Hey, everyone. Hope you're having a great day!

I wanted to ramble (yes, intentionally) a bit about what to expect from Heartfire: A Born Again Saga - Act One. More specifically, I wanted to go over what's in and what's out in regards to features and implemented systems. So I've made a list and I'll just talk about each one.

Included:
- The story. All of Act One, minus two scenes between Aldo and Dilara, will be made available. Though, in fact, Act One is the shortest of all three. It basically sets the stage for what's to come.
- Exploration. All of the maps have been made available and they're littered with hidden chests and other goodies. Side-quests are also available, but there are only a dozen or so in Act One. There's currently one optional dungeon and mini-boss but I'm considering adding another by the time Act Two rolls around.
- Crafting. 50% of the planned features in regards to crafting have been implemented. There's a simple fishing mini-game, and you can use campfires or ovens to fry up what you catch. In the future, I plan to add various types of fishing spears, which will determine how successful you are at spearing fish, and of course additional types of fish, as well.
- On-screen encounters. There aren't any random encounters anywhere in the game. Every monster is displayed on-screen, and there's a simple line-of-sight and detection system in place. Monsters will chase you. Characters stop learning skills at level 5 in Act One due to balancing issues.
- Rejuvenation crystals. These are scattered throughout Calandor at key story locations. They restore the player's health, mana, and cure all ailments. However, you only get three uses per crystal.

What's not included:
- Multi-colored chests. I had this idea a little too late, so it hasn't been implemented yet. But the idea is pretty straight-forward: there are three different types of chests (red, green, and blue). Red chests contain items, green chests contain weapons and armor, and blue chests contain magical weapons and armor. This way, the player knows what to expect from each chest from a distance.
- Skill books. Another idea I had a little too late. Basically, you'll be able to find books scattered throughout the game, and even sold at the Academy for the Arcane, that'll teach you certain abilities the characters won't learn just by leveling up. Another incentive to explore!
- Ingredients. I didn't have time to go through and create/scatter ingredients. But in the future, you'll be able to find rare herbs laying around that you can sell to herbalists for rare items and rewards. Monsters, however, drop parts of themselves (for example, fur, eyeballs, wings, tails, etcetera) instead of gold and/or other items.

I'm sure that's not all, but it is most. The features and systems not implemented in Act One will be available in Act Two and most certainly Act Three. In case anyone's wondering, I currently don't have plans to release Act Two bundled with Act One as an individual release, so you could consider Act One the official/unofficial demo for Heartfire: A Born Again Saga.

That's all for now. Til next time, stay frosty.

Or, "So Close!" if my phone hadn't "auto-corrected" into that nonsense (if that's an actual phrase outside English, I apologize tremendously.)

I wanted to give everyone interested a small update regarding the release date of Act One: Unit 3-60 is Confused by Her Surrounds and We Can't Really Blame Her. Due to poor weather conditions in and around where I live, my power was out for two and a half days. Obviously, that cut a large chunk out of my development time, like a surgeon removing the diseased kidney of a fifty year old alcoholic. I might need those two days back, in which case the new release date will be: March 7th.

I'll know for sure after my legion of playtesters (really, it's just me) get back to me with their bug reports. Thanks for the support!

No, not the age old concept of individualist ideas such as freedom and the right to swear at your mother (God rest your soul), but our very own Liberty, who said something to me that resonated within.

And I quote, "Looking at your current maps, you seem to be intermediate/decent at mapping."

Now, in no way did I take this as an insult. If anything, it's a compliment. Looking at your own games, Liberty, I should feel honored that you would consider my mapping intermediate and/or decent. And I do. But, as Ricky Bobby's father once said, "If you're not first, you're last." I'm pretty sure that doesn't imply I'll ever be first at mapping, but Liberty's words did inspire me to go back through all 148 of my maps and meticulously add more details. From waterfalls and creeks to elevation and denser woods. There's even more shit hanging on the walls of the Bouncing Beaver.

Anyway, my point, if it hasn't been made clear yet, is that someone famous within the community (no, I'm not an ass kisser, thank you for wondering) said something that inspired me to better my makgam capabilities, and for that, I thank her.

TL;DR:
Liberty inspired me to better my mapping skills. That's all you really need to take from this.

So, you'll never guess what happened to me one very specific hour while I was squishing bugs with my Developer's Boots (actual in-game item). I had a life-altering epiphany, and realized a lot of my work was actually kind of sloppy. Believe it or not, the two aren't related. But I'm going back through the Prologue and Act I, stomping out any bugs and/or glitches I run into. Seriously, though, you do not want to see the inside of this engine. Between the numerous redos, which I've kept, and the dozens of test maps, which I've also kept, I'm surprised all of the transfer events even work.

Bug squishing aside, I'm making slow but steady progress inside the database, creating new items, weapons and armor, and balancing/tweaking character stats and combat. Why didn't anyone tell me about the tedious parts of mak-gam? It looks so glamorous from the outside.

Anyway, I just thought I'd update those who were interested (much excite to have fifteen subscribers) in how the game's behind-the-database progress was coming along. Maybe next week I'll upload come screenshots of Act II. Til then, keep on keeping on.

Hello, world. I was messing around with some of the maps and noticed that I could put most of them together into one large map (100 x 100 style). For example, I took all of Hercules Forest, which is made up of eight 33 x 27 maps and turned them into one large 95 x 88 map. For fun, I threw the town of Lazarus in there as well since it's located in the heart of the forest. I've discovered that this actually helps to give me a clearer view of what's going on. All quests, story-wise and not, are visible to me, along with all of the NPCs and battlers. My only problem is I wonder if the player might get lost and become annoyed, even if there are roads and signs.

The above brings me to one question: do most of you prefer smaller or larger maps? So far I've only tested this with one wilderness area of the game and the Echo Labs Inc. facility inside the prologue. If you could give me your opinion, that would be super.