Going somewhere for the next 2 months
Hi there everyone, the following is a rather important announcement. I find myself in a situation where I'm looking at the not-so-far future and it seems to me that it's quite possible that the Kickstarter funds will run low. I know that in the past I've said that this campaign made enough and I still think that's true, but it's likely I'll have to cut down on features, content and contractor work like music and animations. To offset this I originally planned to release it on Steam's Early Access, and hopefully get some sales for the remained of development, however, Early Access is something that I want to delay as much as possible, it can become quite a stinky process specially if development drags on. I've seen projects pile up negative reviews from long time fans that have turned on the developers because either updates don't come quick enough or come out buggy. So, in order to provide a quality experience, the closer to actual release this happens, the better.
So, I have a little plan, I want to spend a maximum of 2 months working on a different game that I will release on Steam, unrelated to Sorceress. As some of you know, after the KS last year I took a little 2 week vacation in which I participated in a gamejam and made a different game called FlyKnight, it was a 30-40 minute long game inspired by the first person dungeon crawlers from From Software like Kings Field and Shadow Tower Abyss, this game caught a lot of buzz online and even appeared in a youtube video that has now 2.6 million views (Sorceress also appeared on it and it literally doubled in Wishlists). Plus, each time I have shown that game in twitter it has received a lot of attention ranging from posts with 1.5k likes to 4k which shows people are very interested I think.
So, over the past few weeks I've used my spare time to work on FlyKnight to add some key features to it: inventory, loot system, online coop functionality and fishing, and I think that if I were to release a version of this with these features that lasted for a few hours and was valued at like 5€ it would bring a lot of dough into my arks which then would help speed Sorceress up and not sacrifice on key features and content, all that while bringing even more attention to it.
So, in short, I'll spend the next 2 months working on it and release the game, these 2 months are a hard cap and if I need more time to work on it I will just chip away at it in my spare time, I won't sacrifice more time away from Sorceress for this.
If you want to check out the progress I've done on it these past few weeks I've compiled a few videos in this website: https://wabbaboy.dev/FlyKnight_Development.html
And if you'd like to Wishlist it you can do so right here:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3108510/FlyKnight_Prelude/
Sorceress Progress Report
And now with actual Sorceress news, it has barely been a month since last update so there isn't as much to show as usual but lets jump into it.
A few more elements have been added to Workshop but they will used in many other levels as well, like these permanently electrified wall pieces:
These will act like spike walls, a constant hazard you can use in combat but they will have many other uses depending on the enemy type or the elements that interact with it.
Speaking of elements, electricity has been reworked to be a bit less chaotic, it still needs some adjustments and visual clarity but it now acts in an "area" around an electrified object, in this video is still lacking some kick against these enemies (although they are made of wood and thus not weak to this element) but it's certainly shredding through their weapons.
Btw you can briefly see these workers peacefully doing their thing until you come in, here is a closer look at that:
If you bother them they will get distracted but as long as you are not aggressive or they don't get an order from a superior, they won't attack you.
So, with these updates and the level design I've been doing I'd say Workshop is at 80% completion but I'm going to leave it aside and work on a different level when I come back to the project. There are some features missing that will be needed to complete this level and others but I'm spacing out my tasks to avoid burnout so in the next Level Design update I will be working on something else which likely will be that open style level you saw on an earlier update, get hyped!