Backstage, where the performers prepare and stave off the December cold...
Hard to believe it's been a year and a half since I started working on VERISMO.
I thought I’d be much further along in development by now, but the extra time has given me a lot of inspiration to polish everything I’m working on. It will be worth the wait.
Some interesting stats...
This year I started tracking my hours more diligently, and I did over 400 hours of work on VERISMO. That includes art, programming, writing, music, the whole shebang. Also:
17 fully animated character sprites
Over 100 unique animations
Finished most of the additional demo maps, 13 new ones + all night scenes
Hired musicians to recreate classical and 1910s-20s melodies as MIDI files for my remixing pleasure
Wrote a couple original tracks too
Wrote a lot of the final script + many optional interactions
Lots of stressful coding to get the world interactable, collisions, all that jazz
Implemented a custom, simple UI
Fixed bugs and QOL mentioned in the current demo, to be updated soon!
Goals for January:
Sometime next month I'd like to make minor updates to the current demo. Nothing major, just some bug fixes, music additions, and possibly the new intro.
Final Demo Goals:
I’m hoping to finish it by early summer. Could be sooner, could be later, I’m realizing it’s impossible for me to say when because everything is in active development. Once I settle on design choices and some programming things, development should go much smoother.
The town square of Lacrime.
Where to follow for more frequent updates:
I have a Youtube channel where I was posting weekly development shorts. I'm taking a break for a month or so, but definitely follow me there to see more behind the scenes and progress.
With that said, have a lovely rest of the year, and I can't wait to share more of this story with you in 2026!