Hey all! It's been a little while since our last big progress report, so I think now is a good time to share where we're at and what our priorities are for the next stage of development.
To start with, here's a quick recap of what we've been up to since our last progress update:
All main UI pieces (menus, windows, etc.) for the battle scene have had their layout updated and all but the Glossary are completely functional
Our eight beta classes have all their basic (non unique/skill) attack animations either completed or drafted and displaying in game
Additional revealed classes have class icons and base sprites either completed or drafted, but not attack animations
We've made some more battle maps, one of which we're showing off soon in another update after revealing it three weeks ago
There's probably more, but those are the main things we've done recently. There's a few things that I've left out, and that's because I want to go into a bit more detail now.
First off, status icons. We've shown off our status icons in a lot of weekly updates in the past. They are something that is usually pretty easy to get footage/screenshots of and talk about when compared to things like game systems, which is where a lot of our time goes. That said, some of the icons, especially the recently shown off Berserker icons for Shredded and Savagery, aren't quite up to standard.
Our overall lukewarm opinion of those icons led us to discuss and review all our icons and the artstyle we're using for them. As a result, we identified a number of weaknesses and possible improvements that could be made, and marked a not insignificant number of both old and new status icons for improvements. Our goal is to maintain the current artstyle while loosening up a bit on certain restrictions and improving overall quality. Once we're happy with the results, we'll share some before and after comparisons.
This task should be relatively easy and not eat up too much development time in other areas, as it's something that can be done on its own at any time. I'll be working on it inbetween other major tasks.
One of those major tasks is expanding our VFX systems. So far, all our visual effects have been made by hand using Unity's VFX Graph, but we've had to accept that we don't really have the skill and manpower to keep that up right now. As such, we're currently in the process of transitioning to pre-made visual effects, which we've acquired in great quantity and quality. The plan for now is to use these new effects where appropriate, and modify or create custom VFX for more specific skills.
Whether we stick with the pre-made effects or eventually replace them all with custom effects isn't something we can decide right now. Once we have them working as intended in the battle scene, I'll share new gameplay videos with the new effects (and likely some other additional things we've done that haven't been seen since our last video). This is a task we've already started working on and are prioritizing right now.
Finally, we have to address the lack of both UI and character art assets. As mentioned in the last update about the Glossary, we're currently too reliant on the few UI assets we have, and are looking into additional assets. I'd put this at medium priority right now; we definitely need to expand our options before progressing too much further. This task will require a lot of iteration though, so it might be a while before we have anything definitive to share.
As for character art, I can't really say much more than 'we're working on it'. Our team lacks any professionally trained artists, and while we have been able to produce some character art in the past, we're painfully aware that the quality is lacking. On top of everything we're already doing, we're also training some members of our team in character art and are trying to reach a certain level of quality as quickly as possible. I'd love to say that we'll have something ready soon, but for now we'll have to wait and see.
That's all I've got to share today. I want to genuinely thank everyone who's still with us throughout development. We're a small team working on this game as best we can in our spare time, and while I know development is painfully slow at times, I'm extremely grateful for your support. We'll keep doing our best to bring updates to you all, so thanks for tuning in!