Devlog #25 - May 2025 Update

No new demo this month - it’s that time of year again when I’m always busy with other things. How busy? Well, I’ve done 3 two-hour devstreams in the last month and about 3 days of gamedev in total. I don’t even have any screenshots worth showing.

CHANGE LOG FOR REV 6 SO FAR:

• Raylib version: 5.6-dev w/ custom mods
• Quest system WIP
• Level/model loading overhaul
• Beginnings of a proper shader & transparency system
• …

BIG PICTURE

I really can’t complain about progress. It only took me 6 months to make this custom engine, after 2 years struggling with Godot and 10 years of only dreaming of this. Now it’s just a “simple matter” of grinding for several more years to expand it from a tech demo to a real RPG.

Now, it would be nice if we could organically grow a cult following as development progresses, get some money coming in from early access sales and donations, and build up a small team. So far I haven’t had much luck with any of that - a little bit, and I appreciate you all and I hope to catch a lucky break one of these days - but what if I don’t? Well, I’ll just keep grinding, trying to make this game as fun, interesting, and impressive as I can. Eventually, when it’s finished enough, I can try to find an honest publisher (lol) or hope a bunch of money drops into my lap so I can advertise it. I’d hate to give money to those people, but advertising actually works, so it’s always an option of last resort. I could also release a cheap turnbased tactics sandbox game just to put something out there - that strategy has worked pretty well for some other developers.

Anyway, it’s just me working part-time for the time being, so I’ll just have to focus on gameplay and make do with early 2000s graphics quality (especially the environments) until I have the time/resources to improve it. And I won’t bother showing it off much until I’ve made substantial progress on gameplay.

DEV PRIORITIES

• Content: maps/levels, placeholder objects, characters, quests, scenarios, artwork, music
• Gameplay: itemization, spells, buffs, vampirism mechanics, melee, bows, guns, throwing, etc
• AI: behavior trees/FSMs, navmesh pathfinding, offense, defense, evasion, etc (key elements of gameplay as well)
• Wall collisions and some sort of camera spring arm
• Systems: lighting, shaders, particle FX, background loading
• Animation FSMs, blend/override, jigglebones
• Turnbased mode, for a tactics sandbox side project & eventual turnbased RPG

PUBLICITY PLANS

• Devstreams once or twice a week, just on Rumble for now
• Occasional dev/gameplay videos on Youtube
• Little or no social media
• Quarterly devlogs - monthly is too much
• One or two more tech demos
• Everything beyond that is To Be Determined…

So - next devlog in/around September, next demo then or later - possibly next year.