Happy New Year, Everybody!
December flew by, January went fast and slow at the same time somehow, but we are already in 2025! I hope you all had a great holiday season and are ready to tackle the new year. I know I am because I have some exciting news to share with you all.
We have been working hard behind the scenes to bring you some news that I think you will love. So, without further ado, let's get into it!
A Whole Rework of the Game Story to Focus More on Its Impact on Gameplay
This section is so important to me that I decided to make it the first one in this newsletter because it affects the entire game and how it will be played.
As expected from a game that has been in development for a long time, the story has changed a lot since the beginning. At this point, it already has a lot of iterations, but some of these rewrote the entire story, only keeping some elements from the previous ones. This time, we are not doing that exactly, but there are a lot of concepts that were previously addressed that we are removing from the game to make it less of a feature creep and more focused on the core experience. We are also adding some new elements that will make the game story more engaging, with a focus on character development and world-building for future projects.
THE NEXT PARAGRAPHS CONTAIN HEAVY SPOILERS ABOUT THE GAME STORY. IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED, PLEASE SKIP TO THE NEXT SECTION.
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Here is a list of the elements that were removed from the game story and gameplay with this rework, and how they were replaced:- Time Travel Capabilities: From its conception, the game focused a lot on time travel mechanics, being one of the main elements where the player could go back in time to "fix their mistakes" and "change the future." This was a very interesting concept, but it was also very hard to implement in a way that would make sense and not be confusing for the player. It also didn't impact the gameplay in a way that made it easy to follow the story. So, we decided to rework this story element, making it more related to how every action of the player’s choices "branches" the timeline. These branches can be explored in multiple replays, making the game more replayable and giving more opportunities to explore the game world and the characters through alternative routes. The idea is to focus more on the player’s choices and how they impact the world. We are also adding "story checkpoints" that will allow the player to start new files from these points, making it easier to explore the game in different ways without replaying the entire game.
- The 6 Orbs: For years, the story focused on too many things at the same time. Aside from the two playable stories, there were many distracting elements, like the 6 orbs, which were tied to the Souls that are now transformed into Essences. These orbs served as a way to slowly explain the relation of The Souls Realm, The Medallion, The Book of Memories, The Doomsday Clock, and the story behind the use of the orbs. I felt like I was trying to explain too much at once, making the story confusing. So, we decided to remove the 6 orbs and focus solely on the medallion and how it relates to time corruption and the rest of the world. This aims to reduce story clutter and may allow us to explore the rest of the lore in a future game or DLC if the game is well-received.
- The Doomsday Clock in the Sky: This concept was added in very late iterations of development, and it was meant to create a sense of urgency in the story where everything would end when a giant clock in the sky reached 12AM. While this was an interesting idea, it no longer made sense after removing the orbs and refocusing the story on the medallion. The new major threat is the medallion and its overuse, which is corrupting the world and consuming time itself. This is affecting the creatures near the "timeloop core" (The Reminiscence rebels), but not the ones on the surface (The Council), who are not affected by the corruption... yet.
- The Quests System: As much as I really loved this system, and there are still traces of it in the game code, the quest system was intended to give the player a more "open-world" experience, where they could complete side quests to unlock more equipment, learn more about the world and characters, and help people in the game. This is now mostly removed, and the game story is more linear and dependent on the choices the player makes. While there will be no required side quests, players will still find NPCs who offer items or information that help in their journey. These tasks won’t be required to finish the game but will open new paths and explore the story in different ways, without being tracked in a quest log as before.
- Reduction of Equipment Items and Grinding: During the game’s development, we added a lot of equipment items that the player could use, like weapons, armors, accessories, etc. This system was similar to RPGs like Diablo or Path of Exile, where a lot of items help improve the character's stats. The game will still have equipment, but we are drastically reducing the number of items from hundreds to just a few dozen, making them more unique and impactful. Many previous stat changes will now be part of the Souls passive system (similar to the souls in Castlevania AoS/DoS or the charms in Hollow Knight). This way, players can see more significant changes when switching their main weapon, for example, from a sword to a dagger, while balancing the stats with the Souls they have equipped. This also reduces the need for players to grind for items and eliminates the choice paradox where players don't know what to choose and end up saving items for later, never using them. The game will have just one type of rechargeable healing item, like in Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight, to replace multiple potions and food items.
