Beetle Ninja 2! I've been very tight-lipped about this project, and I don't really talk about it too much anymore, but why is that?

Re-Evaluating Beetle Ninja 1:
I like to think that the best way to improve on your older work is to give it some time to breathe and develop without you smothering it with analysis.
Looking back on Beetle Ninja 1, it's a good game. At the risk of sounding a bit self-centered, I think I'd actually venture to call it a pretty great game... however, I think I needed a good amount of time to look at the game a bit more objectively to really look at how I want to go about expanding upon the ideas I presented there (I think I have some good ideas right now though)
I've also been analyzing my first game, Where the Moon Goes at Night. There's elements to it that I kinda like retrospectively, especially the looser feel it had.

Focusing on Other Things:
These past few years, I've taken steps back creatively from the original Beetle Ninja to sort of return to a place where I was creatively before I made it. That entailed making many smaller games and starting to get into animation, but I think in the end, it's experience that's sort of taught me much more about what I want to do in Beetle Ninja 2: especially with visual themes and gameplay mechanics.

Spoliers Aplenty:
One of my biggest influences in how I share progress about my games is the game formerly known as Mother 4, more specifically in how I DON'T want to do things as a game developer. I like the ability to be transparent about things in terms of how the game is going, and I try not to keep people in the dark about what I'm working on.
Keeping everything hidden is just ridiculous, and leads to burnout, but there's a delicate balance I think I'm getting good at striking with keeping secrets and being transparent.

That said, I'll outline some of the basic ideas for the game, many of which I'm prototyping right now:
Some of these are very drastic changes from the original Beetle Ninja, and sort of show you what I'm aiming for here in terms of the style of game I'm making.

1) Major Factions:
The game features two main factions. One is a group which cropped up right on the player's doorstep in the original Beetle Ninja, and one of which is sort of mentioned and eluded to in the original.
Your "end goal" in Beetle Ninja 2 is to make sure the "right people" come out on top in this conflict... but I suppose that's a pretty subjective thing in the end, so the endings are designed to reflect that.

Keen-eyed players will probably recognize the patterns these people wear from the original Beetle Ninja.

I'm currently prototyping a "lesser" factions system: there are small groups of people who don't really have an opinion on the overarching story of the game until you meet with them, but who you can use to help influence the ending.
Think something like the ending recruitment quests in Fallout: New Vegas, but I'm aiming to have it be a bit more apparent in-game (as in, you'll see the people you've "recruited" out in the overworld a bit more).

A gang of artists shows up to draw graffiti in the game's hub area.

Passive Day Progression:
The day system in Beetle Ninja was very active: as in you needed to engage with things for it to happen. In Beetle Ninja 2, I wanted to make something that happens in the background: so now instead of needing to sleep or engage in a mission to progress the day, the player is constantly on a timer that ticks down as you progress.
This is designed to cut the player out of some side quests and force them to make choices: an expansion off of some ideas established in Beetle Ninja, where there were a few different times the player was forced to choose between different missions.
Initially, I thought seven real-world minutes of gameplay per day would be enough, but I'm experimenting with pushing that to 15 or maybe even 24...

Inter-Connected Overworld:
I've mentioned before that Beetle Ninja 2 is very inspired by Fallout New Vegas: it's actually something of a successor to an idea I was prototyping to see if I could make an 8-bit Fallout style RPG with RPGMaker. Consequently, the world of Beetle Ninja 2 is smaller in-universe, but packed much more intensely with content.
Recently, I've been working on ways to make the player see time passing in the world. NPCs change locations, graffiti is drawn, and sometimes special events can happen.

Changes to the Opstroykh train station throughout the game (scroll through to see).

These are sure to be major shake-ups from the original Beetle Ninja, and I hope players will enjoy them!
To give an idea of the story, it's meant to be sort of Fallout New Vegas-esque: you get a basic mission that quickly evolves into something of a world-changing conflict as you try to achieve that goal. The goal is to have at least 3 "main paths" through the game, and I want there to be a few big sidequests (ala the Couple's Mask quest in Majora's Mask): some of which affect the ending, others of which are just for fun. I anticipate these will be very fun to write!

Anyhow, that'll be it for this progress update. I'm going to try and get a week-long "barebones" demo out by late 2023 so everybody can see just what Beetle Ninja 2 is meant to be.
Thank you!