I bet most of us are ready to put 2020 behind us, but I figured I'd give one last update before the year draws to a close. So here is the December update a couple of days early!



Development Outline

I'm pretty much at the point where I can clearly outline just exactly what is left to do. Content development stands somewhere around 60% finished, and the overall project is roughly 70% completed. I've also managed to wrangle in the Progress Chart and get it cleaned up, as you can see above! Keep in mind that development will not be 100% finished once this chart is filled in, and there will be a thorough round of playtesting, balancing, cleanup, and other things that will need to be done before the game is released.

What has been done:

• The entirety of Chapters 1 and 2 and their respective interludes are finished.

• Every non-boss enemy sprite in the game has been made.

• The Star Chart (skill tree) has been completed.

• 95% of the story is now set in stone.

• Mini-games! There are three of these and they have all been implemented.

• The party’s entire skill repertoire is more or less finalized.

• About 75% of the OST by Agent Ape is completed! He has done a lot of great tracks for this project, so please look forward to them.

What’s done on the current section of development:

• All of the tiles, maps, and puzzles for Areas 6 and 7 are completed and playable.

• Non-boss battles for Areas 6 and 7 are designed and implemented, sans balancing and adjustments.

• 80% of the face and character graphics for characters that appear in Areas 6 and 7 have been made.

• About 10% of the story scenes for these areas are implemented.

What hasn't been done:

• Pretty much everything after Area 7.

• More battle animations. A number of skills currently share the same animations.

• Somewhere around 20 boss and event enemy sprites need to be made.

• A lot of balance adjustments.

• Tiles and maps for some of the early areas, such as Areas 2 and 3 as well as the Starship Virtue, could use some touching up.

• Some of the early art assets, particularly in the UI, could use some updating. The graphics used in the UI are among the earliest assets made for the game. Art updates that aren’t strictly map or tile-based will be made towards the end of the project to avoid doing this more than once.

• Some story details, such as pacing some of the events that happen later on, need some ironing out.

• Implement a Story Reminder tool, similar to the Remind Me Gem in Crescent Prism.
  Two bonus boss battles are planned! These will need designing.

So when will the game be done?

Truthfully, I'm still not at the point where I can put an exact release date on it and that's not something I'm looking to do until much later. However, I seriously doubt that will take me another year to complete what is left. My soft goal is sometime in the second half of 2021 but that will depend on a number of external factors. For example, my time to work on game of projects tends to fluctuate especially this past year during the pandemic, so it could be later... or even sooner! But I make no promises for either and the game will be done when it's done.

This has been by far the longest I have worked on a single project, but thank you all for sticking with us throughout it! Here's to a great 2021!