- Chapters? Acts? Game Pacing?: The game was initially planned to be long, with six chapters split into two acts per chapter. Over time, this evolved into seven or eight very long acts, with each act starting with new areas unlocked and ending with a boss fight that opened the next chapter. However, after several rewrites, the game is now divided into shorter acts that provide a better sense of progression. We are also adding "story checkpoints," where players can return later to explore new routes and decisions. The game will start with act 0, "Where Everything Starts," and end with the last act, "Where Everything Ends," with a small "prologue" or "flashback" act in the middle to help explain why certain decisions were made in the earlier acts. The story will be told through the characters and the world, without relying on excessive dialogue or cutscenes, allowing players to focus more on gameplay. Some open questions will remain to fuel discussions and theories.
HEAVY SPOILERS END HERE, YOU CAN CONTINUE READING FROM THIS POINT
A New Beginning & Extended Act 0
Since a lot of changes have been made to the game story, I decided once again to rework the first minutes of the game. It’s not so heavy that it would break what was already made, but I’ve reduced a lot of introductory text and interactions, while making those interactions more playable—especially considering the amount of dialogue in previous demos at the beginning of the game.
One way to make this possible was to extend the first act a bit in terms of gameplay, and modify the Souls Realm introduction. So, before having that whole cutscene where you walk toward the story and take control of Ebura, you can now move around the Souls Realm, fight some "enemies," have a small tutorial on controls and how to use the Souls, and then start making choices that will affect the game’s story, like in previous demos.
Another change is that you are no longer just spawning in the Waterfalls area after passing the threshold. There will now be some events that... Hmm, this might be spoilers for the demo, so I’ll just say that you will now be able to explore how people in the Waterfalls area are living, see a bit of "civilization," and get some explanation on why you are killing creatures after leaving into the wilderness.
Improved Camera System
So, new camera system. That's basically it, but if you are interested in learning more technical details, you can continue reading this section.
One of the biggest issues I had with the camera and views in the game was how jittery it looked when the aspect ratios didn’t match the game resolution scale. This was due to the way the camera was rendering the views, and where it was rendering. So now, instead of the game being drawn in a "game layer surface" per se, it is now put piece by piece into a pre-GUI layer that can scale seamlessly without making pixels feel wanky or jittery. This also allows me to make the game run in a better fullscreen mode and makes it easier to port the game to different aspect ratios in the future (I will not forget you widescreen players, I promise).
Another thing this new camera system allows me to do is apply zoom effects to the game. Now I can make the game zoom in and out in certain parts, like when you are in a boss fight, or when you are in a cutscene, or when I just want to show a big open area that you can explore. This will make the game feel more dynamic and alive—so less static gameplay and more dynamic camera movements.
Here's a look at how messy it also looks in the editor (lol):
New Enemy Sprites & Animations
During this time, I started working with my friend @klonoz on reworked sprites for the current enemies and bosses that fit better with the game’s art style (the previous ones were just programmer art). We are also working on new enemies for each area to add more variety to the game. Here's a sneak peek of some of the new enemies that we are working on, and their new and improved looks!
New Game Over Sequence
I think the Game Over sequences are like my kryptonite, I always have a hard time making them look good and feel right, but this time I think I nailed it. Inspired by Momodora RotM, I decided to just make this sequence something simple, you get hit, wait a few frames and explode, then you can see a game over screen with 3 options: Continue playing, go to menu, or quit the game. This accompanied by some "tips" or messages that will may help you to know more things about the game that you maybe missed or didn't know.
The idea is that you don't see this screen too often, but also if you see it, you don't feel like you are being punished for dying, but more like you are being encouraged to try again, removing previous penalties for dying that were in previous iterations of the game, but making it possible to play with those in a higher difficulty mode.
File Selection, Gameplay Focus & Difficulty Differences
This is still not finished because I want to add a crop of a screenshot of the area you are in, but for the new game or file select option in the menu, I finally implemented the whole difficulty and gameplay mode system that I’ve been testing for a few months now without a way to change it directly.
