Stuck At Home Sale!

Hello, friends! I hope you're safe during all the craziness in the world right now. I know that the past couple months have been a uniquely stressful time for everyone. So for a limited time, Soul Saga is now 75% off while you're stuck at home. I hope my game can help you pass the time a bit and that you're all physically and mentally healthy. I love you! <3 -Disastercake https://store.steampowered.com/app/251590/Soul_Saga/

[ 2020-04-17 17:03:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Soul Saga v20.03.29 is live! This update begins to prototype on-foot exploration areas by implementing on-foot exploration for the Grumplin invasion quest spots. I'm looking forward to your feedback!

Patch Notes

v20.03.29.02

Features

Persistent Archipelagos

• Archipelagos now retain their layout and item placements throughout the day and are reset at the start of each day.
• If you return to an archipelago the same day, your airship will enter at the exact point you left at.

On-Foot Grumplin Invasion Quest

• Approaching a Grumplin Invasion base will now load into an on-foot scene where you explore a Grumplin outpost and defeat the boss at the end to complete the quest.
• There is now only 1 Grumplin war camp spot per invasion quest (instead of 5 per invasion quest).

Dynamic Resolution Settings

• Resolution settings will now dynamically filter the available options based on the supported full-screen resolutions of the current display.
• Changing the resolution settings will now immediately change the game settings without an application restart.

Adjustments

• General: Changed the visual effect for being too far away from land on your airship to a solid black vignette (previously was a subtle, light, red vignette).

Bug Fixes

• General: Loading an auto-saved game would permanently progress an entire day.
• General: Using a controller while delegating Guildmembers in the 3D Guildhall would break the delegation UI.
• Settings Menu: Sound Effect and Music volume slider previews would only work the first time the menu was opened.
• Other minor bug fixes and performance improvements.

Image Previews

[ 2020-03-29 18:40:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Version 20.03.14 is now live!

Based on community feedback I've implemented a prototype for on-foot 3D zones in the capital city. This is a first step in a potential path for adding more on-foot exploration throughout the game. Your feedback is important, so please let me know what you think so far! =)

[ 2020-03-15 11:30:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Soul Saga v20.03.07.01 is now live! There has been several technical updates based on community feedback. Some of the changes include:

• Added options for inverting X and Y axis in controller mode for airship exploration.
• Clicking the mouse button at the title screen will now automatically switch the input mode to "mouse and keyboard". This is a safety mechanism in case "controller mode" was accidentally chosen or if the controller was unplugged since the last play session.
• Pressing a button on a controller will automatically switch to controller mode while in the title screen.
• Default resolution after installing the game is now the current Desktop resolution (and fullscreen).
• Implemented a new resolution confirmation screen that will allow the player to revert to previous settings if the resolution is wrong.
• Added resolution options for: 2560x1440 3440x1440 4096x2160
• Various combat stat balance adjustments.
• Various bug fixes.

[ 2020-03-07 20:18:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

Soul Saga now supports Linux!

Soul Saga runs on the Unity Game Engine, which officially supports recent versions of Ubuntu. Other versions of Linux may work, but Unity does not seem to officially support them. If you try another Linux version, please post the results here so others can know which versions work! Note You may need to make sure the x86_64 files are allowed to be run as executable. On Ubuntu you can find a checkbox for that in the file properties dialog. Reporting Please report any Linux issues in the Bug Reporting forum.

[ 2020-03-07 03:07:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

v20.03.05.01 is now live.

It contains various bug fixes and also implements an advanced difficulty menu that allows control over many aspects of Soul Saga, so you can customize your own experience. The different difficulty settings options currently include:

• Toggling the death penalty on/off.
• Airship Crash Damage
• Airship Drifting
• Cloudking Aggression
• Enemy HP
• Enemy Strength
• Invasion Damage
• EXP Gain Rate
• Shop Prices

[ 2020-03-06 00:59:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, Friends!

Thank you to everyone who has been giving feedback! It's been great to hear all of the responses. Initial feedback has been generally positive, but Soul Saga has evolved a lot so many fans are very surprised by the change in gameplay direction and have been downvoting the game because of their expectations from years ago. This is unfortunate as newer players knowing what to expect from the actual game are happy with Soul Saga so far, so I think we should be very clear about what Soul Saga has evolved into...

So what is it?

Soul Saga has evolved over the years as I created a unique game I sincerely enjoyed playing myself. I believe I succeeded in that goal, but it did stray from its original vision of a generic JRPG. It's now a sophisticated blend of various genres that include JRPG and rogue-lite elements. I chose this design route because I really enjoy games that are open-ended and offer "experiences" that surprises the player and allows them customize and forge their own stories and paths. I love these types of game experiences, so I will continue developing Soul Saga in this way!

The Plan Moving Forward

Soul Saga is my passion project, and I plan to enhance and add new features to it for a long time. Nothing has been or ever will be able to change that. I'm excited to share Soul Saga's progress with you as it continues to grow!

Short Term Goals

The biggest feedback moving forward I'd like to address is difficulty. Soul Saga has a very unique physics-based airship control system that challenges the player to think differently than almost any game they've ever played. Once you get the hang of it, it's like riding a bike, but the challenge and danger will always be there. I'd like to make the airship system more "beginner friendly". Here's a few upcoming changes that may help accomplish that:

• Ways to heal your airship while in the field
• Giving the airship it's own HP pool (so the party isn't hurt when crashing)
• Making early level airship steering easier
• Exposing more variables for custom difficulty settings.

I'll let you know when I get this update out. Thanks again for all your feedback and for playing my humble game... oh, and sorry it's been kicking your butts! ;) Sincerely, Mike (Disastercake) <3

[ 2020-03-02 16:42:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, Friend!

You're looking snazzy today! How have you been?! I just wanted to let you know Unity got around to fixing the bugs that were blocking my development and I've made some great progress! You can read all about it here: Soul Saga - Scope Analysis, Combat Enhancements
From now on, any updates before I release Soul Saga to Steam will be posted on my Patreon page. Once I'm ready for Steam I will resume updates here again. =)

[ 2018-10-19 23:30:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, friend!

I missed you! How've you been? Today is one of those "yummy news" / "yucky news" type of days. I'll keep this as succinct as possible so we can both get back to being productive!

The Yuck (Early access delay)

At the beginning of this year I went from a sort of "floating homelessness" to moving into my parent's basement. Since then I have not left this house for nearly 8 months so that I could focus entirely on delivering Soul Saga to you. Thousands of Soul Saga's fans have let me know they've been eagerly awaiting the world I've spent half a decade creating for you. Unfortunately, it's with a heavy heart that I must temporarily suspend development of Soul Saga due to a critical Unity 3D native engine bug that is crashing many common areas of gameplay. You can see a small sample of the bug in the picture below.

Unity Game Engine Woes

This bug is what is known as a "native" crash, which means that there is something wrong inside of Unity's core source code. Because Unity is "closed source", I am unable to look at the code myself or even recruit help to fix the bug because I cannot gain access to the source code unless I pay a (very) large amount of money. For a while now I've been exchanging e-mail's with Unity's QA representative. The representative has been sympathetic and courteous regarding the situation, but unfortunately no tangible progress has been made to resolve this bug. Some key points of the correspondence have been:

• I have sent a bug report and project with the reproducible bug to Unity.
• The Unity team has acknowledged and reproduced the bug on their end.
• The bug has also been reported by other developers, but appears to be rare.
• Neither I nor Unity have been able to find a temporary "work-around".
• Unity has said there's nothing more I can do to resolve the bug.
• There is no timeline on fixing the bug.
• I can only wait until Unity's core development team has time to fix the bug.

This native engine crash is affecting both the compiled game build (the files you receive) and the engine's editor (which I create the game in). The breadth and consistency of the crashing is now blocking productive development, preventing me from both releasing early access to you and even continuing to create the game.

