Faustto

Statue WIP

So here is a first version of a statue, which will be very story related in the future updates. Just wanted to show something as there is not much going on in this tier!

Coming up

So, with version 0.4 out now, I want to talk about, what is to come next and discuss. The next update, 0.5, will probably be one of the updates closing 0.x development cycle, as it will introduce some the last fundamental features for the game. (Don't worry, after 0.x versions are over, we will begin the 1.X cycle, which will have a focus on content like story)

With this said, I want to talk about what is coming in the next update. Here is a little list with the most important things:

• Cutscenes and story improvements - this means, there will finally be some info about the world, when you begin a game
• Leveling reworks (Yet again) - as leveling up right now is quite awkward, a new system which will be story related will come in place
• Environment overhaul - currently the world is quite crappy to say the least, as such, there will be tons of changes coming to it
• New Structures - as they are mostly story dependant, I won't talk buch about them, but I will say, the world will now not be as barren as it currently is
• New Race (Orc) - it will come with all of the growth stages all the others have, as well as its own traits and skill

So here it is, a brief synopsys of what is to come. Sadly, as to when it will come, I cannot exactly say. As I am an university student and have exams coming, I won't be able to work on the game too much until the middle of February, but to compensate, Vlision will be making some art for you to enjoy, so if you want to see that, you can subscribe to the Art Explorer tier. If you want to get demos when they eventually come and see some WIP stuff for the game, as well as the art from Vlision, the Growth Connoisseur tier is for you! Sorry for the advertizement, but I want to clarify what the new tiers are about, as currently they are just there.

Thank you for the support and I hope you stick around for the future content!

Growing Explorations v0.4.1 - Bug fixes

So, as there were quite a bit of bugs with the new version, I went ahead and fixed them. Here is what has been fixed:

- Elf skill now rewards XP when killing enemies

- Dwarf skill movement

- Level up cards spam click crash

- Potions freezing movement

I also descided to make the old versions of the game available for patrons, so you will be able to see how the game is changing!

The game's link is the same as always:

https://faustto.itch.io/growing-explorations-early-access/patreon-access

The game link is fixed

I yet again had posted the wrong link to the game in the last post. It has now been fixed. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Growing Explorations v0.4

Hello everyone!

At long last, it is here! This is the anticipated update you have (probably) been waiting for.

You can look at older posts to see more in-depth explanations about why it took so long, but in short, both I and Vlision were busy with university.

Enough about that. This update has tons of new stuff, so here are a few of the new things that come with this version:

- Two bosses!

- Race skills

- LOTS and LOTS of new textures

- Status effects

- More story

- Bug fixes

- QoL Changes

These are just brief mentions of what has been changed. There is a lot more to explore!

As always, the game link is here:

https://faustto.itch.io/growing-explorations-early-access/patreon-access

Also, I want to talk about a few things. As of now, this Patreon has just one tier, but this will soon change. There will be 1-2 new tiers introduced - one being the art tier, the other having access to WIP stuff about the game and other artworks, while the current one will only receive game updates. Just wanted to mention it before making the change. I will probably make a proper post later on though.

With all that, we wish you happy holidays and a wonderful beginning to the New Year!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you are having great winter holidays!

This is just a little sequence Vlision made to celebrate Christmas!

Also, a heads up from me, the game dev, the game update is coming in a few days. It will be sort of a present for the New Year!

Transfer Sequence

Hello, everyone! It has yet again been a while!

I am yet again sorry about the drought of content, but I can assure you there are exciting stuff coming! The new update is in its final stage - fixing bugs and polishing the story. It will surely come before New Year so I hope you stay around until then!

Sorry for the delays!

Hello everyone!

I am sorry for not uploading anything for the past month. As some of you may know I am a university student and  for some reason, my professors decided to put all their tasks for november so I pretty much didn't have much time to make progress on the game. As of last week, my schedule has started to free up, so work on Growing Explorations has been going smoothly.

That said, I am hoping to finish this update by the end of the year. Most of the programming is done, only the renders from Vlision are in the waiting.

Yet again, I still have not found a pixel artist to work with me - there was one guy, with whom I talked, who said he would do it, but after we came to a final deal, he just blocked me before even getting paid :( So yet again, if any of you know, anyone who would be willing to do it, I will very much appreciate it.

Also, as this page in not only run by me, Faustto, but also Vlision, who is the creator of the amazing 3D renders for the game as well as the sequences here on patreon, the page is now renamed to FMG Cavern Studios. It is not the best name, but this is the best we could come up with. (If you get any better ideas, I would be glad to hear!)

Yet again, I am sorry for not giving you much for your membership and I appreciate each and every one of you who is still sticking around!

FMG Sequence 1 by Vlision

Hello everyone!

I know I haven't posted in quite a while, but there were a few factors as to why that was. As some of you may know I am an university student and as such the first few weeks after starting a new year are quite hectic. Adding to that I had to move so I didn't have time for anything.

