This is the condensed, filtered, and a little professional version of this months work.
If you want the raw notes. They will be on Discord, where I can Gremlin in my natural habitat.
Development Update: January Progress Summary
(Jan 3 – Feb 3)
This update covers development progress across Ashes of Arcanum (AoA) and Daemon Protocol(DP) throughout January.
Work this month focused heavily on tooling, system refactors, and a major redesign of Daemon Protocol’s scope and foundations.
Week 1 (Jan 3 – Jan 10): GM Tooling Foundation
Work began with a major push on AoA’s Game Master tooling:
Core GM UI systems implemented
NPC Generator UI complete
Loot Generator UI complete
Hostile Generator UI complete
Music, Sound, and Ambiance Player UIs complete
Battle Creator and Map Setup UIs complete
All note-creation tools completed
UI fully wired into backend code (main menu excluded)
This week established the majority of the GM-facing interface layer. With the UI foundation in place, remaining work shifts toward deeper system logic and feature implementation.
Week 2 (Jan 11 – Jan 17): Systems Refactor & Combat Balance
This week focused on experimentation, iteration, and stress testing core systems.
Several approaches to data handling and synchronization were explored and ultimately scrapped after identifying long-term maintenance issues. The system was rebuilt with tokens as the single source of truth, requiring a full teardown and rewrite of related networking code.
Combat and balance testing on January 17 included:
Extensive stress testing of all combat interactions
Adjusted starting armor and protection values
Reworked hit bonus calculations based on weapon type and size
Increased starting HP from 50 to 60
While iteration-heavy, this week helped clarify long-term architectural decisions and avoided future technical debt.
Week 3 (Jan 18 – Jan 24): Content Expansion & Daemon Protocol Reboot
Major content and scope changes occurred this week:
Over 2,000 names generated for NPC and character creation across all current species
A renewed focus on Daemon Protocol following community interest
Daemon Protocol is now being rebuilt from the ground up, shifting from a lightweight minigame into a more robust Discord-based MMO experience, within platform and API constraints.
New foundations include:
Full databases and persistent save systems
Expanded loot and progression systems
More robust class design
Improved Discord interaction handling
AoA development remains ongoing, but this shift provided a productive change of focus while maintaining momentum.
Week 4 (Jan 25 – Feb 3): Daemon Protocol Systems Maturity
By the end of the month, Daemon Protocol reached a near-complete foundational state.
Completed or in progress:
Core systems fully rebuilt
Combat logic and creature implementation remaining
Creatures redesigned to serve gameplay roles beyond HP scaling
Transition from “minigame” structure to a fully realized game loop
Additional changes:
Removed redundant classes (Reclaimer, Hexer) after evaluating system needs
Implemented Equilibrium mechanics
Buffed Sentinel to function as a full-spectrum tank
Began work on bounty boards
Introduced a new town resource system (“Echoes”) replacing mana
Early work on social systems, including online/offline presence tracking
Focus is now shifting toward strengthening social gameplay and long-term engagement mechanics before finalizing combat systems.
In the final days of January, several larger structural decisions were made for Daemon Protocol:
Overall scope was expanded again to better support long-term play
Class importance was reduced in favor of additional systemic layers
Progression was reworked from a 20-level format to a 100-level, tiered system
Experience curves were rebuilt to support the new structure
Channel capacity was increased to account for tier scaling
Daemon Protocol is now much closer to a hybrid between a traditional RPG and an MMO-style system, while still retaining the core structure and lore of Ashes of Arcanum.
Additionally, work began on long-term future-proofing. Core systems are being designed so they can be transitioned out of Discord and into a standalone game environment if needed, ensuring the project remains viable regardless of platform changes.
These changes add development time, but significantly strengthen the foundation.
That's all for now :D see you next month~