Yep, a delay.

So, almost everything I promised for the demo is nearly finished, and then some. But what's the catch? Well, there are two main points I want to address.

Point A: I'm not working on Neon Rain full-time, and for the most part, I'm a one-man show. So when major bugs or issues arise, it sucks up every ounce of my little free time (I try to work on it at least 20 hours a week, but sometimes life happens). A major setback has put me behind by at least a month. However, I've managed to squash major performance pain points, so it hasn't been entirely fruitless, leading to Point B.

So, I want the demo to be better. It needs to be better because I want to open a Ko-fi page for people who want to directly support the development of the game. There are areas that I found lacking that I want to flesh out more, and I want to address the current pain points and suggestions from my volunteered playtesters. I could have easily just shipped this thing out after building the second boss and roughly playtesting it, calling it a day. But that isn't me, and it doesn't feel right to do so.

I don't want to end on a sour note, so I've compiled a list of what needs to be done to show that it won't be a long delay (I don't have a specific date in mind, but expect an announcement two weeks in advance):

• The first boss is 95% done. I'll get it finished this week. :)
• The second boss model is done; now I just need to do everything else.
• There will be an enemy encounter before the second (or first, because you can do this out of order) boss.
• A shader compiler: Among my close peers, it's understood that Godot shader compilation is painful and requires a lot of patience while playing through the stuttering(if you don't know what mean, think of a online game lagging) until it is done compiling. However, not everyone else knows this, and it's unfair to ask for that patience. The Godot team is working on an official solution, but it's only slated for Godot 4.4, and we're currently at 4.2.2... Yea nah I'll get on that sometime soon...
• The lacking areas in question would take a maximum of two weeks to flesh out (but life happens). I already have plans for them and props in mind. These lacking areas are essentially just empty spaces that I already have ideas for, so why not ship the demo with them?
• Sometimes enemy pathfinding (when they try to get to you or a target) is broken. Initially, I was going to patch it after the demo launch, but after working on bosses, I've found the root cause of these issues. It should take less than a week to fix. If not well, so be it until the next demo or a patch. It doesn't exactly ruin the experience in any major way and it only happen sometime but you know, if this fix work swiftly, we're all winners!
• A new monster to go alongside the orange trash gang, and maybe two if I can manage it. 

So, what did I learn? Well, not to announce any release dates until the content is ready, which is the approach I'll be taking for the next one. Thank you for your time and patience.

Gerp loves you.