So with that said, I am back and development of the game will now continue. For now, here is a little sequence from Vlision. We have been discussing making a monthly comic for you to enjoy. This will be of course an addition to the game. Worry not, the Growing Explorations is not going to be abandoned any time soon, so expect some new stuff to come.

I also want to mention a little problem that has arisen with the releases. There are always a couple of bugs I can't troubleshoot before updates, as such, I will be recruiting a couple of beta testers soon, to help with that. If you are interested, a survey will be made soon, so you will be able to participate.

Anyways, thank you all for sticking around, even through the drought of content! Your support is appreciated!

An animation by Vlision

So here is an animation, made by the other main developer of Growing Explorations, Vlision. There is also a growth sequence. The animation can be downloaded fron the files embeded on the post.

As the content on here has been quite lacking, I and Vlision, have been thinking of posting animations and renders on here, some of which (like this one), are unrelated to the game. Because of this, there will come a new tier soon for people who would also like to see them.

I would also like to mention, a new beta tester tier will soon come too. It will give access to betas, which may be unstable and have some bugs, for which I will appreciate the help to have fixed before releases, as they have always had their problems.

Another thing I would like to talk about is the pixel art issue. As some of you may know, most of the current art is repurposed sprites from the internet which are free of licenses. I have been searching of a way to get a person to redo all of the current as well as the future ones the game will need. The artists I have talked to have not agreed to do artwork for a game centered around muscular girls or have given such a high price, it would cost all the support, you, the patrons, have given to make a single sprite sheet. This has held the game back since release, so if any of you have an idea as to how to find an artist or know of one, I would really like for you to share it.

I am sorry for not being able to find a viable way to get artwork, but trust me, I have tried a lot of ways, sadly none of which worked.

All in all, thank you for reading through my rant about the pixel art issue and I hope you enjoy this animation, which Vlision made!

Bug fixes

There was a bug, which made the game crash when opening Elaria's shop, as well as her story line getting bugged when interacting with her. It has now been fixed. 

Sorry for taking this long to fix it!

Growing Explorations v0.3 PATREON

At last here it is! This update has been much larger than anticipated, mostly because of the artwork delays. Most of the new stuff revolves around systems, which the game will need for the future, as well as changes and improvements to old ones. That said, old saves won't work, as there has been too much new stuff added, so you will have to begin anew.

Here are the changes and the new stuff in this version:

• Quest System - the new quest menu, features displaying current quest, as well as all completed quests. There is also a tab which shows gameplay statistics, such as enemy kills and damage stats. Also, a pointer has been added for quest which require you to go somewhere, as a lot of people were confused as to where to find a certain NPC
• New Leveling System - previously when you leveled you were given the choice to choose one of the 5 stats to upgrade. This is now replaced with a choice of one of 3 random stats. Also, now you can store your levels and use the level up points later
• New Growth System - previously when you grew, you would just gain a point in all stats. Now you will be given the choice to enhance one of the 3 traits your character has. Because of that, all traits have received nerfs at lower levels, as to balance for the increases
• New enemy - the bat (first ranged enemy!)
• More story & new NPC - I won't spoil about this :)
• Two more levels of growth for each playable race
• Complete overhauls of some GUI elements
• TONS of QoL features & Improvements
• Balance changes
• Bug Fixes

I know it may not seem a lot on paper, but this update is incredibly big compared to the previous one. That said I hope you enjoy playing this new version and I hope you stick around for the future releases!

As always, the game is here:

https://faustto.itch.io/growing-explorations-early-access/patreon-access

A little delay

Hello there!

Last week, I said the update will come out around the end of this week, but sadly it will need to be delayed to next week, as the art is still not done, with some of the crucial artwork for the new character still in progress. If everything goes smoothly, a release on next friday, September 15th, will be possible. I am very sorry for this delay and I know, it has been quite barren on this page for some time, due to the gap between updates.

Vecsion 0.3 Coming soon

Hello everyone!

It has been a while, but I can confidently say that the new update is finally in its final phases. The biggest thing that is slowing progress right now is the art.

That said, this version has a lot more features than originally planned, thus it will be quite a large update.

The update will come out around the end of next week so stay tuned!

Coming in the next update

Hello, everyone!

Sorry for not posting stuff here for a while! I have been hard at work on the next update, thus the inconsistency. In this post, I want to talk about what will be included in the next update.

The focus of v. 0.3, will be system adjustments as well as preparations for future, harder to implement content. As such the update will not include a lot of new gameplay. Some of the stuff which will be included:

•  Two more growth stages for all current races
•  A side stoty, which will introduce a new NPC (no growth for them in this update though)
•  New enemy
•  Big changes to some of the existing systems, such as leveling

Also, I would like to announce, that soon, the name of the patreon page may change, but do not worry as it will be purely a technical change to accomodate the future content, posted here. As most of you may know, I have been working together with an artist named Vlision, who has been basically the second developer of the game. Because of this, we thought of posting some of his harder to do content, like animations and stuff, here. This will just be additional content for you guys to enjoy as the current content coming here has been quite lacking.

Anyway, thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next update!

Saving is fixed

The saving has been fixed, so you can now download the fixed version in itch.io

What do you want to see in the next update?

Hello there! I have fixed the issue with saving, so I will be updating the itch page tomorrow. Now, with the update finally out, it is time to think about, what will come next. Because of this, I am asking for your suggestions on things you want to see implemented. I would be very glad to see your comments on this topic.

Growing Explorations v0.2 PATREON

Well, here we are. This update has mostly been bug fixes as well as system changes. That said, there is some new story to enjoy as well as an FMG sequence.

I would like to point out, that due to some reasons, loading was broken, so I have disabled it for this version. I will be reworking the system and it should be fixed for the public release of this update. I am very sorry for this problem and I will work on fixing it ASAP. I think it should not be of too much concern as of now, as the story currently is very short and it can be played within 5 minutes. Also, I have added a debug setting for you, the patrons, to enjoy, so it should make saving not mandatory.

Huge thanks to Meredosia for donating music and sounds for the game. Also, another significant contributor is HMBurner, who made sprites for the player.

With that out of the way, here are the main changes in this update:

• Biome system - comes with 3 new biomes. Because of this, the world is now not infinite, but it will expand as more biomes are added.
• New NPC with her own growth sequence and a bit of story (to find her read the dialogue with the starter NPC carefully)
• New enemy - the Wold
• Trading system - you can now purchase items from the new NPC
• Improved spawn mechanics - it is now much more balanced and easy to find enemies
• Better UI elements
• Better growth sequences
• Holes have been swapped to lakes
• Human and Dwarf talents fixed
• Tons of QoL updates
• Patreon exclusive Debug menu, with some cheats for those who do not want to grind

The game is still in the same place for Patreon access: https://faustto.itch.io/growing-explorations-early-access/patreon-access

Anyways, enough of that. I hope you enjoy this version and I hope to hear your feedback!

Growing Explorations v0.2 coming soon

So, hello everyone! Thank you for supporting, even though there is not much content! Development of the game is going smoothly and you can expect a patreon release somewhere around the end of next week. I have been working on making patreon exclusive content in the game, so with this new version, you will have access to debug settings. Anyways, I am sorry for being inconsistent in posting on here, but I still hope you all will enjoy the next release!

The beginnings of biome generation

A little sneak peak of the next version. The last few days I have been implementing biome generation for the game, but I have come up to a problem. As you all probably know, the game's map is randomly generated each time you begin a new game. Because of this, if the biomes were to be distributed randomly, it would make the game quite RNG and the story will be hard to implement, as for example, if you get a quest to go to a certain biome, it may take ages to complete.

Thus I have thought of making biomes generate like concentric circles, each having harder enemies and missions. Do let me know if you have any other ideas as to how to implement this mechanic. 

But now it comes a time for you, the patrons, to change the game. I will implement 3 biomes, whether realistic or fantasy, depending on your comments on this post. So feel free to comment about that as well. 

As for a next release, I can't give much info about that, as there is still quite a few things for me to do before that.

Growing Explorations v0.1 RELEASE

So here we are. The game is finally out. Thank you all for pledging, even before the game has been released!

A few things to say about the game. There currently are 3 playable races, each having 2 growth sequences. There is also only one NPC and one type of enemy in this initial release, but more will be coming with each update.

The game, as I have mentioned previously is going to be here for Patreon access:

https://faustto.itch.io/growing-explorations-early-access/patreon-access

This initial release will not be delayed for the public, but from the next release, I will post updates here a week or so before I do so publicly.

I hope you enjoy the game!

Releasing first version tomorrow!

Well, the time is almost here! Tomorrow is the release date for Growing Explorations. I hope you will like it!

A little update

The game's development is going smoothly and I am almost done with the first official version. This will probably happen by the 10th of this month. Because of this, I have prepared for the release by making an itch.io page for the game. Itch has Patreon access feature, which binds a key to your account and thus gives you the ability to download the game. This is mainly to prevent sites like kemono.party from spreading the Patreon builds for free.

And so, here is the link:

https://faustto.itch.io/growing-explorations-early-access/patreon-access

There is no downloadable file now, so this is only just for preparation purposes.

Growing Explorations ALPHA 0.1

So, here we are. This is the first ever release of the game. This is not the finished first version, so expect it to have a few problems.

I hope you enjoy what you are seeing and soon, the first official version will be here.

We are on Patreon

So with this first post, I want to introduce the content I will be uploading here. As some of you may know, I have been creating my first FMG game on deviantArt. From now on, the main place I will be updating frequently, will be on this page.

As you may also know, I am currently developing my second game, which should soon be released publicly. Here on Patreon, you will receive constant updates, polls and even additional content, which will give you more stuff to explore in the upcoming game 'Growing Explorations'.

This will be a game all about exploring and fighting enemies. As you do so, your character will grow more muscular over time, becoming bigger and bigger as the game progresses.

That about rounds up what I wanted to mention for now. I know there isn't much content on here for the time being, but stay tuned as I will be posting the first ALPHA quite soon.