Patreon March 2021 Roundup

Hi everyone! A quick review of the goals/plans I laid on the Roadmap earlier this month.

1. I bungled the release quite a bit, but the Patreon Demo was uploaded on March 29th! It now correctly directs you to the new scene, and has a functional save feature. Thanks for your patience with me, everyone. I'll try to make sure this doesn't become a repeat occurrence. 😄 If you missed it, you can find the link on this post.

2. Devlogs + Sneak Peek - We managed to stick to our goal of having a devlog/progress report every Saturday! There were also 3 sneak peeks peppered throughout the month, one of which is of content not yet implemented in the Patreon demo.

3. Arcanists - the Game Guide's first incarnation was also posted earlier this month. It details all the major combat checks coded into the game thus far, along with the prestige gains you can glean from each one. If you missed it, you can find it on this post!

4. Artwork we successfully commissioned this month were of M!Eli and Leon. The half-body shots have been made publicly accessible both on tumblr and on COG, while the full-body shots are also made available to Arcanists. Ilya is coming sometime this weekend, and a new Portrait Poll will go up at the turn of the month to determine the next 3 characters we commission portraits for.

5. Earlier this month, I promised a feature called Cast Reacts to Thirst Tweets if we reach the $250 goal, which we did! Just a slight modification to this feature, which will be implemented this coming April: the tweets will not be limited to thirsty ones, but can also be general appreciation/hate/questions etc.! I'm in the process of finding an artist willing to take the project on, and I'll keep you guys posted once I find one :)

6. Last but not least is the side story for March 31st. As per pretty much universally requested on the Short Story Request form, we'll be taking a look at some of the cast's perspective after the BBQ. This side story in particular will follow Saine as he visits Aunt Bess in Leaf End, tentatively titled 'Errand Boy'. I've made significant progress on it, but dancing around the mage's pronouns and name and personality is proving to be a real hassle...so I'm turning it into a microgame, letting players input their MCs into the side story!

Here's a couple of screenshots from the character customization screens:

Needless to say, the additional coding/writing variations needed will push up the time required to write the story by a fair amount! It probably will go up in the first half of April instead of the promised End-of-March; my apologies.

If you are a Retainer+ patron who wishes to rescind or downgrade their patronage in April, please message me via Patreon's messenger feature so I can deliver the short story's link to you via email/tumblr/discord once it gets completed!

I'm also currently working with StarlitOpal/jazz, author of the brilliant leon is sad fanfic, to turn it into a microgame as well :) That one is almost entirely her work (I'm only coding it into choicescript and adding character customization screens), and will be made publicly available upon completion.

7. Lastly, I'm also in the process of making an beta tester recruitment post (because as the last demo upload demonstrates, I can no longer afford to be without one, aha). As promised, March 2021 patrons will have first dibs at the status. Beta testers will get access to the (rough version of) the Patreon Demo 3-5 days before it goes up. Conduct I expect from beta testers in return will be outlined in the recruitment post, which should go up sometime in the next 6 hours.

I'm open to any questions or reminders if there's anything I missed. As always, thank you for following the development of A Mage Reborn!