Posted November 28, 2025 by bitshiftgames
Welcome back everyone! If you're in the US, hope you had a good thanksgiving. As always, main news up front, spoilers further down.
Time for another update. The very first news update for Chapter 3 (though not the start of work on it), was roughly a year ago. At the time, I had hoped to be finished by now, which is definitely not the case. But quite a lot has been completed. In my last update in August, I said I was about halfway done with the "mapping" process. I've made considerable progress since, but I'll let you judge for yourselves. For Chapter 3 so far I've completed:
-3 major maps
-15 minor ones
Not just the maps themselves and their lighting, but the scripting, story, puzzles etc. While I will continue to make minor tweaks, this part of the game is effectively done.
This means I'm into the actual core part of the game now, fighting through areas, getting defeated, etc. Part of the problem with predictions up to this point was that I wasn't sure exactly what form this section was going to take, I had general plans, but not specifics. Now I have it fairly nailed down, and it will almost certainly be:
-3 major maps
-7 ish minor ones
Of the major ones, the first is about 95% complete in terms of mapping itself, and I'm now well into the scripting/writing etc and starting to set up the battles. The second major map will be a bit larger, and the third a fair bit more simple. I also have one of the minor maps already complete. So, very roughly, in total I have:
Complete:
-3.5 major maps
-16 minor ones
To do:
-2.5 major maps
-6 minor ones.
So it's getting there. Maybe very roughly it's gone from 50% done on "mapping" to 75%, which may seem frustratingly slow, but keep production order in mind. We're 75% on the second-to-last step in the process (the last being scene cg). None of this could even be started before a bunch of other stuff was completed:
1. A bunch of new character sprites
2. A number of new character designs/standees (more than any chapter so far)
3. A bunch of battle-sex art (though I'll probably have to do even a bit more to get things ready for first release).
4. A bunch of song searching.
5. A LOT of searching and editing together tile resources to make interesting, new and visually cohesive maps. This was much more of a time sink than on GT.
6. Several different story-telling sections before the main fight section.
7. AND the boar side-story for Haven
All of this is now in the bag, along with a BIG chunk of actual gameplay. Which means I can finally start digging into the juicy stuff, making the core sections and bringing it all together/slotting it in place.
Also, there's an additional reason for this expansion, beyond just "I'm bad at predictions". In the midst of working out the new core fighting areas, I finally took to heart what people have been asking for: enemy variety. Chapter 3 will now, ON RELEASE, have THREE totally unique enemies, not palette swaps (though I may ALSO do some palette swaps at some point). But I warned in the past when this came up that it would increase dev time, and indeed it has, because new enemies meant:
-new designs/standees
-new sprites
-and an additional area
-POSSIBLY a new outfit
Aside from the outfit, these are now done (and I'll show off some of them below), but it took time.
So what's the damage? Optimistically, I might have "mapping" (ie everything left other than scene cg and writing) done by end of January, and CG is set to take about 4 months (art is painfully slow for me, and Chapter 3 is set to have considerably more CG than GT, even on initial release). So we've slipped to about May/June for preview release to supporters, and the following month for general release.
All I can really say is what I say every update: 1. This stuff is hard to predict ahead of time and 2. Things are actually being completed, just not as fast as I'd like. I'm really enjoying how it's turning out so far though, and I think you will too, when it's finally finished.
That out of the way though, let's get to the fun stuff. Spoilers from here.
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There are two main factions in the strange place Mezz finds himself, the cats, and the wolves. The cats will be like the center path of GT, an alternate path added later. The wolves will be front and center for this first release. But as I was planning things, I ended up thinking it would be fun to have a kind of cannon-fodder enemy first.
So now we have rats.
Without spoiling it too much, the wolves and cats hop from reality to reality, spiritually and magically strip-mining them, and their inhabitants, and competing for the approval of their dark god. By the time Mezz gets there, there isn't much left, which is why they're looking to...move on. But the rats aren't magical at all, or part of this travelling act. They're just the surviving remains of the petty criminal underworld of this reality. The wolves tried to prey on them, but their life-essence was too filthy to feed on, so they left them alone. Occasionally, newcomers end up stumbling into this reality, and when they do the first place they end up is Beggar's Row. Rat territory.
I haven't entirely pinned it down yet, but generally the intention is that they'll be fairly easy opponents in a straight fight, even when up against a lot of them. Mildly challenging, but it shouldn't be hard to put them in their place. It would be VERY EMBARASSING if Mezz was to somehow lose to them. Or KEEP losing to them, and getting EVEN WORSE at fighting them. Oh boy.
The friendly lad up above is the main one, but to add some variety, we also have this enthusiastic gent:
The container is filled with a very potent, concentrated gas. I'm sure you can guess what it does.
I don't want to give away TOO much more concerning maps, but since it's been so long, and I DID put "areas" in the title, I'll give ya these two quick:
That's all for now. See you next update.