It would be a remarkable feat if there are still many fans following the development of this remaster. It was suggested that I post an update on the progress (or lack thereof) that I've made in the years since I started.

After a half-decade of hem-hawing about going forward with a lifelong dream of mine to commercially publish an RPG, in 2017, I finally convinced myself that it would be worth remastering my dear pet project Hero's Realm as a commercial endeavour. When it started, I was full of vinegar and hope and naivety that it might be a moderate success. I even envisioned that it'd be released sometime in, say, 2 years!

I reached out for commissions, and was graced with the skills of Avee (for art and sprite work), BigWig (for monster art and sprites)(he has since disappeared from my contacts - I really hope he's okay tbh), visitorsfromdreams for animations, and pianotm and zDS stepped up and offered music composition. I am very gracious for all the help I've received to date, and owe a debt of gratitude to all of you, especially for sticking with me after all this time. The works you have done are amazing.

Here is a rough outline of the progressbar (not to scale):


A brief recap/excuses of the past couple years:
(background: I announced this project in mid-2017. At the end of 2017 I received a shock that my company was closing up and was out of a job. I became an independent contractor and a self-employed. This has been the case until January 3rd, 2023, when I started a new position as an employee).
-so in 2020 the pandemic started. Kids were schooling from home, and everything was greatly disrupted. It's been tough, and I wish I had the wherewithal to have completed this remaster before 2020.
-late 2020 my dad died unexpectedly, so that sucked.
-in 2021 I moved to a new home (we had outgrown our first home of 10 years - the boys were sharing a bedroom and bunkbeds and could benefit from more space). Moving was hella-expensive and time-consuming,
-2020-2022 I was hella-depressed, too.
-the project got corrupted (there was a blog post about it) and I had to restore from a backup. Oh well.
-started a new job Jan 3rd, full-time, with a pension and healthcare and everything, so that's pretty cool.
-in conclusion, here we are.


Anyway, mid-2022 I started putting actual effort into the project again. Avee had invested a TON of time and effort implementing the tilesets for me in-game (wow!), so I had a great basis to work off of.

-I revamped the hero classes, and implemented the 3 new classes
-I imported all the great resources that Avee and visitorsfromdreams made
-I mapped the class graphics to the battlechars and weapons that Avee made
-I recentlyish mapped all 401 monsters to the 389 monster sprites (with over 95 unique sprites and recolours!). It was quite the undertaking.
-I documented all of the monsters, spells, items, weapons, battle scripts and more into my Excel spreadsheet (this will come in handy when I make the guidebooks and manuals)
-I am currently in the process of mapping the battle backgrounds to tiles
-I am also currently in the process of refactoring the battle events - they desperately need a cleanup and the new skills (an better implementations of existing skills) need to be added. It'll be fun redoing all 977 battle troops. I am leaning on the work I have done in Generica. Hero's Realm - being the first project I ever completed - was a prototype in a lot of ways, and it is evident the messiness of the scripts.
-As part of this battle events process, I will be implementing the new battle animations from visitorsfromdreams AND revisiting the skills and their balance/implementation.


These pieces are all required before I can truly embark on the next phase of the project - polishing and playtesting. This will include leaning once again on pianotm and zDS to prepare a finalized version of their amazing tracks. And eventually putting a call out for official play testers.

Then in parallel, I will need to reach out and ask for help with
-creating multimedia (like videos!) for showcasing the game
-signing up for Steam and figuring out publishing (so many of you have done this now - I would love your expertise!)
-signing up for itch.io

I will also be making my planned guide material, like
-monster lists
-equipment lists
-maps
-guidebook/manual
-OST (maybe! if zDS and pianotm are up for it!)
-other cool things

Then finally - publish the damn game.

So yeah. I'm almost done my double-double and my son's soccer practice ends soon. I will wrap this up now with a promise to you that I will post updates more regularly. If you've made it this far, thanks for reading.