Hello fellow immortals, It's been a while - at least on Steam. Where to start? I'll try to summarize, as much has happened - and this post will be long. First things first, the project isn't dead, nor has it ever been. Steam isn't the primary home for the project and as a solo developer it often takes me hours to write up posts just like this one. Multiply that by several posting formats and as you can see it takes a great deal of time even to make posts like this one. Patreon is the main place where I update about the project in realtime. The Discord server is mainly used for update or release announcements, bugs and requests. All relevant info is posted to Patreon first, usually weekly or bi-weekly. It's been that way for months. Even if you have no intention of being a paid member , you can still join as a free member to receive consistent news about the project. So consider joining the Patreon page, even if it's as a free member. Next, this update is a technical update. It doesn't add content, but rather improvements and fixes. I spent months this year working on technical aspects of this game. The main reason for that is so that I can focus on content creation in the future. There are a few major feature changes in this update despite the lack of new content:

Materials And Crafting

Material collection and use have been simplified. You can use the materials to craft like before but now crafts require spirit crystals plus the requisite materials or traits. I also simplified and removed some aspects of items or item handling.

Enemy Balancing

I wasn't happy with enemy balance in the game. I changed how things work behind the scenes and also fixed missing visuals. Paired with these changes, I also revised drop items (mostly code stuff).

Companions, Gifts and Skills

I revised how companions work. When you meet someone they usually can become a companion - someone you can take into exploration / battle. Companions lend their skills and abilities to you when they become party members. Each companion has a skill, a unique ability or both. When you added to the party, these become yours to use freely. The old skill system has been revamped and removed. I also revised how Gifts work. Similar to materials, you need only acquire them once. Each day, the "stock" of all acquired gifts are replenished, allowing you to give them freely. There are also many miscellaneous improvements. I also took the time to fix any bugs or glitches I found, add some save file stability (hopefully it works!) and QOL improvements.

Behind The Scenes

This next topic may be difficult to discuss, but there's no real way other than to talk about it! I've been dealing with some serious health problems for months now. Last year around this time, I started feeling tired and it was difficult to focus. I attributed this to burnout - but it turns out that I was suffering from the effects of sepsis poisoning. This is "blood poisoning", and it is fatal if left unchecked / untreated. I found out on my birthday this year after several days of being bedridden / lethargic with crippling kidney pain. I've since been working to remove the source of the infection (teeth that are infected). I hope to do that soon. Meanwhile, as you can imagine, this slowed down my ability to work considerably. Because my kidneys are working overtime, it causes complicated symptoms that greatly impair my ability to be productive. For example, loss of focus, short of breath, lethargy, inability to move my body as I wish or speak properly at times, swelling in my feet and fingers , numbness and phantom pain of the limbs - these are just a few of the symptoms I've been dealing with for 3.5 months now. I take antioxidants to offset the effects and filter my blood but nothing will go back to normal until I can get those teeth removed. Despite this, I've managed to maintain my obligations to current supporters to the best of my abilities. This tech update is one such example but there are others.

Steam?

I hope to release Version 3 of the game in September - but that assumes that a lot of things go my way between now and then. Regardless, I'll keep working towards that time as an ideal in my mind. Rather than wait around for a suitable development budget, I decided to improve my credit and foot the bill myself. In other words, what I always do - with the help of supporters and out of my own pocket, the art expenses will eventually be met. It was nice to dream big and aim for a "perfect situation" but it wasn't meant to be. Doing it this way requires me to take extra work upon myself but what's new? At the end of the day, I've always invested my own time, energy and money into making this project a success. That hasn't changed. I have some other news regarding HPC but that's for another time. This post has already gotten quite long. I could talk for hours about my intentions and my plans - but in all honesty - I'd rather just show you. With that in mind, I'll end with some character visuals: