SCREENSHOT (Updated Jan 15th 2026):  Nirriti and Gwen seen in Midvale (the first town the pair will visit). 

HELLO EVERYONE! 
I havent kept you updated since last time, 9 months ago. But Ive made great strides on my game. Making the process much more efficient and far less destructive. However, it took me a long time to GET THERE. The thing that ate up most of my time so far, was constantly correcting my game after Ive made edits to character sheets, tileset sheets, sound effects, BGM, and more. This also includes file placements, orders, their names, folder locations, etc. 

At first, I took things for good and went straight ahead with stuff I bought and found, early in DEC 2024 (?) But as I kept making things more "mine", to aim at doing better with less, I kept breaking things too, in-engine. This forced me, each time, to come back and manually fix parts Very tedious, especially for complex event sequences with various commands and SFXs/sprites. Just due to my tilesets alone, Ive done 5 maps at least 3~4x each (hours each). Quick tangent, its much way more tedious to correct a map than make a new one... But its hard to let go on what good you've made... Ive kept some WIPs screenshots for many. This way, once the time comes during a kickstarter, Ill be able to show you the diff. 

Ive heard in the past that limits are important in the creation space sometimes. Younger, I thought it was absurd. But its 100% true. If the engine's tile sheets had no limit in tiles and sizes, id have finished my game much sooner, but the sheet would have been a mess... Not only that, id have far worse elements to play with. Limits forced me to innovate and do BETTER WITH LESS (something people recognize in the video game industry since a good decade). The time I spent on rebuilding foundations was GOOD. I do not regret it. It hurts to have a lot destroyed behind you (precious time wasted away). 


WHAT IVE BEEN UP TOO?

• For a few days, I went back at all my sources of BGM/BGS (background sounds)/ME (musical effects)/SFX, to do yet another triage. Renaming folders, the files, downloading more off various places (some paid). When you get, lets say 100 more, in one night, its a lot to sort through. You gotta make a lot of sound tests. Then for future crediting sake, I implants the credits INSIDE the audio files themselves. This makes it so I dont need to save useless files to note names on. Alright. Most come as .WAV or .MP3. So you gotta convert them all to .OGG for RPGM MZ, by bunch of 3 (via a site) or more (via Audacity). But then, now you have the old stuff and the new. So you soundtest again and again, then you rename accordingly so its bunched up together when auto-sorted. 

• I think Ive told you all last time Ive made all characters from scratch. Ive made way more since (lol), including new story characters. Initially I only wanted 4 playable characters, but there might be 5~6 total <!> The way I re-structured the sheets of main characters since a few months: Each spread separately. This gives me a lot of leeway for expressive sprites. Youll love the facial expressions my self-insert character makes in-game. ;) As for MONSTER map-sprites, I redid mermaids over recently. They are GORGEOUS! You'll see some of them early inside the first dungeon. <3 But for the rest of monsters, I didnt tackle any. Many are already good, and just need recoloring/reordering. 
• For battle sprites, I still only have my own self-battle sheet. Ive done 1 sprite of 2 more characters, but its not hard to do! Ill just template theirs off my own self-made one. As for monsters, Ive amassed a lot of nice ones, and edited a few too! Once I have a DEMO ready, if the Kickstarter  reaches a decent minimal, Ill try my hand at making a LOT of enemy sprites. Thats probably the only thing I havent touched yet. But Ive done some sprite commissions here and there and made a LOT out of nothing as well. 
• For tilesets, Ive made my own "Master Sheets" for various elements, with lots of color variance each. That was a lot of work, and really painful. Imagine you work on a bunch of statues, pillars, tombstones. You put them all together in a clump (of a color palette). Then you copy it 14 times for more color versions. Here's the thing, thats BAD. 1: Because each time I issued fixes or made my own statue and updated it, it meant I had to copy it, then recolor it 14x, back to back. I said 14? It ended up being 28 for THAT one tile sheet. What I want to express here, is that I wasted a lot of time from a lack of experience. Also: Its a little bit of a waste... I didnt need to over-do countless palettes besides a few basic ones. After all, what if the dungeons I made all used diff palettes and tones? Well its alright. It still was a good exercise. But thats ONE sheet... theres like 17 of them... But wait, thats just for Tl_B and Tl_C. I didnt even tell you about Tileset A1/2/3/4/5... (thats Water/Animations, Carpets and Tables, Roofs and walls, Walls and ceillings and finally floors). So you can get a grasp of the SCALE at which I was building from the ground up (off materials I bought AND made).

CONCRETE, FAST & FUN
In a way thats more concrete, fun and tangible for all of you: Im going MUCH faster, and BETTER. One reason being, that Ive less fear of future destructions. Every "generation" of tilesheet redoing I went through, it solidified what I had, what I needed and what I was SURE to keep and make. Fears that are behind me, where I dont need to think 26 steps ahead all the time anymore. Here's some stuff you can look up to (keeping it vague): Side-view "nostalgic" 2D areas and dungeons, lots of secrets, 1UPs, PureHearts, carnivorous plants, special key items with side quests, w. pipes, special currency (Monstro Coins), lots of funny scenes and memorable encounters. :) Some of them Ive been playtesting over and over as I liked them so much (lol). Did I mention there will be [Meal] type of items? Youll see a few cooking/takeout shops too! Countless battle items, equipment with a lot of flavour and love put into each of them... Ive got a lot planned, and I think most that are into the genre will appreciate all the soul Ive been putting in it. While I might have wrote too much, I promised for some fans I'd write this huge update you're currently reading. Thank you for following me here, first and foremost! The next time youll hear from me, God willing, should be for a Kickstarter and a potential DEMO release (if it all goes right). 

WHY A KICKSTARTER?
Reason is simple: Because Ill run out of savings in mere months. Commissions have dried up progressively since. These + Substar memberships are all that I have to sustain me. Ive cut all my expenses to the bare minimum possible. Still, Im putting all my awake time on it. ALL OF IT. I wish I could take days off like everyone. But I cant—NOT YET at least! Hey, if the Kickstarter ends up alright, maybe I could rest my wings a little. Creating is what I love doing the most. ...and I hope I could keep the dream going with this game Ive been working on. ...and YOU readers, are part of it. So thank you. <3

N.B.: For those not in the know, as reference: This game is made in the style of FF1~3 but with the battle system of FF4 (time gauge based off character speed & counter attacks potentially involved!) I did end up breaking Famicom color restrictions, but I think its for the better. Game is intended for a general audience. That is to say, safe-for-work!