Moving Forward

The thought of losing the world I have literally sacrificed my life to create puts me into an emotionally numbing shock. There is nothing for me outside of this project, and for it to not release would mean that my entire life was wasted. If you've followed my updates over the past half decade then you know that I am no stranger to bad luck and life-altering circumstances, but I have always pushed forward with a singular dream of delivering Soul Saga to you. So I hope you understand when I promise I will, somehow, get my world to you, that you understand the weight that promise holds. For now I will utilize this "downtime" to mainly focus on two major goals:

• Research alternatives for delivering Soul Saga's world
• Focus on delivering other Kickstarter rewards

Which finally brings us to some good news...

The Yum (Soundtrack release!)

Soul Saga's Soundtrack is released! Over 70 tracks and nearly 4 hours of JRPG "ear candy" are now available. If you pledged for the soundtrack during the Kickstarter, you should be able to access it from Humble Bundle (following these instructions). If you'd like to support development further you can pick up a digital copy from either Humble Bundle or Bandcamp.

Let's chat (on Discord)

Remember that you can join myself and the community in our Discord chat. I'm active every day there and try my best to answer any questions you may have. Click here to join Disastercake's Discord channel.

[ 2018-08-12 05:42:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy 5 year Anniversary, Friend!

5 years ago. from this exact day, I came to Kickstarter as a young developer with a dream: to make a fun game inspired by the classics I loved from my childhood. At first I just planned to find a way to fund Soul Saga's development, but through Kickstarter I found much more. I found support, I found friends, and most importantly: I found a reason to live. Without you, I wouldn't have had the motivation to continue. In a previous post I covered some of what I've had to sacrifice to keep working on Soul Saga. Since then, I left my entire life behind to return to the exact place I started Soul Saga: my parent's basement. I haven't left the farm since I got here half a year ago, because every waking moment has been dedicated to working on Soul Saga. It's been a long journey with a lot of pain and heartbreak... and if I had the chance to start over, I'd do it all again.
I set out to make a love letter to JRPG classics and ended up making a love letter to you, my friends. From the first moment I wake up, to the last moment I fall asleep, myonly goal is to one day see you proud of the game you and I have created together. This is why I've been gathering your feedback and applying it to Soul Saga. I'm making this game for you, and it's you that has pushed Soul Saga to be the best game it can be. Earlier this year I had hoped to have Soul Saga finished by July. Since then I have done nearly nothing but work on Soul Saga. While I haven't been able to completely finish it yet, I've gotten a lot done. However, after a lifetime of combating mental health diseases and the past 5 years pushing me beyond limits, it's become very obvious that toiling away alone will not be a feasible way to handle the remainder of Soul Saga's development. It's time that we try something new.

Early Access in July

Lately I've been looking back on the past 5 years of Soul Saga's development cycle and analyzing my own personal strengths and weaknesses to plan a realistic route to Soul Saga's completion. What I've found is that the most valuable strength I have isn't from within myself... it's you. Soul Saga could never have been as polished as it is today without your feedback and support. And the only way I can complete Soul Saga is if you can help me figure out the best way to utilize what its world has to offer. And we'll do that through early access. In July I will be releasing Soul Saga in an early access state. At the moment it's not nearly the game it can be or the game that you truly deserve, but with you and I working together, one day it will be.

World Map

Above you'll find Soul Saga's world map, illustrated by the talented Gracie Cole. You might recall that Soul Saga's world is split into three layers:

• Medonia
• the Tempest Reef
• the surface world of Oterra

The explorable areas of the first Soul Saga game focuses on Mithos and his friends in their younger years and their adventures among the floating sky islands of Medonia. The world map above illustrates the broad layout of Medonia, which includes:

• Dunhaven, the capital city of Medonia and seat of the Guild Senate.
• Tanglewood, a deadly forest grown out of the roots of the mysterious Dragontree.
• Rustbelt, the abandoned junkyard of ancient, forbidden technology.

The explorable area of Medonia is an open world design. If you see it, you can fly there! The world is split up into a 7x6 grid, identified similar to a spreadsheet with a combination of letters and numbers. If you look close enough during your adventures, you'll find that each area has something of interest in it: forgotten wonders, epic flying bosses, treasure, and even hidden dungeons.

New Airship Design

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3g9pfPMadw In Soul Saga, your airship is like a part of your team. To give it a bit more personality, I've added a mouth and eyes. The mouth also serves another purpose: it spits bullets! I really like this design because it follows the cute aesthetic and strong personality that all of Soul Saga's characters have in this beautiful world.

Twitter Update Summary

I often use Twitter as an easy way to get out bite sized information and connect with fans. Here's a summary of important Twitter updates I've lately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDOh8plGw-E

Public Roadmap on Trello

I've created a (mostly) spoiler-free public roadmap on Trello so that you can follow along with Soul Saga's development, understand the priority ranking of different tasks, and have a stronger understanding of exactly what's left. With a complex game like Soul Saga, pieces are always moving and changing, so a live kanban styled roadmap is a great way to deliver that information to you.

Want to change your key?

Many backers have asked to change their key to Steam, Humble Bundle, or GOG so they can get in on Soul Saga's early access and help me further with development. If you pledged for a console key, and would like to change it to a Desktop version, please send me a private message on Kickstarter, or shoot me an e-mail (mike at disastercake.com) if you pledged through Paypal.

Moonlighter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp7tNAH9Ox0 If you're a fan of Recettear or if the idea of running your own item shop tingles yours toes, you have to check out Moonlighter. Moonlighter has some of the most beautiful pixel art, music, and fun gameplay I've seen in a long time. If you're lucky, Mithos might actually visit your shop in Moonlighter! And if you look hard enough in Soul Saga, you might find something of Moonlighter that's crossed over...

What do you think?

I love you, and your opinion matters to me more than anything else. I've always promoted a transparent and open communication between us, but now more than ever with this last stretch of Soul Saga's development I need to know what's on your mind. Please feel free to join myself and other fans in the Disastercake Discord channel and have a chat! Click here to join Disastercake's Discord channel.

[ 2018-06-16 05:15:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, friends...

Today I have some horrible news: my dog ate the only backup I had of Soul Saga. 5 years down the drain... steamsalty But don't worry, I'll get back to work right away. I just have to start from the beginning... Unrelated: anyone want some Shiba flavored hot dogs?

[ 2018-04-02 00:01:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, friends...

Today I have some horrible news: my dog ate the only backup I had of Soul Saga. 5 years down the drain... steamsalty But don't worry, I'll get back to work right away. I just have to start from the beginning... Unrelated: anyone want some Shiba flavored hot dogs?

[ 2018-04-02 00:01:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, friend!

Hey there, friend! It's been a while. How have you been? I hope 2018 has started off well for you. It's certainly been much better than 2017 for me. Speaking of which...

Goodbye, 2017!

Oh 2017, how I loved you so. Let us count the ways...

• Evicted - At the beginning of 2017, a faulty water heater installation led to my landlord terminating my lease. I was given a 1 month notice to vacate the home I had lived for 6 years. It was morally devastating that I couldn't finish Soul Saga in the same space I had launched the Kickstarter, but such is life. Then I was barely able to find and settle into new housing before...

• Divorced- Immediately following the previous Soul Saga update, my wife divorced me stating the core reason to be my inability to maintain a work-life balance with Soul Saga. I tried my best to resolve the issue, but Soul Saga's immense presence made it impossible for the marriage to work. As a result, I was forced to leave my new home, evicted for the second time in 2017. This led to...

• Lost coworker - One of my favorite coworkers, Phoebe the cat, had to stay behind when I was evicted the second time. Phoebe was an important part of Soul Saga's development and her departure is felt to the core of the project. Meanwhile...

• Homeless - My unwavering dedication to Soul Saga has left me a homeless wanderer. For almost half a year now, I've been floating between different living situations--some days forced to live out of my car. I tried my best to keep anoptimistic attitude, but as you can imagine this situation made it very difficult to focus on development. That changes now...

