Trueclash games

Dev Log 14 (Public Post) — Where the Money Goes + Team & Features Update

Added 2025-10-02 13:47:25 +0000 UTC

Hey all!

To celebrate the public release of v0.3 and the v0.4 release for T3 patrons, this devlog will be public! 🎉

It’ll be a bit different because I want to talk about… money!- and where your support has been invested.

We’re still at the beginning, so funds aren’t huge yet. But before I share where everything went, there’s something we need to address:

Current GUI & Mark

Long story short, life got complicated for Mark, and he hasn’t been able to keep developing the GUI. That’s why this patch didn’t include GUI improvements.

We talked it through and given how things have changed for him, it wouldn’t be productive for him to stay actively on the project right now. His contributions remain, and he’ll still be around to give feedback and opinions, just not as our GUI artist.

This led me to go through the many messages I received from artists when I was originally looking for an GUI artist — and…

New GUI Artist

Please welcome Sterki Herz!
She was one of the artists who reached out the first time and after talking with her I really liked her vibe and the range of work she’s done.

She’ll finish what Mark couldn’t and also take on new areas, such as the Memory Log. We’ve already been chatting and came up with some very interesting ideas.

You can check her work here, where she has links to previous projects she worked on:
https://sterkiherz.netlify.app/

New Coder / Programmer (Potential)

Back when I was searching for a GUI artist, I also heard from a programmer who wanted to join the project. I’m still waiting to hear back, but from what he showed me he loves both code and animation. If it works out, this could be a long-term partnership.

Since that was almost three months ago, I don’t know if he’s still available. Either way, I think it’s worth making a public call for a programmer to see portfolios, rates and previous work before making such an important decision.

New Minigame & Semi-Erotic Art

We’re planning a simple minigame with light erotic elements but without recurring to over-the-top fanservice (I feel fanservice breaks a bit of immersion and the believability of the world).

After an MMA fight, it’s common for a fighter to be checked by medical staff and helped by the coach with recovery (water, ice, etc.).
Since Trueclash is an alternate world with slightly more advanced sports medicine, I thought: what if Ren (optionally) handles part of that recovery as well?

The minigame would be simple (and will not block story progress, we already have combat for challenge 😈):
you’d see the fighter lying face-down on a massage table, with visible bruises/cuts, and you’d select different tools, cooling spray, pain patches, therapeutic massage, etc. (Yes, a closer, interactive look at the body 😉).

I want this to be well-made and attractive, so I contacted several artists. I really enjoyed talking to one of them, but they asked to follow up in a month. We’ll see.

It would be 4 images total, each with variants.

Below you can see a sketch of the idea. I could probably even do something like this, but I want to bring in artists who work by hand for the project, as I mentioned before.

Maybe you’ll think it’s stupid that I’m spending resources when I might be able to do this for free, but I really want to try to bring visual artists to the game.

This minigame would likely land in v0.6 as I can’t implement it sooner since I need the artist’s response and it fits after the Diego vs Matt fight.

And with that… that’s basically the budget cap we had for Trueclash xDDD

Speaking of Diego & Matt

Patch 0.5 should be about the Matt vs Diego fight and with 12k word already written I haven’t even reached the fight yet xDDD.

For now, my goal is: reach 30k words, and anything above that I’ll include as bonus content in the patch.
For my sanity and to avoid stress, I would like to try to keep 15k words in “storage” (one full patch). I never know what tomorrow brings — sickness, extra day job work, or a part of the game that’s more demanding mechanically/visually.

A lot to show… soon

I have a ton to share, such as new designs, sprite updates, polls for your opinions, etc. But this post is already long, so let me just share one progress piece:

Idle & Getting Closer Animations

Before, when characters approached or moved away from Ren, I’d just fade out and pop them back in closer. It was ok, but I felt it could be better.

So I coded and refined approach animations. They’re customizable. I can control speed and movement amplitude. Here are two different examples: one where Ren moves closer, and one where the character closes up on Ren.

Harry Close-up:
https://youtu.be/FsOVZJ0MRBA

Diego Closing Up:
https://youtu.be/krz4HgJrvB0