Hello!
I have a complicated update to post, and I'm going to leave out any sort of sentimentality and just keep it as to-the-point as possible.
About a year after the initial release of this game, I was wrapping up what I was calling The Wildlife Update. This update included big developments like a complete redesign of the overworld, pets, leather and wood-based armour and wand crafting, and a rebalance the wildlife of the world, roughly doubling the amount of animal types.
I then was very suddenly affected by a medical crisis that lasted around 9 months. Blah blah excuses excuses I lost the code and the backup of the code.
That being said, that's the third time the entirety of the code had been destroyed. The project folder is literally called 'Project Phoenix'. Once I had my wits back about me, the first thing I did was back up the currently-released early access and re-collect the graphical assets for the new wildlife. The medical crisis completely depleted my energy and resources. Solo'ing the development of an open-world turn-based RPG seemed to be an ultra-dumb first step to recovery. So the drive went into stasis.
When I revisited the project, I dreaded walking the overworld, sans a year of changes. Key characters would be missing, glaring bugs long resolved would once again come to light. But, to my delight, when I opened the game and started playing it, it was just a ton of fun. There's so much potential in this prototype. So much of the hard work is already done.
So, I'm posting for a couple of reasons. First, I apologize to those who got so stoked on that initial release. The early access is over half a decade old at this point now(!). You absolutely deserve more of this game, not just from an economic standpoint, but from an industry standpoint. The scope of this framework should be the baseline, not the exception. Teams should be driving innovation in this field, not dickhead solo artists working in their free time after work. You deserve better, but as of now, this is what we get.
Second, I am working on pitching this, and 3 other games, to a proper indie publishing company. I've gone back and forth regarding whether this project is worth re-visiting, and at the end of the day, for me? as a player of games? Yeah, it's worth it, There's already so many classic moments in the game. So It's going in the package. The odds of a company putting their weight behind a game with open-source graphical assets is low, but it's for them to decide.
If the game does not get picked up, I am going to begin development on this game again in my free time, but at a way reduced pace. I'm not going to make the mistake of trying to get an entire pass of the overworld done between updates again, so it'll be smaller, consistent updates. I'd like to get pets back in ASAP, since right now the hardest fight in the game is the first port battle, and having an extra buddy for the enemy to target totally resolves the issue.
I intended to keep this brief, but it's not. Whatever. That's the news. Hope you are all doing well! Take care of yourselves, thanks for the support, and you can look forward to more news regarding the means by which I'm going to be moving forward with development in the coming months.
ORCA