Howdy!
Here's an update on how things have been going:
Tutorials
The core systems for the Tutorial have been implemented, as well as the very initial tutorials themselves. At this point, all that needs to be added here is the "content" - all of the text, the special tutorial rules, the tutorial stages themselves, etc.
This is in a "chip away at it over time" state, since actually solely working on tutorials is painfully mind-numbing.
There's rough plans for a "see tutorials you've already viewed" system, though that might not make the cut for the demo.
Animations
After a lot of experimenting, I've finally found a reasonable and cost-efficient way to get animations made quickly and in large quantities.
Basically, I'm taking the pixelart animations made by Frostwindz and (with permission from the original creator) tracing them into a hand-drawn style to match the games aesthetic. This obviously won't be perfect, but it lets my minimal art skill contribute.
Progression
I've been travelling a lot recently, which kinda prohibited me from doing much proper code work. Instead, I've been able to get a lot of design work done. Character customization, levelling, and general game structure are approaching a "final" form for both the full game and the demo. Mostly numbers to tweak on that stuff now.
I've also been reworking most of the player unit kits and equippable Sparks (classes) to feel a bit beefier to use. I'll hopefully spotlight these, alongside the combat system at large, in the next post.
Over the next week or so, I'm going to be working on finalizing the Map (level select) screen, and fully implementing saving. Pretty confident at this point the demo won't be coming until September, but also pretty confident it won't be later. I'm sure I'll eat those words.
In the meantime, here's a little art teaser: