In my last devlog i was like "the next couple weeks should calm down so i can work on the game more" or some such thing to that effect. Well I was wrong. Work stayed super ridiculously busy this week, delaying game dev further. *sigh* Sometimes i feel like giving up ya know. Anyway. Put out a tiny update today, New batch of art is in, its great woo.
(There are 3 new ones but i won't paste them all it will ruin the fun!)

Changes:

-art woo -made tile effect descriptions a consistent text size -buffed rosebud tavern more -Improved hints for things, ya know none of these weird things about DR4X are unintentional right? They all have meaning they are all pointing to something. Ugh Added more hints as folks clearly need more guidance towards finding the good and bad endings. There are points where i literally S=G P=X E=Q L=L L=L it out for ya ya know. Like 8 times or something. Heh, maybe not 8 times, Its hard to get people invested in something so cryptic. *deep breath* So, I kinda know how the next chapter will go now. I've got outlines for all of them, but getting there is the real hard part. Looks like itll involve some noderooms antics as that seems to have gotten some good feedback from folks, but youll also need to have gotten the good or bad endingssomething only about 0.6% of players have managed so far! This might mean theres a spot where players are dropping off, or maybe the unconventional victories needed for these endings are just too tricky to figure out. Either way, ive got some tweaking to do! This small update will start to fascillitate that, though it updates the ending you get with new hints. SInce i know many of you have gotten those endings so wont get these popups, heres a hint for those who got a bad ending (AFAIK no one has gotten the good ending yet, I know one person got very close though) [spoiler]You are playing on a terminal in DR4X, if you know his name, TYPE IT THERE (On the main menu) and something will happen and also do that during the ending sequence (something happens in both places heh).[/spoiler] For those who have only gotten a neutral ending: [spoiler]The dr4x codex can guide you to all the endings and hints at what you need to do, some of it is encrypted, so get out a pen and paper and if you want to figure out the secrets, actually try to figure it out, figure out the ciphers etc. There are enough hints there that you don't need to figure out the cipher itself and instead can essentially treat them all as alphanumeric subsitution ciphers. And to get the ending you dont even need to figure out the ciphers at all, just read the signs and hints. the ciphers just make it easier[/spoiler] I will be adding hints to the chapter 1 unconventional victories to nodenet, if you know what that is heh good job. Also, ive decided ill be adding achievements for each mission, unconventional and standard, as it will help me get an idea as to where people are getting stuck. And ill also do the same for a bunch of skirmish goals. ... I've also decided that Chapter Two will be locked behind achieving either a good or bad ending in the first chapter. If you haven't unlocked either of these, you wont be able to access this new content. Its as straightforward as that. Neutral endings will keep it locked. The reason for this is that achieving these endings is a crucial part of the gameperhaps the most important part. Therefore, I simply can't let you proceed to the next chapter without having secured either the good or bad ending to Chapter 1 The truth is, its becoming a bit frustrating that no one has figured out the way to do this yet. I know these are challenging, but I genuinely believe you can figure them out and this was meant to be a TUTORIAL campaign. About a thousand of you have downloaded DR4X across all platforms, including Itch.io, so theres a solid amount of people who could dive in and could help others actually get to the cool stuff. That said, maybe were facing a collective hurdle here. This isnt just about progressing through a gameits about pushing the boundaries of whats possible within a game. I'm here, rooting for you to break through these barriers. And if i get frusterated enough i might just say fuck it and make a guide myself. As a small indie dev, its already tough enough to get anyone to care about what I make. Let alone to actually put effort in to figuring out the deeper parts of it. I know that if someone managed to record the good or bad endings and the process to get there, way more people might be willing to give the game a shot. And if not, well, I guess Im kinda doing it for the art. I'm lucky to have a day job that pays well enough that I dont have to worry about whether a lot of people play my gameits just a passion project. I'm lucky in many ways; I own my own home, have an adorable doggo, a literal white picket fence, and a supportive family, although some relatives used to wonder why I was creating roguelikes instead of 'cool 3D games.' . Maybe its a passion project with puzzles so difficult nobody will figure them out until after I'm gone or something, but heck, it would be so cool if someone did. Anyway, skirmish updates are still a thing, my focus isnt shifting. Its just that the focus varies based on my motivation and what part of the game I work on at any given moment. A lot of indie developers gain attention by making YouTube videos, but for me, given the small free time I have, it's really just a choice between working on the game or making YouTube videos. I can't do both without risking burnout and potentially quitting altogether. So I don't like to think about "how can i get popular" its a waste of mind power tbh heh it just makes me depressed. I used to make videos regularly; they were unscripted. Maybe I can go back to that? But then again, the time I would spend on videos could (As stated earlier) be spent working on this massively ambitious game. I'm 28 now, and I can't do this forever. I don't know how someone like Tarn Adams stays sane. I used to think it's by switching tasks within the overarching project to prevent burnout, and doing 'end of month projects'that approach worked for a while, but I didn't keep it up. Again, every second spent on something else feels like a wasted second in terms of DR4X development. I feel like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. I want to work on DR4X, and that's pretty much all I want to do. If it means languishing in obscurity until I die, that's okay. I've made something coolat least, it's cool to me and to some people maybe, unless all those positive reviews are just people being nice, which could be true. It's something I've poured my heart and soul into, 4 years of it. I'm happy with how the project has turned out. I'm proud that people like the noderooms stuff. I'm just happy anyone at all in this shitstain of a world gives my coffee-adled brain the time of day at all. Did you know? There's a message hidden in the game for someone really special to me, who I met when I was 12 years old. I don't even know if they're still alive or if they will ever see the message. But it's there. And so is DR4X, I guess. I dont think they were the videogame type heh. I also lost a friend of mine when I was in university. Theres a message for them in the game too. They'll never see it, of course, but its there for them, a monument i guess. He was passionate and really good at counter strike, heh. I guess you could say he was TENACIOUS, at least. There's also a message in the game dedicated to the late wife of a friend of mine. She passed away a few years ago, and she will of course never see it. Even though he (the friend) helps me on this project by doing 2D art, I'm not sure he'll ever see it either. Wild, right? In fact I think that if he reads this, this will be the first time hes heard that that is a thing. I'm tearing up just thinking about it, to be honest. Maybe DR4X is a message to me. If I died tomorrow, would I just be a nobody? Would the game disappear into the ether? I don't think anyone would even bother archiving it TBH. Or maybe, many years from now, someone will appreciate the art. I would guess not, but... [spoiler]I have to do it for them. ya know.[/spoiler]