Hey everyone! First off, a massive thank you to all of you who downloaded the demo. Hundreds of you have given it a spin, and I can't express how exciting that is. I'm incredibly grateful that folks have enjoyed a piece of the experience I've been crafting for the past several years. Many of you also gave some feedback through streams and videos or filling out the feedback form. This has been a huge help! Being able to see at a glance the different weak or strong points the demo has gives me a good idea of where to prioritize when developing the game. If you didn't get a chance to fill out the feedback survey, but want to, you can do so below. If you played the demo, but quit out of boredom or frustration, please be sure to let me know in the form below, too! All feedback, critical or positive, is always welcome: https://www.studioalemni.com/demo-feedback

Demo Patch 1 - v0.1.8

I've gone ahead and pushed a small patch today in order to address some known issues and new issues reported by players this week. Mainly, regarding the battle controls and the dungeon boss, which ended up being significantly more difficult and frustrating than I intended.

Changes

• When starting a new game, there is now a prompt to select your preferred battle control style. This option actually always existed, but I never called attention to it. With folks expressing frustration with learning the battle controls, I've decided to provide the option right away.
• The menu can no longer be opened during one of the cutscenes (most of you didn't notice, though)!
• Additionally, fixed a bug where the cutscene before the dungeon would replay when loading a save.
• Fixed a bug where the player would softlock if approaching the 2nd floor dungeon shortcut from the side.
• Rebalanced the EXP distribution across the demo to make the boss battle difficulty more consistent.
• Additionally, modified how the "Bound" state is applied during the boss battle and reduced the boss's HP to make it feel a little more fair.
• Fixed an incorrect button prompt display on the Cataclysm cutscene.
• Oliver layers with the trees in Mordin Forest a little better now.
• Fixed some typos.
• Shuffled around some Essence, and added an extra piece of equipment to experiment with.

Of course, if this results in any crashes or new issues with the game, please let me know ASAP, preferably in the Official Discord

What's Next?

I'm aiming to apply minimal patches to the demo, as my focus is going to be 100% geared on getting Chapter 1 out by the end of this year. That said, some more fixes should make their way into the demo hopefully soon. I'm constantly keeping an eye on the reports that are coming in. An up to date list of issues can be found on Steam here. Some other issues that I intend to fix in a future patch are:

• Preventing the message window from closing when skipping text in the Essence tutorial
• Addressing SFX, audio balance and animation issues
• Offering a way to view skill descriptions outside of battle
• Making skill and target selection in battle a little more intuitive
• Fixing MacOS controller support

There will also be a standalone version of the demo available on other platforms on March 1st. And, I will get back to regular, monthly developers logs starting at the end of March, so everyone can see how the Chapter 1's development is going. Thank you again for your support & patience as I continue development. -Jaiden