The idea is to have an experience that could fit what you like most, not by just tweaking some numbers, but by adding/reducing text and dialogues, tweaking enemy hitboxes a bit to be more precise or forgiving, and adding/simplifying more enemy and player mechanics depending on gameplay focus and difficulty selected!
I think it’s not needed to say, but this was heavily inspired by the new Prince of Persia game that I’ve been playing lately. I think it’s a great way to make the game more accessible to more players, while also making it more challenging for those that want a more hardcore or combat-based experience. The twist is that it doesn’t just change numbers in the enemies to make them "bullet sponges," but instead, it changes the way the game is played by adding more challenging elements to existing content.
Hope this can diversify the gameplay and add some replay value!
New Map System
The map system has been reworked a lot of times, and I doubt this is the last iteration. Now, with the changes in the story, me trying to make the rooms easier to view in zoomed mode, and the addition of map upgrades that allow you to put annotations and related stuff on the map, the map has become too big to just fit in one pause screen.
So, I decided to make the map work by... "layers"? The idea is simple: when you are inside an area and open the map, you will only see the map layout of the area you are in, with details, annotations, and other stuff provided by map upgrades. But you can also press a button and zoom out the map (this is also an upgrade you can buy), so you can see the whole map without annotations, other than where the save rooms are and some information about which area the map cursor is on.
The idea now is to make map completion a bit more challenging, but also more rewarding, giving a better feeling of progress during the adventure. This will also make the map more useful for exploration and backtracking—not just an image of where you’ve been, but a tool to help you in your journey... for a price!
Also, the map is now unlocked almost at the beginning of the game (mid Act 0, about 10-15 minutes into the game) and not after the first White Body fight (mid Act 1, previously about 30-45 minutes into the game). But since White Body fights are optional, these fights will reward you with even better map upgrades than the ones you can buy in the shop in the early game if you win those battles!
New Steam Page Art
Since the story elements changed a lot from the time the page was first created, I worked with one of my best friends and the man in charge of all social media art, @MaldozMons, to create a new set of art for the Steam page that better represents the game story and the vibes that I want to transmit with the game.
We did a lot of iterations to find the one that we liked more—some with characters, some with just the game logo, some with silhouettes, etc... But we finally decided to go with a more minimalistic approach, with just the game logo and some elements that represent the time corruption to generate some intrigue and mystery about the game.
The art is already live on the Steam page, so you can go check it out and wishlist the game if you haven't already!
But if you don't want to go to the Steam page, here's a sneak peek:
More Characters Concept Art
Along with the recent changes in the game story, @MaldozMons and I decided to rework some of the old character designs for relevant NPCs in the game, to better fit the new story and the new game art style.
One of the most important changes was the redesign of Kura (previously named Keybold), the souls collector. He was originally a "ghost" kind of character, but now is more like a bunny, heavily inspired by mimigas from Cave Story. This change was made for lore purposes and to make it fit better with one of the characters he had more interactions with in the early game, Nova.
Another character that was slightly modified but improved in design was Sammy, the green flame girl. The new design is more inspired by a mix of Sypha Belnades from the Castlevania Netflix series, and the Jadesprite from Homestuck. More focused on making her look a bit less "friendly" but more like a powerful mage, while keeping the "softy" look.
What's Next?
A new demo is certainly coming soon, but I want to make sure that all the new changes are implemented and working as intended before releasing it. The original idea was to release it in January, but things got complicated and I had to delay it a bit, but I promise (and hope) that it will be worth the wait!
The idea is to release the Steam Demo during the Steam Next Fest that is happening this month, so you can wishlist the game and try it out for yourself, and see all the new changes that I've been talking about in this newsletter.
As always, thank you for reading this newsletter, and for your continued support of the game. If this is your first time reading one of these newsletters, welcome!, I usually post these every month to keep you all updated on the progress of the game, and to share some insights into the development process.
You can follow this on the Mainasutto Blog, or join the Mainasutto Discord Server to be part of the community and share your thoughts and feedback about the game. I try to answer every question and feedback that I get, so don't be shy and come say hi!
Until next time, see you in March for the February Newsletter! Take care and stay safe! ːcozybethesdaː