Posted April 22, 2021 by Synstoria
Hello everyone, we are currently working hard to produce the first short demo (prologue + 1st chapter of the game). Things are going well, we estimate the playtrough of the demo to 45-60 min.
- Writing: All scenes and petitions are written, the petitions still need to be proofread. The demo contains, 34 000 words, (16700 linear*), 4 important choices and 2 game over.
*Linear word count, is the count of the smallest branching of the game, aka the minimum word count you can encounter in one playthrough. It doesn't include tutorial, game over and petitions.
- Translation: The interface and scenes are translated but most still need to be proofread. Petitions and special scenes (game over, tutorial etc.) still need to be translated.
- Art: All the backgrounds are done, as well as most of the sprites. Originally, we were planning to release the demo with only the sprites of the main characters, but the artist was amazing and in the end we will have them all (for the moment two are still missing). Note that the demo will not have any CG because the artist who was initially supposed to do it deserted. 😓 That say, don’t worry Arrapso (the artist who does the sprites) will take over this role, but it will take her some time to do them.
- Programming : The interface is finally operational (options, save, menu...) there are only small things left like the splashscreen for example. Most of the gameplay features are also implemented (resources, petitions, game over...), I just need to revamp the kingdom policies screen because I found it a bit clunky. I also decided to NOT add one of the optional mechanics (diplomacy) into the demo, because one chapter isn't enough to enjoy it. The sprites have also been implemented (it’s clearly not the most fun part 😅) as well as the choices, we just need to finish the scripting to put everything together!💪
- Music: Everything is good on this area: the demo will include 10 original musics composed by the fantastic Pierre G.
Once all this is completed, we will move on to the beta-testing phase which will be really essential to correct all the little bugs but might take a while (especially since we do two of them, one in French and then one in English). It will also help us check the balance of the resources!
******
As you can see, we are getting close to the goal. If things continue at this pace, we should be able to release the demo in late May or June as we initially wanted. Thanks to all of you for your support, it is really priceless! If you want more detailed news, don't hesitate to join us on tumblr! We also plan a surprise for people in our mailing list next month, stay tuned 😉