General Updates for released v.0.1.9 and upcoming v.0.2

Hello Itch!

The Wife has been bugging me to put some updates on Itch.io, so here are a couple of updates I posted on Patreon a while ago. There is another, newer update that I just posted there tonight. If you want to read that, please head on over to Patreon and pledge your support.

• Patreon Devlog #7 talks about the stuff I included in Release V.01.9.
• Patreon Devlog #8 talks about the stuff I was expecting to have in Release V.02 two weeks ago.
• Patreon Devlog #9 is the newest one on Patreon and isn’t included here. It talks about what I’m actually including in Release V.02.

I plan to release v.0.2 on April 30, 2020 around 9:00pm Central Standard Time (GMT -05.00)

Patreon DevLog #7 – March 14, 2020

First of all, with everything going on in the world, my schedule is fucked. No one in my family is ill or dead or any of that, so it could certainly be worse, but I have three kids, so having the schools shut down makes it much harder to find time to sit down and actually accomplish things.

That said, I've got a lot done! I've spent the past week remaking some of the temple content in the background in a way that I should have done it in the first place. It's now much easier for me to add new skills, new titles, new gods, and new factions (which is what the temple is). I've also managed to remove about a thousand lines of code while also improving functionality. I'm finally feeling like an actual developer.

Anyway, no one will notice those things.

I've started work on the inventory system: equiping, unequipping, stat-modifiers, consumables, money, item icons, item descriptions, stat-change previews, the list is really long. This is a system that will be in the code in the next release, but it won't be used until the next milestone release.

I'm also working on finalizing the battle system (or at least the first version of the battle system). In the images for this post, you'll see the alpha version of the Cockatrice ('chicken', 'cock-a-lota-trice'), for the battle system (obviously you'll need to fight the chicken). The animation isn't finished and the versions I made after that gif have less flicker in the pixels. I think it'll look pretty good. I'm planning on a semi-pixel art style for the adventuring/battle content of the game, but that's something that I'll want patron feedback on when I have more of the underlying system in place.

Next, the palace! I was pleased with an existing asset I found on the Daz store, so I repurposed that instead of making an entirely new environment for the palace parlor/waiting room. Man, that saved me a ton of time. The palace throne chamber and bedroom and some other stuff will need to be made individually, I think, but I've built so many environments at this point that I may have some things I've already done that I can repurpose with some tweaks. We'll see. The next release will introduce some palace characters before we finally see Zelda, but there will be no interactions yet.

Finally! While I'm stuck with kids, I'm working through debugging an Android release version. I hope to have that ready for the next Patron release (hopefully beginning of next week, depending on how much I can get done this weekend.)

Patreon Devlog #8 – April 16, 2020

First off, I saw a request for the recent update, and I think it's probably super time that it goes out to the lower tiers of patrons, since I've been so long between updates. So once this post goes live, I'm going to unlock the 0.9 release thread for everyone. That one includes all of the updates prior to the 0.2 version that I've been working on for so long, as well as the official Android port of said version.

Now that that's out of the way, I've been working on:

• Battle System (85% complete, but still very unpolished... the polish will come in later updates): - Character sprites (Lani is 100% done, Main Character is 0% done, enemies other than chicken are placeholders) - Animations (Lani's default movement is done, but I've decided to hold off on implementing attack animations until future updates. This is part of future polishing plans) - Drop lists are in and working, but there are no enemies that currently drop any useful items (coming to that a bit later). - Attack damage, defense, magic, skill damage variables, multi-hit skills, defensive skills, stuns, and healing items have all been calculated and implemented. Skills are currently not available (coming to that a bit later). - Party system works, but will not be available in the initial release (coming to that a bit later). - Player interface is finished, but the battle log area is not currently working. - Inventory is finished and implemented, but there are currently only a few items that can be collected (more on that in a bit). Note that the inventory image is an early beta version. It now has the same general theme as the battle screen.

• Adventure Guild Content (20% complete): - Initially, this will only be a quest board anyway. I just haven't had time to do much on it yet. I don't anticipate it will take much time to put it in, but making it look nice and adding additional content like rewards and guild experience points will be a primary focus for another update.

• Palace (35% complete): - The initial Palace and Zelda content will consist of a series of story renders (first render is above as a teaser). I had initially intended for more palace content to be present in this version, but... I just need to cut things or this release won't be ready for a very long time. I'll do small content releases focused on the palace once all of this other stuff is there and I can work towards the rest of the game with peace of mind. - Two of the three initial location backgrounds are finished (just need to make the throneroom now). - Character sprites (the ones that pop up on normal interactions) are on hold, since I won't be using them in this release.

• After-Chicken Content (0% complete): - I say 0% complete, but that's 0% of the story complete (other than the palace story mentioned above). The game will continue until the next scheduled life-threatening moment. - You will no longer be killed without exception by the chicken. You will be killed without exception by something else.

• Stuff That Will Not Be in This Release But Will Be Coming Later: - New Affection Events - Party Interactions - Alchemy/Potion Creation - Adventure Guild Storyline - Inviting Characters to Your Party - Collecting Clues (dragon, stone, dungeon, etc) on your own - Shops - Money (since I have no shops yet) - Skill Books - Probably a lot of other stuff I can't specifically recall. If it's not listed on top, it's probably not there.