Moving Forward

So bye-bye, 2017! You won't be missed. I was hoping to finally get Soul Saga to you by the end of 2017, but these obstacles made last year the hardest time of Soul Saga's development (and the hardest time of my life). Thankfully, 2017 is now behind us. Although I'm still technically homeless, I'm focused and determined to deliver Soul Saga to you this year. Which brings us to the good news...

Soul Saga release date: July 2018

http://store.steampowered.com/app/251590/Soul_Saga/ Over the years following Soul Saga's Kickstarter, I have gathered mountains of art assets, written a bazillion story variations, and experimented with gameplay in countless different ways. Each iteration of these elements always had you and your feedback in immediate consideration because the only thing I've ever wanted to do is make a game you and I can both be proud of. Being the world's first solo developer to create a classic 3D JRPG with the production quality of Soul Saga has taken me through immense trials and tribulations. But the light is finally at the end of the tunnel. I believe that... Soul Saga will be ready by July 2018! July of this year will mark Soul Saga's Kickstarter's 5th anniversary and it's a conveniently appropriate time to finally get you the humble JRPG I've been working on for so long. The desktop version will be released first and polish will be applied based on fan feedback. Information regarding console porting will come after fan feedback has been applied to the Desktop version of Soul Saga. Stay tuned for further updates regarding Soul Saga in the near future!

What do you think?

You are the reason I wake up in the morning, which is why I'm extremely grateful for us all to have the Disastercake Discord channel. Discord makes connecting an effortless breeze, so feel free to jump in and join us in all of the JRPG discussions. You can join the Disastercake Community by clicking here.

[ 2018-01-26 22:44:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, friend!

Hey there, friend! It's been a while. How have you been? I hope 2018 has started off well for you. It's certainly been much better than 2017 for me. Speaking of which...

Goodbye, 2017!

Oh 2017, how I loved you so. Let us count the ways...

• Evicted - At the beginning of 2017, a faulty water heater installation led to my landlord terminating my lease. I was given a 1 month notice to vacate the home I had lived for 6 years. It was morally devastating that I couldn't finish Soul Saga in the same space I had launched the Kickstarter, but such is life. Then I was barely able to find and settle into new housing before...

• Divorced- Immediately following the previous Soul Saga update, my wife divorced me stating the core reason to be my inability to maintain a work-life balance with Soul Saga. I tried my best to resolve the issue, but Soul Saga's immense presence made it impossible for the marriage to work. As a result, I was forced to leave my new home, evicted for the second time in 2017. This led to...

• Lost coworker - One of my favorite coworkers, Phoebe the cat, had to stay behind when I was evicted the second time. Phoebe was an important part of Soul Saga's development and her departure is felt to the core of the project. Meanwhile...

• Homeless - My unwavering dedication to Soul Saga has left me a homeless wanderer. For almost half a year now, I've been floating between different living situations--some days forced to live out of my car. I tried my best to keep anoptimistic attitude, but as you can imagine this situation made it very difficult to focus on development. That changes now...

Moving Forward

So bye-bye, 2017! You won't be missed. I was hoping to finally get Soul Saga to you by the end of 2017, but these obstacles made last year the hardest time of Soul Saga's development (and the hardest time of my life). Thankfully, 2017 is now behind us. Although I'm still technically homeless, I'm focused and determined to deliver Soul Saga to you this year. Which brings us to the good news...

Soul Saga release date: July 2018

http://store.steampowered.com/app/251590/Soul_Saga/ Over the years following Soul Saga's Kickstarter, I have gathered mountains of art assets, written a bazillion story variations, and experimented with gameplay in countless different ways. Each iteration of these elements always had you and your feedback in immediate consideration because the only thing I've ever wanted to do is make a game you and I can both be proud of. Being the world's first solo developer to create a classic 3D JRPG with the production quality of Soul Saga has taken me through immense trials and tribulations. But the light is finally at the end of the tunnel. I believe that... Soul Saga will be ready by July 2018! July of this year will mark Soul Saga's Kickstarter's 5th anniversary and it's a conveniently appropriate time to finally get you the humble JRPG I've been working on for so long. The desktop version will be released first and polish will be applied based on fan feedback. Information regarding console porting will come after fan feedback has been applied to the Desktop version of Soul Saga. Stay tuned for further updates regarding Soul Saga in the near future!

What do you think?

You are the reason I wake up in the morning, which is why I'm extremely grateful for us all to have the Disastercake Discord channel. Discord makes connecting an effortless breeze, so feel free to jump in and join us in all of the JRPG discussions. You can join the Disastercake Community by clicking here.

[ 2018-01-26 22:44:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, Friend!

How have you been? This has been a crazy few months for myself, so let's delve into all the great news so I can get back to work!

Beta Playthrough

One of Soul Saga's amazing backers, Roydical, played through the Soul Saga beta. You may remember some of his videos in the past covering some of the features in Soul Saga's beta. Here's a highlight reel from his experience of the latest version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVfMLVVl27M

Settled In

You may remember from the last update that I had to leave my apartment I had been staying in for 6 years and move to a new home. That move went very well and I'm all settled in. Here's a picture of the team hard at work in the new house!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzsZ4G-42aE

Progress!

I have made a LOT more progress on Soul Saga not revealed in the beta above. Mostly I've worked on cutscenes, which are almost completely done at this point. I also recently began overhauling the airship exploration mode of Soul Saga to make it a much more important part of the overall experience. My biggest hurdle I'm recently facing is that many assets for the airship scenes need to be optimized, sometimes even recreated. So I've recently picked up blender to optimize them, and even work with rigging and animating some NPCs.

Game Development, Destroyer of Time

I recently realized that we have just passed the 4 year anniversary of Soul Saga's Kickstarter. Absolutely insane. When I first launched the Kickstarter I had no idea I would become so meticulously obsessed with creating such a polished experience, and as the only full time developer. I know I had always put a TON of time into Soul Saga, but it wasn't until I started testing Soul Saga on Steam that I had something really logging (some of) the hours I spend developing Soul Saga. It was quite jarring to see the numbers add up (over 100 hours a week).

Open World Airship Exploration

The most prominent enhancement to Soul Saga is that the airship exploration will be a seamless open world exploration experience. You will be able to fly around all of Medonia, exploring every nook and cranny of this beautiful and diverse sky world with your airship.
One of the biggest hurdles of moving to a more open-world-like system is that I had to work on the aesthetics quite a bit. I started by identifying the most important aspect of living in a floating island in the sky: the clouds. From there I decided to focus on the clouds until I got them just right, and I really like where we ended up with them:
There's still some polishing I need to do with it before going into more details, so for now here's a video of my early scene loading prototype I made a few months ago (and have since completed). I've made much more exciting progress on airship exploration and am ecstatic to share more with you in the next update! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1abj6krXZA

Kickstarter's Underbelly

Recently I had been approached by some individuals with offers to trade your backer information. I, of course, promptly denied it in my trademarked "emotionally blunt" fashion. However I've always felt the need to be as transparent as possible with you, and I felt you needed to know this type of thing DOES exist, and not every project creator may share my views on privacy. Be careful with who you pledge to on Kickstarter, because inevitably they will have a lot of information about you and Kickstarter cannot control what they do with that information.

What Do You Think?

I couldn't have made Soul Saga without you, and I'd love to hear more of your feedback and thoughts. Please feel free to follow me on Twitter, like on Facebook, and join me with other Soul Saga fans in the Disastercake Discord chat channel! Talk to you soon, friend!

[ 2017-08-15 22:27:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, Friend!

How have you been? This has been a crazy few months for myself, so let's delve into all the great news so I can get back to work!

Beta Playthrough

One of Soul Saga's amazing backers, Roydical, played through the Soul Saga beta. You may remember some of his videos in the past covering some of the features in Soul Saga's beta. Here's a highlight reel from his experience of the latest version. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVfMLVVl27M

Settled In

You may remember from the last update that I had to leave my apartment I had been staying in for 6 years and move to a new home. That move went very well and I'm all settled in. Here's a picture of the team hard at work in the new house!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzsZ4G-42aE

Progress!

I have made a LOT more progress on Soul Saga not revealed in the beta above. Mostly I've worked on cutscenes, which are almost completely done at this point. I also recently began overhauling the airship exploration mode of Soul Saga to make it a much more important part of the overall experience. My biggest hurdle I'm recently facing is that many assets for the airship scenes need to be optimized, sometimes even recreated. So I've recently picked up blender to optimize them, and even work with rigging and animating some NPCs.

Game Development, Destroyer of Time

I recently realized that we have just passed the 4 year anniversary of Soul Saga's Kickstarter. Absolutely insane. When I first launched the Kickstarter I had no idea I would become so meticulously obsessed with creating such a polished experience, and as the only full time developer. I know I had always put a TON of time into Soul Saga, but it wasn't until I started testing Soul Saga on Steam that I had something really logging (some of) the hours I spend developing Soul Saga. It was quite jarring to see the numbers add up (over 100 hours a week).

Open World Airship Exploration

The most prominent enhancement to Soul Saga is that the airship exploration will be a seamless open world exploration experience. You will be able to fly around all of Medonia, exploring every nook and cranny of this beautiful and diverse sky world with your airship.
One of the biggest hurdles of moving to a more open-world-like system is that I had to work on the aesthetics quite a bit. I started by identifying the most important aspect of living in a floating island in the sky: the clouds. From there I decided to focus on the clouds until I got them just right, and I really like where we ended up with them:
There's still some polishing I need to do with it before going into more details, so for now here's a video of my early scene loading prototype I made a few months ago (and have since completed). I've made much more exciting progress on airship exploration and am ecstatic to share more with you in the next update! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1abj6krXZA

Kickstarter's Underbelly

Recently I had been approached by some individuals with offers to trade your backer information. I, of course, promptly denied it in my trademarked "emotionally blunt" fashion. However I've always felt the need to be as transparent as possible with you, and I felt you needed to know this type of thing DOES exist, and not every project creator may share my views on privacy. Be careful with who you pledge to on Kickstarter, because inevitably they will have a lot of information about you and Kickstarter cannot control what they do with that information.

What Do You Think?

I couldn't have made Soul Saga without you, and I'd love to hear more of your feedback and thoughts. Please feel free to follow me on Twitter, like on Facebook, and join me with other Soul Saga fans in the Disastercake Discord chat channel! Talk to you soon, friend!

[ 2017-08-15 22:27:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, Friend!

How have you been? I'm sorry for the delay in an official update, but I had to deal with an unexpected move last month. Thankfully I'm all settled into the new space now and my focus is back on Soul Saga! [img=http://www.disastercake.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/moving-pic.jpg][/img]

New Teammate!

Oh, and please say hello to my new teammate, Senpai the Shiba Inu! [img=http://www.disastercake.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Senpai-Body-Shot-Sitting.png][/img] Senpai and Phoebe love to hate each other, but I sometimesglimpsea hint oflove inside small moments. [img=http://www.disastercake.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/phoebe-and-senpai.jpg][/img] Even though the last few months have been very busy, I still got a ton of work done on Soul Saga! Most of what I do can't be revealed due to them being major spoilers, but here's some of what I've gotten done in the beta...

Beta v11.1

Soul Saga's beta has been updated to version 11.1. Version 11.1 of the Soul Saga beta brings with it several graphical enhancements in different environments and cutscenes as well as all the following changes. If you have purchased the Soul Saga beta, you can now download it from your Humble Bundle library for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Please report any bugs to one of the following locations: Easy Bug Reporting Form Advanced Bug Reporting Database

Discord Live Chat

The Disastercake community is a very active, mature, and friendly group of people that I have been honored to be surrounded by since I had my Kickstarter. In an attempt to connect with fans even more I created a Discord server a few weeks ago that has gone very well! Discordcan be ran from the browser, desktop installation, or mobile devices. I also whipped us up some custom emojis for you to play with! You might recognize the adorable Torne, unique Grumplins, the cutest cupcakes you've every seen, and Mithos! I'll try to find time to add some more later on!
When you join the Disastercake Discord server, please message me on Kickstarter or send me an e-mail with your account name and I'll set you up with a backer role to give your name some flair! You can join us on the Discord server here:https://discord.gg/k5PW5aZ

Loading Enhancements

In Soul Saga your teammates follow you directly on the map while exploring. This follow the leader type attitude makes exploring feel less lonely and the world more alive. It does come with technical complications, though! One of the issues I ran into was loading the characters in the map. In some previous iterations of Soul Saga there were no teammates following, so I had designed the levels to have only a single spawn point. Rather than go through and add more spawn points for additional team members, I decided that a more versatile way would be to have them load in as the player moves their main character away from the original spawn point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5yeNwqWk-0

NPC Enhancements

In Soul Saga there are many NPCs, including various animals! Here's a glance at how I work with a visual graph tool to create the roaming intelligence of the Squabble NPCs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jwMgVN4Rj4

Behind the Scenes

A question that was asked in Discord was what exactly a "scene" is in terms of working with game development. A scene is a single loaded area. In Soul Saga, dungeons are made up of several smaller (sometimes medium sized) scenes. The reason they are cut into smaller segments is for performance reasons. Here you can see what a scene looks like from the game view and then from the editor view where I work on it. The scene is created in a way that the part gamers see gives them the belief the world is large and seamless, but in actuality it is decoupled and smaller so performance can be tight.

Game View

Scene View

Overworld vs Explorable paths

In Soul Saga, the land of Medonia has been shattered into small islands. Because of this, most major traveling between islands is done via airship. However each major island has several points of interest on it. For a while, I had been using a classic looking overworld map to represent walking around the islands. However after consideration, I recently made a tweet gauging what Soul Saga fans think about possibly replacing the overworld with explorable paths. [img=http://www.disastercake.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/twitter-overworld-poll.jpg][/img]

Explorable Path Prototype

The results were pretty split, so I went about prototyping the connecting roads to get more accurate feedback. What I came up with was met with overall very positive feedback. Personally I feelthese explorable areas are much better at adding personality to the islands. In time I will add more content to them as well, like sidequests, treasures, and secret areas, though their primary purpose is to connect the major points of interest on an island. Here is a video of the comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV6ckKP4-NI

Steam Greenlight to be Cancelled

Important news for the Steam gaming community is that Steam Greenlight will be cancelled in the foreseeable future. Soul Saga already flew through Steam Greenlightthanks to many fans' help, so this newsdoes not affect Soul Saga in any way. However it is interesting to know the reasons behind Valve's decision to do this as it reflects how the market has become so saturated that gamers require new technologies to get relevant games in front of them. I have written up my thoughts based on my experiences as a developer and wrote an article for you here:http://www.disastercake.com/blog/steam-removing-greenlight-indie-developers-interpretation/

What do you think?

Your feedback has shaped Soul Saga into the beautiful game it's becoming, so please keep it coming! Let me know what you think by commenting below or joining us all in the Disastercake Discord. You can also follow me on Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date on more frequent news.

[ 2017-05-04 17:06:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, Friend!

How have you been? I'm sorry for the delay in an official update, but I had to deal with an unexpected move last month. Thankfully I'm all settled into the new space now and my focus is back on Soul Saga! [img=http://www.disastercake.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/moving-pic.jpg][/img]

New Teammate!

Oh, and please say hello to my new teammate, Senpai the Shiba Inu! [img=http://www.disastercake.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Senpai-Body-Shot-Sitting.png][/img] Senpai and Phoebe love to hate each other, but I sometimesglimpsea hint oflove inside small moments. [img=http://www.disastercake.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/phoebe-and-senpai.jpg][/img] Even though the last few months have been very busy, I still got a ton of work done on Soul Saga! Most of what I do can't be revealed due to them being major spoilers, but here's some of what I've gotten done in the beta...

