January Progress Report (Winter Wrap-Up)

It's been an exhausting yet exhilerating few weeks into the year already. Making killer progress with the game's menus and managing data behind the scenes as well as making a whole bunch of pixel art graphics to dazzle you all with once the next demo comes out.

There's been countless discussions about how the game's mechanics work over lunch, weekends have basically become weekly game jams, we've got a discord going with daily progress screenshots & GIFs, the game's design document has never been fuller, there tons of communication going on about the intention behind every idea and design decision. IT's just felt like we've been on fire since crossing the line into this new decade and we're really going for it.

Here's a sample of what I'm talking about when it comes to design notes:

And if you're following us on Twitter you've probably seen a few #screenshotsaturdays of sprites being drawn up. Trying out apps like Sketchbook, Krita, and Pixel Studio to find ways to draw on the go and also do some minor digital doodles without having to buy a drawing tablet by just using my phone and a stylus. Getting used to it still,  but its handy.

Adding in neat touches here and there to make the interface look super-fresh and I think it's already a dramatic improvement over what was done in the last release. Things I noticed Let's Players struggle with are being updated for clarity and the game's new mechanics are shaping the layouts of menus for the better.

Been making templates for animating people and ponies in the overworld, seeing how far I can push these 22x24 pixel graphics to get the expressive characters I want players to fall in love with. A little something unique to each one so it's not just [insert generic rpg monster/npc here] following you around and spouting speech bubbles at you like some kind of cyber-puppet. They all need to feel alive.

We're in for a big crunch the next couple days, calling it the Polish Weekend where we sit down together in person and touch up every last detail in every menu to get it to a state where it's prototype release complete. Not coming back to edit these pieces of the game til way down the line, so they gotta get wrapped up here and now.

All this is being done so that next week we can get the overworld's basic mechanics up to snuff before diving into Battle Weekend where we get started on implementing the combat system that's down on paper, and making sure its much more stable than what was released in the 2017 build.

Thanks again to everyone who's been patient with this whole thing. I'm sure everyone knows by now that game development is crazy hard, but its the crazy passion from me radiating out and bouncing back twofold from you guys that keeps this from falling and evaporating into development hell. Things are moving forward and I'm sure you'll get that Patreon Exclusive first-look by the time this winter wraps up.