• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS

Summer 2020 Progress

  • Blind
  • 08/19/2020 11:21 AM
  • 599 views
Wanted to share my most recent update from Kickstarter with RMN as well. Hope you’ve all had a safe & enjoyable summer thus far!



This update is long overdue - so I’d like to thank backers for their extraordinary patience! This month marks one year since we launched on Kickstarter!

Development Hurdles

Our team has suffered a couple of unforeseen setbacks during the past months. Rightly or wrongly, I was reluctant to post an update until it felt appropriate to share what’s happened.

Unfortunately, our lead pixel artist became quite ill for several months, leaving him unable to work or generate any new content. Although he was committed to staying involved with Beloved Rapture, his sickness left him unable to concentrate for long enough periods of time to complete the monthly assignments (new tiles, monster sprites, etc).

We tried to work around this by designating more of our monthly budget toward music/audio, and toward miscellaneous artwork. Like much of the world, COVID-related personal concerns diminished a lot of our free time - resulting in less mental energy for the project. I ran into a level of emotional/creative burnout that I hadn't felt in a long time.

The good news? He’s made close to a full recovery now, so we’re back on track in terms of preparing for the demo!



The Steam Demo

We're expecting that the demo will be finished by the end of August/Early Sep, and released on Steam shortly after that time.

  • It will last approximately 40-60 minutes - essentially, most of "Chapter 1" in the game.
  • Includes battles, bosses, & 1 Full dungeon

We intend to submit this demo to a publisher, so I wanted to be certain that it achieved a level of high detail that resembles a finished game.

With that being said, I'd like to showcase a few cut-scenes / gameplay tidbits here - any criticism is welcome while I begin to maximize polish.



Chapter 1 Opening Scene

Some of you may remember this scene from the original Kickstarter trailer (as well those of you who know me well enough to have played the old prototype demo XD). Well, we've added in the finalized music track!

I may tweak some of the dialogue to improve pacing, but I'm pretty happy with it.






Dungeon 1 Preview

Similarly, here's a quick glimpse of the game's first dungeon.

I tried to establish nice rhythm in terms of puzzles -> exploration -> battles, etc. The cave comes as a moderate initial challenge, while gently introducing simple jRPG mechanics.




There are still a couple of small bugs/the combat is relatively unfinished, but it's pretty close to the final version.

Dungeon & Battle Themes

Here's the full audio track for the cavern area. Andreas was inspired by both Mitsuda and David Wise for the 'soundscape' and style of these instruments. I referenced the audio style of DKC2 in particular in my track notes; as I wanted a song that could feel both melodic and atmosphere-setting.




The battle theme was finished months ago, but we've refined the instruments since that time. Find the updated track below.