Beta v11.1

Soul Saga's beta has been updated to version 11.1. Version 11.1 of the Soul Saga beta brings with it several graphical enhancements in different environments and cutscenes as well as all the following changes. If you have purchased the Soul Saga beta, you can now download it from your Humble Bundle library for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Please report any bugs to one of the following locations: Easy Bug Reporting Form Advanced Bug Reporting Database

Discord Live Chat

The Disastercake community is a very active, mature, and friendly group of people that I have been honored to be surrounded by since I had my Kickstarter. In an attempt to connect with fans even more I created a Discord server a few weeks ago that has gone very well! Discordcan be ran from the browser, desktop installation, or mobile devices. I also whipped us up some custom emojis for you to play with! You might recognize the adorable Torne, unique Grumplins, the cutest cupcakes you've every seen, and Mithos! I'll try to find time to add some more later on!
When you join the Disastercake Discord server, please message me on Kickstarter or send me an e-mail with your account name and I'll set you up with a backer role to give your name some flair! You can join us on the Discord server here:https://discord.gg/k5PW5aZ

Loading Enhancements

In Soul Saga your teammates follow you directly on the map while exploring. This follow the leader type attitude makes exploring feel less lonely and the world more alive. It does come with technical complications, though! One of the issues I ran into was loading the characters in the map. In some previous iterations of Soul Saga there were no teammates following, so I had designed the levels to have only a single spawn point. Rather than go through and add more spawn points for additional team members, I decided that a more versatile way would be to have them load in as the player moves their main character away from the original spawn point. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5yeNwqWk-0

NPC Enhancements

In Soul Saga there are many NPCs, including various animals! Here's a glance at how I work with a visual graph tool to create the roaming intelligence of the Squabble NPCs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jwMgVN4Rj4

Behind the Scenes

A question that was asked in Discord was what exactly a "scene" is in terms of working with game development. A scene is a single loaded area. In Soul Saga, dungeons are made up of several smaller (sometimes medium sized) scenes. The reason they are cut into smaller segments is for performance reasons. Here you can see what a scene looks like from the game view and then from the editor view where I work on it. The scene is created in a way that the part gamers see gives them the belief the world is large and seamless, but in actuality it is decoupled and smaller so performance can be tight.

Game View

Scene View

Overworld vs Explorable paths

In Soul Saga, the land of Medonia has been shattered into small islands. Because of this, most major traveling between islands is done via airship. However each major island has several points of interest on it. For a while, I had been using a classic looking overworld map to represent walking around the islands. However after consideration, I recently made a tweet gauging what Soul Saga fans think about possibly replacing the overworld with explorable paths. [img=http://www.disastercake.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/twitter-overworld-poll.jpg][/img]

Explorable Path Prototype

The results were pretty split, so I went about prototyping the connecting roads to get more accurate feedback. What I came up with was met with overall very positive feedback. Personally I feelthese explorable areas are much better at adding personality to the islands. In time I will add more content to them as well, like sidequests, treasures, and secret areas, though their primary purpose is to connect the major points of interest on an island. Here is a video of the comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV6ckKP4-NI

Steam Greenlight to be Cancelled

Important news for the Steam gaming community is that Steam Greenlight will be cancelled in the foreseeable future. Soul Saga already flew through Steam Greenlightthanks to many fans' help, so this newsdoes not affect Soul Saga in any way. However it is interesting to know the reasons behind Valve's decision to do this as it reflects how the market has become so saturated that gamers require new technologies to get relevant games in front of them. I have written up my thoughts based on my experiences as a developer and wrote an article for you here:http://www.disastercake.com/blog/steam-removing-greenlight-indie-developers-interpretation/

What do you think?

Your feedback has shaped Soul Saga into the beautiful game it's becoming, so please keep it coming! Let me know what you think by commenting below or joining us all in the Disastercake Discord. You can also follow me on Twitter and Facebook to keep up to date on more frequent news.

[ 2017-05-04 17:06:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy New Year, Friend!

Hello and happy new year, friend! I hope this first month of 2017 has treated you well. Personally I've just had my head buried deep in my work with Soul Saga to make sure I can finally bring it to you this year!

Development

Development with Soul Saga is going well. Before the end of last year I had a draft of the main story loop implemented, but now I am going back and reworking quite a bit of it. Perfectionism has taken a toll on Soul Saga's timeline, and I am sincerely sorry for that. I really wanted to launch last year, but I knew more polish was necessary to get you the game you deserve. However this will be the last major pass I do on the main storyline implementation, and after that I will work on the side content before shipping Soul Saga off to you. As an estimate I would say later in 2017 is a reasonable time frame for the remaining polish and content I want to add, which is really just a fraction of what I've already put into Soul Saga over these years. However, I always put quality before anything else, so please hold on with me while I finish scaling this mountain called "Game Development" the way it was meant to be climbed.

An Insider Look

A lot of people have asked me to film my work space to see a normal day in the life of a Disastercake, so here's a sneak peek of how Soul Saga's levels are designed. https://twitter.com/disastercake/status/826952214392381444

Soul Saga on GOG!

Since the Kickstarter launched years ago, many Soul Saga fans have eagerly asked me to look into getting Soul Saga onGOG.com. If you don't already know: GOG is a DRM-Free game distributor with a strong reputation. I'm excited to be able to tell you that I sent the beta to GOG for review, and they were equally as excited as I was to be able to add Soul Saga to their impressive library of games! If you would like to get a GOG key instead of whatever key you currently are signed up for (console, Humble Bundle, Steam, etc), please private message me on Kickstarter (if a backer) or e-mail me at mike@disastercake.com and I can assist in switching your current key to a GOG key. You can find the Soul Saga page on GOG.com here:https://www.gog.com/game/soul_saga(Add it to your wishlist, JRPG GOG fans!) https://twitter.com/disastercake/status/821474482262921216

Soul Saga Beta - Fan Videos

Soul Saga fans and beta backers have kindly created some more videos for your enjoyment showcasing the current state of Soul Saga's beta. Feedback has been great so far, and I'm eagerly anticipating the moment I can finish up polishing based on all of the great fan feedback.

Airships

lordreo22 (Roy)is back again after last updates Amber Synthesizing video, this time to highlight airship exploration and airship combat in Soul Saga. He does a great job showing off the different features currently in the beta, and even gives you a video of how it can be played with a dual stick controller. Please note that the way you acquire the airship in the beta is very simple, but there will be a quest line and story involving it in the finished game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWC5hF4IDZg

Full Beta Playthrough

KomaruTheHylian64 is a Soul Saga beta backer and fan that has kindly recorded the entirety of the Soul Saga beta for you. THIS VIDEO CONTAINS SPOILERS! Though the beta is not 100% polished yet, this video does contain what I would consider minorstory spoilers for the first 1-2 hours of Soul Saga. If you'd like to keep your experience as fresh as possible for the full release, then you may not want to watch the video through completion. This video is of beta v10, and the current version is v10.1 A couple bugs pop up later in the video that I've already addressed and fixed in beta version v10.1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUn2KX-bppQ

What do you think?

Thank you so much for all of your support. Every day I talk with Soul Saga fans, and the encouraging words have keptme motivated on this long journey. I can't wait to finally finish Soul Saga and share my humble JRPG with you. In the meantime, you can hit me up on Twitter at @Disastercake, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/disastercake, or below in the comments here!

[ 2017-02-03 22:54:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy New Year, Friend!

Hello and happy new year, friend! I hope this first month of 2017 has treated you well. Personally I've just had my head buried deep in my work with Soul Saga to make sure I can finally bring it to you this year!

Development

Development with Soul Saga is going well. Before the end of last year I had a draft of the main story loop implemented, but now I am going back and reworking quite a bit of it. Perfectionism has taken a toll on Soul Saga's timeline, and I am sincerely sorry for that. I really wanted to launch last year, but I knew more polish was necessary to get you the game you deserve. However this will be the last major pass I do on the main storyline implementation, and after that I will work on the side content before shipping Soul Saga off to you. As an estimate I would say later in 2017 is a reasonable time frame for the remaining polish and content I want to add, which is really just a fraction of what I've already put into Soul Saga over these years. However, I always put quality before anything else, so please hold on with me while I finish scaling this mountain called "Game Development" the way it was meant to be climbed.

