September 27th 2023
(Experimental branch only):
GENERAL:
- Changed the way damage indicators in battle work under-the-hood in an attempt to reduce crashes (How this turns out will depend massively on your computer).
TERRAIN:
- Added a monster found in Rocky Road.
- Added a boss that blocks the way in Rocky Road.
- Improved Rocky Road a lot (Still pretty rough).
- Added a small room where Velvet Valley will be just so you can't soft-lock yourself by picking the fire starter (You can grind a bit and catch a few monsters).
NOTES:
This is a smaller update that only affects users of the experimental branch. In case you didn't know, everyone can opt-in the experimental branch and try it out. Your save-file won't be corrupted and you can always turn back.
In other news, I'm heavily considering changing engine which would be a massive undertaking that might take upward of a month to complete. I'm still thinking about it but I don't think I can improve the game as fast as I want unless I fix the core of the game first. This would allow me to reintroduce old features that broke along the way such as the language option and controller support.
Another thing that changed is my attitude toward game development. Earlier in development, there were a lot of concept art used as placeholder for monsters and very rough textures and maps. Monsters sometimes come out with only 1 evolution and lacking move-pools. I've been pushing a lot to have all the art finalized and the map look good in the past few months. I came to the conclusion I should rework every single monster to have complete art and complete move-pools and not add new monsters until they are ready as well. HOWEVER, after hitting my head on my desk for 2 months I don't think It's productive to complete each zones of the map one by one and only releasing finished ones. If you have been playing on anything but the experimental branch of the game you probably noticed a lack of updates, this is why. Going forward, I will add much more blocky and basic maps that will later on be filled with monsters and final graphics just to test distances and questlines. I simply encourage people not go to clearly unfinished maps, maybe I will make it clear which zones are unfinished with some sort of UI element. Either way, I think only releasing completely finished monsters but rough maps is the best path forward.
TL;DR:
- Might go on hiatus for a month or two while I move engine.
- If I do go on hiatus, expect a huge upgrade to everything (but the game might not run on older PCs)
- Language selection and Controller support coming back (probably, eventually).
- Every monster will be reworked to have finalized art and a decent, more unique move-pool.
- New monsters won't release until they are finalized, even if that leaves certain zones rather empty.
- New maps will come out faster and with unfinished graphics, but in exchange they should come out faster and multiple zones should be added simultaneously.