefresherTowel for his tutorial on statistics -- it gave me so much foundational knowledge for programming in general and really set me on the right course!
• Juju Adams for his amazing, free-to-use text renderer Scribble, which allows the in-game text to get really fancy coloring without a big performance impact
• Matharoo for his free outline shader asset -- it's the reason all my sprites are able to have a thin black outline. Shaders are still alien to me as a novice programmer, so this was a life saver for gameplay clarity. 
• Hololive and the Hololive community, for just being so darn awesome and inspiring me to make this. My biggest inspirations were Holocure by Kay Yu, and my oshi Laplus! YES MY DARK!
• This game's concept was inspired by an old game called Stick Ranger. I have always wanted to make my own spiritual successor. Please check out that game if you like the idea of this one! (It's a smartphone app now, too!)