Hello everyone, This is indeed another combined two-month devlog, sorry to keep you all waiting. Things have been immensely chaotic, making it difficult to round up progress. But no matter how quiet it gets on social media and update channels, the game is always being worked on! Fang and I did some really cool stuff the past two months, and we made some interesting discoveries about the best way to deliver this massive game. I do hope it will make the wait worthwhile. Let's take a look at some progress, and some info regarding the demo that was due for the fall.

Development Progress

Animation Graphics

Fang sorted through and put together dozens of battle animations. I look forward to bringing these fancy effects into the game soon so you can see them in action:

Writing

Fang and I have spent a lot of our time in the past few months working on the game's writing. We thought we had it down a few times, but there were still some things that didn't quite feel right. While this is part of the reason development has been drawn out so long, I think writing is one of the most important aspects of an RPG often overlooked. We're feeling really good about where it is now, and solved a lot of the game's major issues. Nailing the nostalgia factor while avoiding falling into tired RPG tropes and dull characters is an incredibly challenging thing to do, but thanks to Fang's expertise in story structure, we've got something really great now--all the way through the later parts of the game. We've almost put the bow on the full game outline, and when we do that, we're good to continue strong with the game's content.

Battler Sprites

I started implementing some battler sprites this month, and completed the main character's basic movesets:

New enemies are finally beginning to take form as well (which means no more damn mushrooms in every single promo shot of the game):

New Promo Art

When the demo is made available again, we'll have some new promotional art. This has actually been in the works since the beginning of the year. Ryuuen put together the piece's linework, and I've been coloring it. It's too soon to reveal it, but here's a silly teaser in the meantime:

Tentative NextFest Plans & Demo Relaunch

Earlier this year we took the Demo from February 2022 down in favor of the changes we've been making--mainly, the new lovely 16bit pixel art and story adjustments. It is long overdue for its re-release. Unfortunately, as you can see, I didn't quite meet the goal to make it live for the fall NextFest. While this is not an announcement by any means, we are shooting for the spring NextFest for the demo's glorious return instead. Again, this is not a guarantee, but we are really hoping to get it launched then. An announcement will come closer towards the end of the year if we stay on target. That's all for now! Thank you as always for your patience and support. -Jaiden