An Insider Look

A lot of people have asked me to film my work space to see a normal day in the life of a Disastercake, so here's a sneak peek of how Soul Saga's levels are designed. https://twitter.com/disastercake/status/826952214392381444

Soul Saga on GOG!

Since the Kickstarter launched years ago, many Soul Saga fans have eagerly asked me to look into getting Soul Saga onGOG.com. If you don't already know: GOG is a DRM-Free game distributor with a strong reputation. I'm excited to be able to tell you that I sent the beta to GOG for review, and they were equally as excited as I was to be able to add Soul Saga to their impressive library of games! If you would like to get a GOG key instead of whatever key you currently are signed up for (console, Humble Bundle, Steam, etc), please private message me on Kickstarter (if a backer) or e-mail me at mike@disastercake.com and I can assist in switching your current key to a GOG key. You can find the Soul Saga page on GOG.com here:https://www.gog.com/game/soul_saga(Add it to your wishlist, JRPG GOG fans!) https://twitter.com/disastercake/status/821474482262921216

Soul Saga Beta - Fan Videos

Soul Saga fans and beta backers have kindly created some more videos for your enjoyment showcasing the current state of Soul Saga's beta. Feedback has been great so far, and I'm eagerly anticipating the moment I can finish up polishing based on all of the great fan feedback.

Airships

lordreo22 (Roy)is back again after last updates Amber Synthesizing video, this time to highlight airship exploration and airship combat in Soul Saga. He does a great job showing off the different features currently in the beta, and even gives you a video of how it can be played with a dual stick controller. Please note that the way you acquire the airship in the beta is very simple, but there will be a quest line and story involving it in the finished game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWC5hF4IDZg

Full Beta Playthrough

KomaruTheHylian64 is a Soul Saga beta backer and fan that has kindly recorded the entirety of the Soul Saga beta for you. THIS VIDEO CONTAINS SPOILERS! Though the beta is not 100% polished yet, this video does contain what I would consider minorstory spoilers for the first 1-2 hours of Soul Saga. If you'd like to keep your experience as fresh as possible for the full release, then you may not want to watch the video through completion. This video is of beta v10, and the current version is v10.1 A couple bugs pop up later in the video that I've already addressed and fixed in beta version v10.1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUn2KX-bppQ

What do you think?

Thank you so much for all of your support. Every day I talk with Soul Saga fans, and the encouraging words have keptme motivated on this long journey. I can't wait to finally finish Soul Saga and share my humble JRPG with you. In the meantime, you can hit me up on Twitter at @Disastercake, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/disastercake, or below in the comments here!

[ 2017-02-03 22:54:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, friend!

How are you doing?! I missed you! Also, if you're an American, then Happy Thanks giving to you! But the Squabbles in Soul Saga disagree with your choice of meat for the holidays... [img=http://www.disastercake.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Squabble_Squawking.gif][/img]

Development

Soul Saga's development continues to move forward well as I focus on the core content. A lot of experimentation and iteration is being done to achieve the quality I want you to have, which takes a bit longer to achieve. With this year coming to a close, 2017 will have to be the year that Soul Saga releases. I'm sincerely sorry for the delay. When I first began working on Soul Saga I never imagined I would put so much content and polish into my first game, but I've grown to love Soul Saga and my backers with all of my heart. I firmly believe that everyone of them deserves a quality game, and that means the end result is much more important than the time frame. I promise that I am pushing forward as fast as I can to get you the best game I can make. I'm getting so close to the end, but there's still more content and polish to add. I can't wait to finally be able to share Soul Saga with you. I do have a time frame in mind for myself and will let you know as soon as everything is 100% finished and ready for your enjoyment! I couldn't have pushed Soul Saga this long and far without your support. The best motivation I have to keep going on this long journey is knowing you'll get to enjoy Soul Saga when it's complete. Thank you so much for always being there for me! :) [img=http://www.disastercake.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Disastercake-We-Are-With-You-by-Zepht-small-1.jpg][/img]

Roy Explains Amber Synthesizing

A Soul Saga beta backer and streamer, lordreo22 (Roy), has created a video for you covering one of the unique features introduced to Soul Saga in Beta v10: Amber Synthesizing. Amber are man-made magical gems created by an Alchemical process known as Synthesizing. Alchemists are able to take just about any sort of items from the world, break them down to their base elemental equation, and then synthesize them as an amber to contain the primal forces of nature inside of them. Recipes for amber are closely guarded secrets of Alchemists, so getting a hold of recipes requires reverse engineering existing amber, also known as deconstructing an amber. Roy shows you here how it's all done in the Soul Saga synthesizing menu. Please remember to like/share the video and subscribe to Roy for more of his Soul Saga videosin the future! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLtWnS81cwU

Soul Saga Beta v10.1 Live!

I've updated the Soul Saga beta to v10.1 after fixing bugs reported by Soul Saga's amazing beta backers. The feedback I get from them is fantastic and critical to the quality of Soul Saga. Thank you so much for all of your help! I love squashing those bugs. ;)

Music

Ryan Camus has been hard at work on Soul Saga's soundtrack and has really gone above and beyond to bring you one of the most (if not the most) robust soundtracks in an indie JRPG I've ever had the pleasure to listen to. Ryan has already gone through and added different exploration and battle themes for every Airship zone, and is now going through the core game and adding new combat themes to different zones to ensure every area has its own personality. One of the most important aspects of good JRPG's is a great soundtrack, and thanks to Ryan Camus we all have that to enjoy in Soul Saga. Please join me in thanking Ryan for his astounding contribution to Soul Saga's quality. Here's some examples of an exploration zone and combat theme combination:

Dangerous Delvers (Exploration Theme)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdopbAPGHp8&feature=youtu.be

Never Surrender (Battle Theme)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkQmGVkPIBo&feature=youtu.be

What do you think?

Thank you very much for your patience as I push Soul Saga forward. Hopefully in a few updates I can solidify a release date and finally share Soul Saga with you. In the meantime, please let me know what's on your mind below or join us on the forum for this update's discussion here:http://forums.disastercake.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=951

[ 2016-12-04 07:01:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, friend!

How are you doing?! I missed you! Also, if you're an American, then Happy Thanks giving to you! But the Squabbles in Soul Saga disagree with your choice of meat for the holidays... [img=http://www.disastercake.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Squabble_Squawking.gif][/img]

Development

Soul Saga's development continues to move forward well as I focus on the core content. A lot of experimentation and iteration is being done to achieve the quality I want you to have, which takes a bit longer to achieve. With this year coming to a close, 2017 will have to be the year that Soul Saga releases. I'm sincerely sorry for the delay. When I first began working on Soul Saga I never imagined I would put so much content and polish into my first game, but I've grown to love Soul Saga and my backers with all of my heart. I firmly believe that everyone of them deserves a quality game, and that means the end result is much more important than the time frame. I promise that I am pushing forward as fast as I can to get you the best game I can make. I'm getting so close to the end, but there's still more content and polish to add. I can't wait to finally be able to share Soul Saga with you. I do have a time frame in mind for myself and will let you know as soon as everything is 100% finished and ready for your enjoyment! I couldn't have pushed Soul Saga this long and far without your support. The best motivation I have to keep going on this long journey is knowing you'll get to enjoy Soul Saga when it's complete. Thank you so much for always being there for me! :) [img=http://www.disastercake.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/Disastercake-We-Are-With-You-by-Zepht-small-1.jpg][/img]

Roy Explains Amber Synthesizing

A Soul Saga beta backer and streamer, lordreo22 (Roy), has created a video for you covering one of the unique features introduced to Soul Saga in Beta v10: Amber Synthesizing. Amber are man-made magical gems created by an Alchemical process known as Synthesizing. Alchemists are able to take just about any sort of items from the world, break them down to their base elemental equation, and then synthesize them as an amber to contain the primal forces of nature inside of them. Recipes for amber are closely guarded secrets of Alchemists, so getting a hold of recipes requires reverse engineering existing amber, also known as deconstructing an amber. Roy shows you here how it's all done in the Soul Saga synthesizing menu. Please remember to like/share the video and subscribe to Roy for more of his Soul Saga videosin the future! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLtWnS81cwU

Soul Saga Beta v10.1 Live!

