Hello again, I've had more than a bit of a setback—I caught COVID on the 26th of August, so progress has been extremely slow, but enough has been done to warrant writing a blog post about it. I also have a business trip next week, so needless to say, the demo will now be an autumn affair (summer ends on the 22nd of September).

Anyway, you guys aren't here for my life story, so here is the progress that’s been made:

• The level reworks are completed; they just need a bit of decoration and some texture adjustments. I want to make one more statue and a mining machine, which should take a week or less to do.
• The item rooms now have a unique theme!
• I’m working on the final monster for the demo. I decided there will just be one extra monster instead of two because the other monster I had in mind would’ve required unique movement code, and, well, you guys have waited long enough. It didn’t feel like a significant enough addition to warrant further delaying the demo (I’ll patch it in later; I'll elaborate on my update plans below). I'd say this monster will be implemented in the game by next Monday or Tuesday.
• I’ve added further optimizations to my code because any effort to improve performance is worthwhile.
• The biggest piece left is actually having an ending to the demo and a credits section. If it wasn't for COVID and my real job, I could've easily finished the demo this month, but that's life.

As I mentioned, I already have update plans for the demo. One (or more) update will address player feedback and bug fixes, and there will be a 1.5 update that will include features that will serve as the basis for the second demo. These are:

• Actual headshot explosions. Yes, there's a headshot damage multiplier, but it's like Doom 3 right now in the sense that you wouldn't know unless you noticed the damage difference. Making heads pop will remedy that.
• Using Godot decals for blood effects. Godot 3 didn’t have decals, so I used a simple plane for blood, but now there’s an actual decal system in Godot 4 that I’ve never touched, so, yeah, I should get on that.
• A dialogue system.
• Lore terminals.
• A short intro cutscene.
• Will be on steam.

And that’s that. We're almost there, and trust me, I am more annoyed by this slow burn than anyone else who’s been disappointed. 

Anyway, that will be all. Cheers!