the new development breakdown (now zen!) (Patreon)

calmness.
serenity.
no manic energy here.
this post is a Zen Zone ™

first, i didn't quite get this on the tail end of the previous post because i was short on time before prancing off to take a peak at some development stuff, but i wanted to make sure to say more explicitly:
thank you all for still being here even after i just pranced off to another continent and did like nothing for a three weeks and the entire break before that. i'm not just saying that for the time's own sake... as someone who's historically felt like if i don't keep pushing the boulder uphill constantly it will roll back down and crush me, i feel like it has actually been like healing/a weight lifted to realize that
actually i don't have to keep pushing all the time,
it is ok.
peace and zen.
thank you all <3

while we're on the subject of the patreon, a couple days ago i did go through and update the main page with some more proper info about starlight, and why Being Here Is Good, Actually. i'm not sure if it'll show you all the new About Us when you're logged in, so maybe check on an incognito tab if you're interested. i don't think any of it is new information, but it is stated more succinctly.

but now that we're all caught up, let's get back to The Work. 

the demo was a neat slice of the game, but as i said back then, it's not actually the start of the game. it is something like the third or fourth battle, depending on how editing shakes out, so now we gotta go back and make the beginning proper. there are a few intro maps we've sectioned out, and getting those done is going to be our first major milestone, at which point we can probably think about getting a build out to you all. i don't imagine it being a full release at that point, just a working patreon build. something you all could play and touch and feel and be like "yep this is a video game"

So there are two big halves of the work right now:

• First is making all the assets for the characters involved. This is always going to be the case, but because it is the start of the game, the segment we're looking at has a relatively high concentration of new characters that need art and models and such. We're introducing, like, eight characters instead of just one or two at a time like what a normal chapter might do. That's a lot of assets.
  In addition to that, we're also minorly touching up a few of the existing designs as we work out a clearer sense of the world and characters. I'll post some comparisons for that a little down the line. It's nothing major, but it will be neat to show.
• Secondly, there's a bunch of backend work we need to do on the system. There's also some frontend work we need to do on it. There's... frankly, just a lot of work we need to do.
  This is going to be a Whole Thing for a while, and I might stress myself out if I go stare at all of the categories too hard-- and i can't be stressing myself out here, right, not in this post, because this is a Zen Zone ™ -- so let me just go through the biggest and most immediate ones. 

...ah, hold on. we're gonna need another bullet point list for that.

okay, all separated? great. so here's some of the biggest system tasks we're looking at right now:

• Spine compatibility. I've talked about this a bit already, but it's still on the plate since I was out. This is my personal priority. As a refresher: all of the combat models currently run through ol' busted dragonbones. Spine is the new hotness. We just need to update everything to play nice with spine now that we've: 1) proven it'll work, 2) gotten the initial kinks smoothed out, and 3) successfully imported the old models from DB to spine.
• Mouse support. Perry's already taken a good bite out of this while I was out! It's really hard to overstate how much PC tRPGs benefit from mouse support. We wanted to get it in for the demo, but ended up not quite having the time. We're not 100% on this yet, but as I understand, the structure and framework is all there, and that's the hard part.
• Preloading business. Iirc we talked about this a bit before too and most of the work is now done here thanks to a surprise friend for later. There is like, one hang up that's causing people to look-- you know what, here--

her face is a little. goin' through it. little distorted. little uh... we'll... we'll fix it. but it's kinda funny in the mean time. 

• 1080p. we'll need to do it eventually, so better to do it sooner rather than later. this one will involve reworking like every UI, so i dont even want to think about this right now.
• FE4 style combat visuals. right now, our combat is styled after the GBA and more recent fire emblems-- when attacking, the unit steps forward, attacks, and then steps back. the GBA games have amazing animations-- but they also don't care about timing. the fact that we have to step up and back each time significantly slows down our animations, and consequently, our timing-sensitive combat. on the other hand, FE4 used a system that is much more appropriate for us where units ran up once, and then just wailed on each other as much as possible. in addition to suiting our timing better, it'll be way easier to animate clean and snappy attacks that way. 

this is all important stuff... but with the exception of the last one, they're all big, kind of lateral tasks. like, 1080p, for instance, you'll notice it, you might even care, but for us it's going to be a three-steps-back before four-steps-forward type of thing. 

gotta walk before we can run. i want to run !!!!!
no-- zen.
Zen Zone ™.
all is well.
patience.
love healing harmony.
french onion soup.
peace and wisdom. 

anyway, that's the short-term scope ahead.
oh, and also...
i did want to start my LP of reborn around the same time as we get into the thick of starlight dev, and subsequently alternate those on twitch... so maybe we'll be thinking about that in the upcoming weeks. 

much love as always <3 stay zen!