Poll: Which Asset Pack next?

Hello! This morning I am asking for your insight into our next project.

(I have a little explanation that leads into the poll. If you're not interested in my reasoning behind the process here, then feel free to skip to the "patron poll" part)

Where are we right now:

I had an idea for a perfect little Christmas bonus release: complete the TF overworld series: finish up the last missing biomes in a week and get it all compiled as a little freebie for patrons. It would be a little project to do on the Christmas break and then get back to the Elements plan.

Then I figured: might as well use this chance to get it all working with the ultimate overworld tiles that I started a while ago.

"This will be easy. I already made most of the tiles; I can just spent a couple days re-arranging them on sheets." 😘

But then I sat down to do it, and I found myself staring at an absolutely huge amount of complex tilesets that I'd have to pull together onto limited tileset sheets.

It's no secret that I've spent multiple weeks fighting with RPG Maker's autotile system, and really struggling to find the perfect way to combine and organize the Time Fantasy terrains and cliffs. I'm not just blaming RPG Maker here-- certainly I made it worse for myself by trying to force it to do things it wasn't designed to do.

A few recent patreon releases have been born of this work, and I do think that the pixel art is some of my best-- but it has become clear that this will not be a simple mini release.

Ultimately I think that I was trying way too hard to make it "perfect/ultimate" and this sort of obsession ended up making it an unmanageably-ambitious idea.

Plus, now I want to make this ultra Time Fantasy tileset remaster. Originally I wanted to stay away from that and just focus on the new style...

Which leads us here:

• the Time Fantasy Ultimate World Map will be a large-scale project throughout this year. It'll be a full sized asset pack (instead of my little bonus pack idea)

• Since the original idea was just "fill out the world to match every biome", I'll release these add-ons here as I make them; and I'll check the patron request thread to prioritize what you need first-- hopefully you can help me find everything that we need to fill out the whole world.

This does significantly change the plan though...

My original plan was for the Elements Castle and Catacombs beta to have been finished by now. Clearly didn't happen.

Here's some options of what we can do. Since I feel good about all of these; I figured that this is a good place to get feedback from patrons.

Note:

I want to help ongoing projects cross the finish line.

This is why I've been so obsessed with the ultimate final time fantasy idea lately, even though good business sense would have me trying to go wide for new customers instead.

I've been making Time Fantasy for a decade now and I know a lot of projects that have been going on for a long time (rpg dev is a marathon, not a sprint!)-- it's my responsibility to see this collection to the end.

But maybe these projects have what they need? It's very likely that I am overthinking this.

I'd appreciate your thoughts on this subject if it's relevant to your project-- and especially if it's not!

PATRON POLL

Which of these would be the most useful now for projects you are currently working on? Which would be the kind of thing you are more likely to search for in an asset store?

Which release should be the first of 2025?

OPTION 1: Elements Castle and Catacombs Tileset

Priority remains with the original focus on elements: new tilesets, then more character. The TF+TE world map will be finished throughout the year as a side project that draws from patron requests. Other TF tileset remaster will be ignored for now.

OPTION 2: Time Fantasy+Elements World Map

Prioritize a quick finish to the world map set just to finish up the biome additions, and then move onto the original Elements (tileset then characters) plan.

OPTION 3: Elements Character Parts (*)

Prioritize the expansion pack for more Elements action character pieces. A month or two jamming elements pieces before shifting focus to a larger tileset plan for the spring/summer.

* this option would suggest restructuring the future of the asset series.

And the more I think about it, the more I dig it...

Elements future expansions would be purely for the characters (and compatible monsters and such)-- and two existing elements tile packs would be a considered a complete base for the style.

And instead; remaster, re-organize, and combine all of this TF and TE stuff into a master collection.

The Castle and Catacombs Elements set would be cancelled, the content of which would be replaced by remastered castle and dungeon stuff from various TF tilesets and patron releases.

I'd rework a lot of the older TF tiles to the modern tileset style I use that's somewhat of a bridge between TF and TE, and solidify this into a single TF+TE complete tileset. The world map set would be the first part of this. It will include both color variants.

This would be consistent with most of my releases since the TF stuff was "finished" with the Final Tower pack-- and many patron releases too.

Let me know what you think, comments to explain what you need for your projects are helpful to me too in addition to your poll vote.

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I'll be back later this week with something fresh for you. Since today's post doesn't have any new assets; I'll find some time to make an extra bonus release later in week too.

Thanks for everything!