Progress Report 2021-03-29

Hi friends,

As March rolls to an end, I admit I have been struggling a bit to meet my deadlines. As I mentioned in the bulk message I sent out, I’ve been having some health problems related to my eyesight (nothing serious, just the result is that I need decreased screen time, which ultimately impacts my ability to work on the game). I have been doing some drafting by hand, namely sketches of city maps and a few outlines of upcoming short stories. I am not where I would like to be at the end of this month, but that’s how development goes sometimes.

Game Updates

As of today, I have completed all of the edits to the public build I intended to do before the alpha build is released. I made my life a little more complicated by redesigning both the Faction and the Companion pages in the Journal. I had an idea for a card system, where each faction/main character has a “card” associated with them, and you click on that card for the relevant information. (This is partially inspired by media/character pages designed by a few tumblr theme makers I really like).

These designs aren’t 100% set in stone yet, but I do like the direction I’ve gone for them.

I also tweaked the dialogue box design, which affects all pop ups in the game (including: Saves, Restart, Settings and regular dialogue boxes). I’ve been attempting to redesign the entire thing to have an elaborate frame around the pop-up, but that is far too complicated for me and I wasn’t really sure where to start doing that. Instead, I added a background header to the title bar (which needs a few tweaks as sometimes I find it hard to read the title on top of the image).

A few other additions:

• Added a setting that turns off the handwritten font for codex letters
• Fixed some issues with the font size settings
• Fixed a bug where the MC receives +1 Random Stat in the Prologue. Previously, they didn’t receive any stats. They will now receive +1 random stat.
• Attempted to place a “Return to Game” button in the sidebar, but ran into an unfixable issue where the Inventory duplicates when they player clicks “return to game”.
• Moved the chapter header to the sidebar. The chapter number and title will now appear above the sidebar menu.
• Lockpicks are now no longer consumables. They are a reusable item, like the grappling hook, and can be used as long as they are in the MC’s inventory.
• Added a “Pact Forged” icon to the MC’s dialogue options when they accept their contract from Zenaida (this will also be tracked in their records in the Journal)
• Re-wrote the letter the MC receives from their master (it is now a letter specifically from Brissa Varyn)
• Added letter titled “A summons from the Grandmaster” to the Codex
• Edited some lore in the Rona codex (look for the word greendrift! It’s important!)
• Edited some timeline references (the MC and Aeran have been in Rona for six months, Luthais is specifically referred to as a greendrift in place of a street urchin)

If you have access to the alpha build, you can check out these changes early before I update the public build! Integration with itchio is still forthcoming, but you can find the link and the password in the alpha build post pinned at the top of the Patreon posts.

Alpha Build

While I am pushing to get the alpha build update out as soon as possible, I unfortunately haven’t been able to start editing the VL sequence, let alone begin coding it. Because of my set backs this week, I don’t think I will be able to get it out for March 31, but this weekend is a lot more likely. 

Thank you for your patience!

Patreon Updates

This month, we ran a poll about main character side stories. For a while Ren and Mel were tied, but Ren is currently winning by a landslide.

I don’t have a set schedule yet for the side stories, but I am hoping for one per month. I am currently drafting a Ren short story as next month’s bonus content and I’m pretty excited for it. It will be a quick look into life in Velantis and will introduce two major characters for Ren’s arc, Raven and Ves.

The poll is open for two more days, for those who want to sneak in a last minute vote!

Have a great week!