(Originally posted on the EIRTeam patreon) Hello friends, it's time to give you an update on the development of Project Heartbeat and everything EIRTeam. I'm currently on vacation, so i'm using this time to work on Swansong (more on that later) and enjoy time with my family. I hope you all are also having a good summer.

Swansong

As some of you may be aware, swansong is the parallel project I'm doing to try to develop a game after Project Heartbeat, this is an adventure game with a heavy focus on parkour inspired by Assassin's Creed, Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding. Development is going better than I expected, I have recently been working mostly on polishing stuff and on foot IK, the first phase of the development of the game focuses on having a working parkour system that I can share around for people to test, perhaps here on patreon. The character model used in the screenshots above are from the previous iteration of the project (which was 2.5d) so the quality is not good, this model won't be used in the final game, it's purely for testing. I am lucky to have a few artist friends who are very smart and are up to working together. I have however decided to only call them in when the gameplay is mostly working to avoid wasting their time.

Project Heartbeat's 3 big projects

(Actual image of PH on the new engine) Porting of Project Heartbeat to Godot 4 is going well, 90% of things already work, the two big ones are the multi spinbox in the editor and youtube downloads. For the initial release of the beta of Project Heartbeat on Godot 4 Multiplayer and leaderboards will be disabled, but they'll be brough back before release. Some of the big upgrades to PH on godot 4 come from a set of new projects I started together with this patreon, the new video decoding code which is already public. The performance of video decoding appears better, although there are again some kinks to iron out. The other two big projects are the Input Glyph system and the new Steamworks wrapper, these aren't released yet, but will be soon. With the new Input Glyph system we have working Steam Input, so you will be able to use it when PH on Godot 4. The changes also mean controller support will be improved, you will be able to change controllers on the fly much more easily, without having to fiddle inside menus. (By the way, I'm still trying to come up with a marketing name for PH on Godot 4, something like PH: Evolution or something like that, any suggestions?)

Discord changes

Pascal now runs an events channel on the discord, you can check it out and subscribe to it using the special role to get updates. Do note, I do not run this channel, it's entirely driven by people from the community, it's very nice to see.

The future

I'm gonna be frank with you folks, things are looking grim at this time, not just my finances but also my life in general. As some of you may know, I've been suffering from major depressive disorder and ADHD since I was very young, this is making my life somewhat of a living hell. Having an overwhelming feeling of loneliness and feeling like I'm not worth anything. I have been coping as much as I can but I feel like I'm at a big crossroad. Due to these issues I've always tried to be as independent when it comes to working as possible, as my very few experiences with a job have ended in what could be considered disasters (I was sacked for calling me boss a cunt). Unfortunately, when it's time to put money on the table there might be an actual need for me to find a regular job. My mother works at a medical manufacturing plant and my father is heavily disabled, so he doesn't have a regular job. I have decided that if Swansong development hasn't picked up by the end of the year or PH hasn't rocketed off I will begin looking for a job, this will obviously mean less time to work on PH but I'll do my best. Thank you for reading, let's keep on keeping on.