I've updated the Soul Saga beta to v10.1 after fixing bugs reported by Soul Saga's amazing beta backers. The feedback I get from them is fantastic and critical to the quality of Soul Saga. Thank you so much for all of your help! I love squashing those bugs. ;)

Music

Ryan Camus has been hard at work on Soul Saga's soundtrack and has really gone above and beyond to bring you one of the most (if not the most) robust soundtracks in an indie JRPG I've ever had the pleasure to listen to. Ryan has already gone through and added different exploration and battle themes for every Airship zone, and is now going through the core game and adding new combat themes to different zones to ensure every area has its own personality. One of the most important aspects of good JRPG's is a great soundtrack, and thanks to Ryan Camus we all have that to enjoy in Soul Saga. Please join me in thanking Ryan for his astounding contribution to Soul Saga's quality. Here's some examples of an exploration zone and combat theme combination:

Dangerous Delvers (Exploration Theme)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdopbAPGHp8&feature=youtu.be

Never Surrender (Battle Theme)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkQmGVkPIBo&feature=youtu.be

What do you think?

Thank you very much for your patience as I push Soul Saga forward. Hopefully in a few updates I can solidify a release date and finally share Soul Saga with you. In the meantime, please let me know what's on your mind below or join us on the forum for this update's discussion here:http://forums.disastercake.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=951

[ 2016-12-04 07:01:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, friend!

How are you doing? I've been pushing Soul Saga forward and have made an exciting beta update!I'm going to keep this update quick so I can get back to work wrapping everything up for you!

Beta v10 Live!

The next Soul Saga Beta (v10) is live on Humble Bundle if you're a beta tier backer. This beta brings a lot of changes, and jumpsSoul Saga much closer to its finalproduction level. The beta covers approximately the first hour and half of Soul Saga, which is an important character building setting for the world and characters. For the sake of preventing spoilers, I won't go into detailshere, but here's a general list of changes. Also, you can find the change log on the Disastercake Forums herethat also has a list of important testing areas for beta testers.

More Story

The story has been appended to before and after where the previous beta versiontook place. The beta story line has also been adjusted to accommodate the new playable character. There is also a higher level of production quality on the main story line, with an opening that helps bringyou into the world and events that introduce the characters very well. The main story also always has an entry in the quest log so you never forget what to do next.

Interactivity

There is a lot more flavor text around Dragontree Village to build the world and characters. Both the environment and NPCs can be interacted with now. By the time I'm finished with development, every NPC in Soul Saga will have something unique and interesting to say, and residential zones will have lots of intractable environments.

Amber Synthesizing

Soul Saga's unique crafting system has been added this beta! Amber Synthesizing allows you to craft more potent amber using the items you find around the world as ingredients. The unique thing about this system is you can use any item combination you feel necessary to craft the amber. Each item in the world has an Elemental Equation, and your goal is to match the equation as close as possible.

Music

The latest Soul Saga beta reveals a few more tunes by the talentedRyan Camus. Contrary to the upbeat songs I've been revealing previously, this music is for the more emotional and heavy scenes in the story.

Flickering Shadows

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75nQX6x3xUk

Stains of Ink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Op6uhR2ugv8

What do you think?

I'm excited to be getting Soul Saga closer and closer to the finish line! Years of sacrificehave lead to the moment I can finally share my humble JRPG with you, and it feels amazing to be so close to that time. Hopefully in a couple updates I can have the final release date in stone and get you Soul Saga as soon as possible. As always, your opinion is important to me. Please join us in the Disastercake forums for this update hereto discuss the update!

[ 2016-09-27 22:42:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, friend!

How are you? I hope this past month has been treating you well. If it hasn't, let me know and I'll give it a stern talking to! It worked well for mebecause this has been a great month for Soul Saga!

Development Status

The current state of development is in an excellent spot. I keep spending time adding more bulkand polish to Soul Saga's main and side content, and I really want to squeeze as much in there for you as feasibly possible. As such, this last 10% is really feeling impossible to estimate exactly. It could take a few more months to get it all in the way I intend it to be. My goal forSoul Saga has always beento give you the best game I possibly can, soI'm going to keep pushing forward and keep you posted on where it's all at next month! In the meantime, let's go over some things I accomplished this past month.

Music

Here's some lovely and catchy music by Ryan Camus while you read! This one is called "I Love My Job". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_Ia5Ahf3nY&feature=youtu.be

Cutscenes Workflow

The main story line events and cutscenes are continuing to be implemented. These are taking the vast bulk of my time, as I'm the only person working on their writing, design, implementation, and the programming API for the cutscenes and actors. A general cutscene's development flow goes something like this:

• Write a summary of exactly who and what happens in this scene and the order of the events.
• Write the dialogue for the scene.
• Comb over the writing and make any adjustments to events, orders, or the dialogue.
• Place the pre-made cutscene boilerplate code into the scene.
• Place actors in a general starting position.
• Place camera points where major camera points will most likelybe needed.
• Test.
• Make any adjustment to scene props to assist with moving actors or cameras.
• Test.
• Do a rough "motion" pass, where the actors enter the scene and go to critical locations.
• Test.
• Do a polish pass with actors making more movements or turning to look at speaking characters.
• Test.
• (Repeating) Polish and test small tweaks rigorously.

There's also many extra steps related to 3D game development that make it much more difficult and technical than 2D games. Because these are taking so much time to complete I'm always looking into ways to try and improve work flows. New tools get created and added as I find ways to modulate and streamlinecertain actions. I might also experiment with some different cutscene styles at certain locations in the game to help alleviate more complex scenes while maintaining visual quality.

Cutscene Features

To ensurethe user experience is as smooth as possible in Soul Saga, I've added a few extra features to cutscenes. First, acutscene skip confirmation has been added. Previously if you just pressed the skip button (escape key on the keyboard, and the menu button on the controller), the cutscene would immediately cancel and progress beyond it. To prevent accidents, I've implemented in a safety feature so that you now need to hold the cancel button for about 1.5 seconds. The text "Skip" with a circular progress bar appears in the top left corner. When the circle completes, the scene will skip. Releasing the cancel button early will prevent the skip from occurring. Also an Options menu has been added to cutscenes for volume controls and skipping. From this menu you can adjust the music, sound effect, and voice acting volumes, and even toggle the VA on and off.

Interactive Environments

Some of the feedback that Soul Saga fans have given me is how important an interactive environment is to a good JRPG. Many modern games have deviated from this by adding more visual detail to their art styles, but they forget that receiving input for exploring is an important reward for players. So now that Soul Saga is in the polishing stages for many of its scenes, I've begun adding these types of details around the world. These moments are most prevalent in town and residential areas where there's a lot more character personalities to build and culture to be experienced.

Controller Support

As Soul Saga progresses towards the finish line I had a strong urge to play the entire game with a controller. So... I added it in! I've been told by colleagues in the game industry that one of the hardest parts of porting to a console from Desktop can be adding controller support. So it's a good thingI saw this issue coming from a mile away and made sure to build Soul Saga's design and code from the ground up with both a mouse and controller in mind! Because of this careful planning, adding controller support was a rather painless process. You can even seamlessly switch between a controller and mouse, allowing you to use the mouse for general clicking and then using the keyboard to quickly navigate the menu list options (if you desire). So farI've tested on Windows with Xbox 360 and a PS4 (DS4Windows plugin) controllers. When the next beta version comes out I will be very interested in getting feedback on the keybindings and controller support. Vibration has also been added to the game and works on controllers that support direct input (like Xbox and DS4Windows PS4 controller). You may also toggle the vibration off in the options menu.

