Greetings and salutations! It has been a little while since our last devlog, but we are back! We have a lot to unpack so let's get to it!

My name is Alice, and I am the community manager here at BrightLink. In todays devlog, I'll be talking about what our team here at BrightLink has been up to for the past month and a half. But in short: a lot about our game has changed. More documments have been created, our first public playtest, and much more. I am very excited to share more insight into what has been going on here at the studio, so let's not hesitate a moment longer!

The process so far:

Our team has been hard at work in refining and creating the idea for a cool game, that you and your friends could play together. So it might not be too surprising that we decided to change the setting of the game. Yes, you will no longer be a group of witches and mages, but dwarves instead. Hopefully its not too shocking, but this change in direction has allowed us to come up with more creative challenges for the players to overcome, as well as more fun game mechanics for you to play with. At the same time, we have also finally come up with a name for the game thats isn't a mouthful, and describes the game really well.

4 THE FORGE

Sounds awesome right? There were a lot of name suggestions and plenty of going back and forth, but after a few rounds of voting and brainstomring, we finally settled on a name. But a new name and setting for the game is not the only things we have been up to. We have been hard at work creating more design documments to allow our team to work harmoniously when making things such as assets, textures, etc. Here are some of the images from our artbible.

In addition to the visual references from our artbible, we also have a lot of new concept art for our new setting, as well as for some of the playable characters we wish to make for the game. All of these wonderfully handcrafted images were made by our lead artist and concept designer, Ito.

In addition to having made brand new concept art, as well as redefining the design of the game, we finally landed on the logo we want to use for BrightLink. It has a very sleek and modern design, and has allowed for a fun introductory animation. It has taken a while and a lot of revisions, but it is finally in the right place.

On top of all of this other work, the cream to top the cake, is our functional prototype. We have been hard at work to rework the code from our previous title, implement new mechanics, and adding more additional features. We then had our first public playtest, which was both successful, as well as extremely informative. The functional prototype will be available to be played on our project page, where you and your friends can already test our game. Its still in its very early stages, but this should still allow you to see what we have been up to, and come with feedback as well in the comment section in the project page. I and the team are already looking forward to the feedback and to hear what you think of the project. 

Functional prototype/Project page:
https://brightlink-studio.itch.io/4-the-forge

What's next?

In the coming weeks before christmas, there will be a lot of work done to reiterate and improve the existing prototype, with the feedback that we have been given by the players and testers. We are also looking to make the prototype more visually correct, in the sense that we have more of the games assests in place, as well as an improved UI, and more clarity in what the players are supposed to do.

To round off, its good to be back to writing devlogs once again, and we are already looking forward to share more about the project in the coming weeks, and look at the feedback and suggestions you have for our game.

Till next time!