Ladies, gentlemen, faefolk of every creed, let the doors open upon our second act! Tonight, for your entertainment, I’ve prepared for you myriad tales of glory, grandeur, and gloam. I bid you listen closely, lest you find your bearings shattered upon the waves of the Waywyrd…
Hello everyone! Welcome to our second Dev Diary for Sunflowers and the Goddess of Death. My name is C.W. Hendricks, lead writer, developer, and designer for the game, and I am honored to bring to you the exciting news and updates we have in store today!
First off, Sunflowers and the Goddess of Death is going to be featured in Steam’s Summer Next Fest 2024! If you haven’t yet given the game a try, now is as good a time as ever! I firmly and humbly believe you will be enchanted by the world, characters, and classic RPG gameplay we have put so much love and effort into creating. And don’t forget to Wishlist the game if you enjoyed it! Wishlisting helps small indie studios/games like ours tremendously by boosting our visibility throughout Steam.
For those of you who have already played the demo, or are still looking for the time to sit down and enjoy a classic-style RPG, we’ve prepared a little something to get you (back) into the world! Patch 1.2 has launched and with it comes updates to various artwork and core game systems that we think add just that extra bit of flair and fun to the game. These are things we’ve designed for Act II and beyond in particular, and thought it would be really cool to update Act I (and thus the demo!) with the new features as well.
Patch 1.2
🌻 Updated all menu, battle, message, etc. windows in the game with new artwork.
🌻 Updated game resolution to better support widescreen monitors.
🌻 Updated all weapon types with more interesting effects.
🌻 Updated all accessories with effects that scale better over time.
🌻 Redesigned all character and monster stats, as well as growth rates, to allow for smoother level scaling and power growth over time.
🌻 Fixed a bug with Purify not correctly dispelling Sleep effects.
🌻 Updated battle information popups to include information about weakness, immunities, critical hits, and elemental/status resistances.
🌻 Updated artwork for Woadwolf-type monsters.
🌻 Adjusted various sound effects to achieve a higher level of polish and quality.
🌻 Adjusted a small number of conversations throughout the first Act.
🌻 Added new, unique bound spells to staff type weapons.
🌻 Added elemental weaknesses to some enemies within the Verdant Temple.
🌻 Lowered the power of monsters outside the temple to create more gradual steps in difficulty.
🌻 Updated several cutscenes with better camera positioning and movement.
🌻 Disabled click-to-move functionality for the time being until better pathfinding can be implemented. All other functionality relating to interacting with the world with a mouse is the same as before.
(Note: We’ve decided to remove click-to-move for now because the game engine’s pathfinding is not up to par with where we’d like it to be. We have some thoughts on how to improve this, but for now, in response to player feedback, we’re going to remove this feature.)
🌻 Updated every area and cutscene with new techniques and code we’ve learned over the development process to make the game run better on lower-end systems (and just use less processing power in general).
🌻 Fixed a bug with the shadow overlay in the Lucanwood.
That’s more or less everything included in Patch 1.2! There are likely a few other small tweaks to various systems included here, but all of the major updates are described above 😊.
What’s Next?
Tread gracefully through the caverns feared as the Doom of Kazarakh, lest you find yourself toe-to-toe with the most insidious and dreaded creatures known to nature...Thornbats!
With the patch and Next Fest announcement out of the way, I wanted to take a moment to shed some light on our current development process and show off some cool new stuff we’ve been working on recently for Sunflowers and the Goddess of Death!
Before we get into the preview, I know it’s been quite some time since our last Dev Diary, and I do want to apologize for that. With such a small team, we are laser focused on making the best possible game we can, and marketing and outreach efforts like Dev Diaries have taken a back seat as of late. That being said, I do want to do more to keep our fans in the loop of what’s going on, particularly since we’re a new studio without a lot of clout to our name, so consider this the first of more effort to come on this front.
Now, enough about that, let’s get into the fun stuff 😊. First up is a preview of one of the classes we are making for Wedelia. The class system in SGoD is similar to other RPGs you’ve likely played in the past, and we’re not trying to create something wholly new with it. However, what we DO want to do is create classes that are unique from each other and result in a character being played significantly differently than if you ran them as another class. Personally, of the RPGs I’ve played over the years, the ones with the best class systems are the ones that always had the most replayability for me. A great class system in an RPG allows the player to approach items, battles, etc. considerably differently than if they were to run another class on the same character, adding a layer of strategy that is fun, challenging, and wholly optional for those who don’t want to dive that deep into the game mechanics (i.e. you could beat the entire game with just the base classes and never feel like you hamstrung yourself; every class is good in its own way). Enter, the Witch.
Witch is the first new class you’ll unlock in SGoD, and it is a high damage output class for Wedelia that contrasts with her more healing and crowd control focused initial class, Priestess. The Witch has powerful Void element offensive spells as her centerpiece, but being as it’s a class for Wedelia, there are supportive spells in the mix. However, they all come with risk for both the caster and the recipient… as the potent magic of the Void is never woven freely, demanding sacrifice from its practitioners.
Here is a small preview of some of the abilities we’ve built for the class already, and more are planned / in the works!
💀 Mire – Deals Void element damage to all enemies. Costs HP to cast.
💀 Cauldron Brew – Buffs Strength and Intellect for one ally, but also applies Infection (HP damage over time). Costs HP to cast.
💀 Bloodboil Brew – Buffs Agility (which increases how fast your turns come around) and significantly buffs Critical Hit chance for one ally, but applies Enervate (MP damage over time). Costs HP to cast.
💀 Siphon Life – Deals minor Void damage and drains HP equal to damage dealt. The only spell in the Witch’s arsenal that costs MP to utilize. Note that as a Witch, Wedelia’s MP pool is considerably less than in any of her other classes, so use of this spell is limited.
The concept behind this class is to create an offensive/support class for Wedelia that is powerful but risky to use. While her spells deal high damage and her buff abilities are some of the strongest in the game, she simultaneously weakens both herself and her allies with every cast; to play as a Witch is to dance on a knife’s edge, risking death in exchange for the power to overwhelm and utterly destroy one’s enemies.
Closing Notes
The last thing I wanted to talk about was just a quick progress report for how development is going in general. We are around 3/4ths of the way through development of Act II, which will more or less mark the halfway point of SGoD's development as a whole! Progress is going great overall and we are so excited to share more of what we’re creating, so check back in a little while for more details about the game.
Here's a little tidbit of info about a new area you'll explore early on in Act II:
The Lucanwood is a vast stretch of forest in eastern Pharsus, within which can be found Amuniai and the Verdant Temple. In addition, underneath a canopy of greens, reds, and blues, many small caves and rivers may be found. A great network of ruins, too, lies interspersed throughout the forest, reminders perhaps of more prosperous times. It is here, in this wood mysterious and magical, a lone woman has built her home; a woman who may be able to save Wedelia's life.
Thank you for your interest in Sunflowers and the Goddess of Death and we hope you’ll continue to follow along in our journey to create a truly memorable gaming experience for all of you.
May your travels be ever blessed with magic and wonder,
-C.W. Hendricks