KatFS Alpha Devlog #5 (November 2024)

Hello all! We're reaching the end of the year. Apologies for this monthly devlog coming a little bit later than usual.

So, what did November bring us? On the game itself, not much - some fixes for saving/reloading around heated-up and burning objects. Instead, I've been taking the end of the year to work on something parallel to the project: a website!

SO WHY A WEBSITE?

The Kalia project has always been something I've hoped to elevate from a hobby level to a more semi to full professional venture, and having an official, bespoke website goes a long way in giving legitimacy to the project. While my social media and itch.io pages will still be very important, I felt the need for a centralized site for the whole package, somewhere I can introduce and showcase the project my own way and point others towards when they display interest and wish to know more. As the project evolves (potentially beyond KatFS), I want the site to also evolve and become a hub for everything around Kalia and other future projects.

Plus, I get to have my own domain which I can use on BlueSky and also for proper "official" game e-mail accounts! Ain't that neat?

FROM GAMEDEV TO WEBDEV

Deciding to take on this side-project has been quite the challenge, but I feel it was a good change of pace from the game development work that had become too routine at that point. My knowledge of web was mostly limited to a very basic package from my Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science almost a decade ago, so while I wasn't going in completely green, but a lot had to be figured out. Following advice from a friend, I onboarded myself through a Blazor Web App, but have been steadily shedding out the "web app" parts of it and settling on a simple and comfy basic HTML + JS + CSS setup. As of writing this devlog, I've started the process of converting the web app code to a simple website format.

BRAND THROUGH VISUALS

As you can see from the screenshots above, I've taken care to make sure the site's visuals match the intended Kalia "branding". If you played the demo, you have probably noticed the similarities between the game's UI and presentation and the visuals of the website. The same fonts, colors, accents... I'm particularly proud of the buttons that faithfully recreate KatFS's main menu look, including the orange glow when hovered over. (I've even thought of including the sound effects from the game but I think that's a little too extra for a website :')

SO WHAT'S ON IT?

The site will initially feature six main pages, which you can see listed out in the header on the screenshots.

• Home: The landing page, featuring a video embed of the KatFS demo trailer, a quick introduction of the game's premise, and a screenshot gallery. The gallery items can be expanded and navigated
• Story: A mostly text-based page telling the background story of Kalia and her world
• Art Gallery: Galleries for game art, crossover art and fan art of Kalia
• Devlog: Will eventually feature its own hosted devlog that will run parallel to this one. Initially it will simply link to the itch.io devlogs
• About: Some "meta" information about how the project came to be and myself, the creator
• Credits: Listing of credits for peoples and projects involved in the development of KatFS

NEAT! WHERE CAN I ACCESS IT?

Well, the site is still being prepared for deployment, however the domain and hosting service have already been secured! Part of why I'm moving away from Blazor is because it turns out to be a hassle to deploy and get working, while a simple HTML-serving website would be much easier to set up and maintain.

That said, here's the link (currently a placeholder page at the time of writing, but will eventually host the full site): https://www.kaliagame.com/

That is all for now! Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas in advance, and let's hope for a great year for Kalia in 2025!