A Return To Kirlic (Patreon)

Good afternoon,

The week is already almost over again, so it is time to sum up what I managed to get done over the past few days.

First of all, sorry that I didn't post a report on Monday. I simply forgot in the heat of the moment, as I was already fully focused again on bug fixing and writing alternative dialogue for the Winterhowl scene.

That is also how the week started. I received reports of over 200 typos and other small issues from WolfMan, and I have been working my way through fixing them. I'm not done with all of them yet, but I have decided to tackle a few every day from now on. Once again, a big thank you to him for the extensive and very detailed work!

The alternative dialogue for the Winterhowl scene was written relatively quickly, which finally allowed me to shift my focus back to Kirlic.The first thing I did was to add the missing diagonal movement directions for Bjorn’s wagon, covering all passenger variations (which was something that bothered me quite a lot as the wagon has to move diagonal a few times which always looked bad). I also finally implemented the ability to travel back to Kirlic after leaving it once.

That formed the basic framework needed to move forward with further steps. After that, I worked on additional NPC sprites so that the inn finally has seated guests, as well as more interactions that allow the MC to stay overnight at the inn.

What followed were more concrete thoughts about how I want to structure the next part of the quest. On the one hand, I will likely need one or two additional maps for another building, which should not take too much time and which I have already started working on. On the other hand, I began writing more dialogue to push the story forward and to enable further interaction with Rose and Tessa. Both of them are meant to play a role in the upcoming storyline. I also want to expand this part with a small puzzle segment, so that it is not just a simple run from point A to point B. I know I shouldn't overdo it, but if needed, the walkthrough can help prevent players from getting stuck.

Further plans for the 0.6.2.0 update that I have not started working on yet include expanding the scene with Tia, Lyvia, and Bianca in the MC’s house and transferring that scene to other inns outside of Arenfield. This also includes the ability to travel there together with companions. On top of that, I want to generally simplify traveling to Kirlic toward the end of the quest.

I am still a bit undecided about where exactly the 0.6.2.0 update should end in terms of story. Since I know it will probably take a while before I can continue working on it afterward, due to several other updates already being planned, I really want to reach a satisfying stopping point. Because of that, it is possible that I will release an additional intermediate update to keep the waiting time from becoming too long. I should be able to say more about that next week once things have progressed a bit further.

Before I forget, I also wanted to say a few words about the Winterhowl update, which ended up being finished last Friday, or rather early Saturday morning. I was very relieved to finally get it done, and in the future I will make sure to keep the scope of Christmas updates much smaller. Ideally, something like that should not take more than two weeks of work, which is already a fairly long time. Also December is now already very crowded when it comes to events, while the other months are quite empty in terms of events. So another idea would be to leave Winterhowl events out for now and instead make a Spring/summer/halloween or what ever event instead. What are your thoughts on the matter? I'm aware that some of you probably would prefer that I wouldn't do any such events at all and focus on the story only, but I think adding one such event per year is fine and will help to make the game feel more alive.That is all for now, I will continue to work for a few more hours and wish you all a nice weekend!