Overview
Gameplay Update
Some held items have been re-introduced, and the testers can now use them in the Team Builder I showed last week. You can see a couple in action here:
There have also been changes to damage formulas and to stats progression. As a consequence, battles in the Battle Arena now take place between level 50 creatures.
As a follow up, I want to introduce more moves next week. Right now, there are a couple of creatures that have really bad movesets for battles in the Battle Arena.
Community update
Shiny contests are almost over except for the last one, which is still open to everyone and is meant to be more flexible. If you missed the previous ones, now’s your time to shine. (Pun intended).
A community member, Marlon, is writing a document with the winners and we will soon have all the results. In the meantime, here’s a video of Samira helping out with this contest too:
Art update
The bestiary now contains updated animations for the starters that you can preview here:
Wind starter
Fire starter
Water starter
I’ve also added the community names for each creature evolutionary line, so make sure to head over to the bestiary to memorize them.
Financial update
I explained elsewhere (in the Discord) that my budget for assets in this game was about 5k USD. So far, I’ve spent roughly $3k USD, though you haven’t seen all the assets for the game.
This is a small heads up that I may go the kickstarter route at some point later next year. I’ll first attempt to see other paths that may be less time-consuming than kickstarter. After all, from speaking with people that have gone through kickstarter campaigns, these tend to be very intense and demand a lot of commitment by their creators.
I’ll also adapt based on the results of other campaigns in the same genre that are either ending soon or starting soon. It is still early, there is a bunch of work to do, and if there is a kickstarter, it will be with a demo.
No demo, no kickstarter.
Rest assured, the game is being made, and the worst case scenario is me taking a loan of about $10k from one of my lines of credit.
Roadmap update
While we are at it, I think now is the time to explain what happened to the early battle alpha and why it has been delayed so much.
The gist of it is that the game is more unfinished than expected. More than that, what I had in mind for the alpha was probably below player expectations and it is not fun to play with those. I took a deep, critical look at the game and I just knew that it needed more time, even for a first-look by players.
On the other hand, I do want to open it up a little bit more, and I’ll remind you that the $5 patreon gives you access to what is available right now. If you are active enough on discord, you may get away with asking me for an invite too.
Have an awesome week!