And more!

A lot more has been done as I squeeze in timebetweencutscenes to add more functionality to Soul Saga. For example you can toggle the party leader with the controller bumpers to quickly switch between the leads. I've also created and implementeda lot of performance optimizations, which in some cases require I rework a scenes models to be more universally performant.

What do you think?

As always, I'm very interested to know everything on your mind! I'm excited Soul Saga is getting closer to being finished, and I can't wait to finally get it in your hands! I promise to let you know as soon as I'm certain when that can happen. Thank you so much for your patience! I couldn't have made Soul Saga without your generous support! You can find today's forum topic here:http://forums.disastercake.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=935

[ 2016-08-02 00:31:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, Friend!

How are you doing? Is the weatherwarmwhere you're at? Summer has brought the heat down upon my back yard, withthe temperature getting close to 80F (27C), which to me is way too hot! I actually planted some kiwi vines in front of my window in hopes that they'll grow intoa "green screen" of sorts to absorb the sun heat. It's a technique Nozomi taught me that they use in Japan to reduce the heat in the buildings during hot summers. Here's to hoping it can cut down on the air conditioning costs!

Cutscenes

Development is going well, and my focus at the moment is the final content of Soul Saga. I'm currently crunching away on the cutscenes. At first they were taking much longer than I was hoping, but as I continued to work with them I created more tools and developed work flows and programming patterns to speed it along. So at the moment they're moving at a more reasonable pace. Because I'm the only person working on the cutscene scripting,dialogue writing, and engine programming it bottlenecks the development process and takes longer than a big studio can do. But with all that aside, seeing the final result of the storyin action is just surreal. I often find myself saying "Did I really make this game?!" Here's a little peek of what I've been working on.

Testing

One of the biggest challengesof making a JRPG like Soul Saga is testing. Coming from a video game quality assurance background I have high respect for good testing procedures, and often find myself testing regularly rather than putting it off until later. But testing something like a JRPG isn't normally a one man job, so to assist with testing I've created some tools and "hacks" in Soul Saga just for me to speed up the testing process. Some of the tools include a speed hack, scene jumping, and an overpowered Ring of Debugging used to smite my enemies in a single blow! No Torne or Squabble shall slow a test session ever again!

Music

Ryan Camus has been hard at work on the Soul Saga soundtrack. Seriously... he's cranking out more songs than I know what to do with at this point, but they're just so amazing I'm makingspots for all of it! I really appreciate the hard work he's put into Soul Saga. Music is one of the most important elements of a JRPG, and I'm ecstatic Soul Saga's musicwill be great! Here's just a few that he's made:

My Best Friend

"My Best Friend" is the catchy and adorable theme song played when Mithos interacts with his best friend in the Soul Saga story, a character to be revealed soon! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYGe3iYnyo0

Likurk Living

"Likurk Living" is the relaxing theme song played when you visit the different Likurk inhabited areas of Medonia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6POHgIL5jOo

Life Is Good

"Life Is Good" is the smooth and relaxing theme song played when in various parts of the game for happier moments. Relax a little, you've earned it! =D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYeQy97nf1Q

Moonlighter Cross Over!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tlLMx7uMaU Moonlighter is a gorgeous and incredibly fun looking 2D action adventure RPG where you play as the owner of an item shop! Your goal as the item shop owner, Will, is to delve into the nearby dungeons to earn treasure andlootto then sell to the traveling adventurers for a profit, one of which will be Mithos from Soul Saga! The mysterious dungeons are constantly changing, so there's a new challenge every time you go spelunking. It was obvious to me as soon as I laid eyes on this project that it wasa labor of love by severaltalented people, including the amazingcomposer Alec Holowka, who has done great work on the Aquaria and Night in the Woods games. I'm a backer myself and can't wait to see Mithos in Moonlighter! Will and the Moonlighter shop will also be making an appearance in Soul Saga! Search for the shop hidden away in Medonia's capital and you'll have access to some nice items! Just make sure to bring your Jul. Moonlighter's Kickstarter ends in just a few days, so please take a look and show them some love! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/digitalsun/moonlighter

So What Do You Think?

Each day Soul Saga's last 10% gets whittled away, and I get ever closer to sharing my 3 year labor of love with you. Yeah that's right, this month marks the 3 year anniversary of the Kickstarter! Holy Torne cakes! This has been a long and incredible journey, but every ounce of sacrifice was worth the effort. Thank you for everything you've done for me... I couldn't have made Soul Saga without you! If you have any comments, please join us in today's forum topic here:http://forums.disastercake.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=931

[ 2016-06-29 06:38:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, friend!

How've you been?! I hope your spring has gone well. Did you know summer's right around the corner already?! Time sure does fly when you're spending all of it working on Soul Saga! I've been focusing on Soul Saga's new user interface lately, and I'd love to show you some of that today!

Beta v9.3 Live!

Beta v9.3 is live and has almost all of the new user interface implemented! This includes the Title Menu, main menu and all sub menus, and part of the shop menus. Next I will work on finishing the shop menus and the crafting menus. The user interface implementation should be 99% done by next week. I'm also planning on adding controller support in pretty soon!

User Interface Enhancements

The biggest change over the past month has been a complete overhaul of the Soul Saga user interface design. The previous betas were simply using placeholder UI. I like to tell people that making a good game with a tight budget should be treated like baking a cake. You don't put on the toppings until you've baked the cake first! And now that Soul Saga is being finalized it's time to start piling on that sugary eye candy frosting!

Title Menu

The title menu sports a black and white background of the beautiful Soul Saga character collage created by Akaneko. The UI designer then created some fancier save file frames, and I programmed in a cool animated glow effect behind them. I also implemented in a couple social networking buttons at the bottom so new fans can easily connect with me to chat about Soul Saga and keep up to date on future Disastercake games!

Main Menu

The main menu sports more coloring in the background, but a bit desaturated and blurred so it doesn't overwhelm the foreground. This is the menu you'll be seeing often in game to access all your information. The goal was to give you some nice eye candy on the landing page of the main menu so you can enjoy your time here.

Other Menus

Many of the menus in Soul Saga will sport a notebook type look to it. The goal is to give the user interface some character by making it look like young Mithos has scribbled this information into his notebook.

New Title Theme

Soul Saga's lead composer, Ryan Camus, has created a new title theme for Soul Saga! This epic and inspiring theme is titled "Dream Big", and it captures the mood and moral message of Soul Saga perfectly. https://youtu.be/OxP1gz3cFOc

What do you think?

One of the many things that makes Soul Saga unique is the obviously strong impact fans have on development. A recent question I brought up for fans to help decide is whether your airship should cost money to repair or not. Feel free to join us in the discussion on Twitter, on the Disastercake forums, or right here on Steam!

Thank You!

I'm going to jump right back into working on Soul Saga now! I'm so excited to share Soul Saga with you this year I can't even explain it! I'll always be eternally grateful for the opportunity you've given me to share Soul Saga with you, so thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU! I'm still aiming to release Soul Saga on the PC, Mac, and Linux by late August, and I'll let you know if that has to be adjusted in the near future. So far everything is coming along well! I'll definitely keep you up to date about console porting soon after the Desktop version has been released.

[ 2016-05-25 01:17:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hello, Friend!

My name is Mike Gale and I'm the developer of Soul Saga! I just wanted to let you know that I'm eternally grateful for the opportunity you've given me to share Soul Saga with you. Both the Kickstarter and Greenlight campaigns were a huge success thanks to Soul Saga's amazing fans, and I promise to do my best to bring you the best game I can! I'm going to keep Soul Saga's store page updated with all of the updates from Soul Saga's blog, but you can follow along with them at these locations too: Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/disastercake Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/disastercake Website: http://www.disastercake.com/

[ 2016-05-25 00:41:13 CET ] [ Original post ]