Dev Report #10 — Picking Up the Brush (Patreon)

Hey everyone!

Time for another development update—and this one’s a bit more behind-the-scenes. Before anything else...

📜 v0.1.5 Progress

The v0.1.5 script was finished a couple of weeks ago and is already implemented into a working build.

Right now:

Necro (programmer) is working on several gameplay overhauls and adjustments.

Dove (artist) is continuing with the art production for the update.

Cheem (background artist) has completed all the required new backgrounds for v0.1.5 and has now started remaking older backgrounds that were originally done by Dove.

With the script wrapped up, Dr Nystrom (writer) has shifted focus toward something else.

🧪 A New Workflow Experiment

Now that writing is done for this update, Dr Nystrom been working on: designing new NPC sprites. drafting new battler cards and expanding some elements of gameplay through design documents.

And that naturally led us to experimenting with something new.

We’re currently testing a new pipeline where:

Dr drafts the base character concepts.

Dove then redraws and adapts them fully into his style.

The goal?

To reduce some of the pressure on Dove’s workload while still maintaining visual consistency.

We started small—with the energetic archivist/librarian in the city.

Dove adapted her into his style without any issues, and we were really happy with how smoothly that translation worked.

After that, Dr Nystrom decided to push it a bit further and tried drafting clothing concepts as well.

So next up was the City Clerk, including outfit design.

Naturally, Dove adjusted certain details to better fit his artistic vision and proportions—but that’s exactly the point of this process. It allows Dr Nystrom to handle early-stage concept work while Dove focuses on polishing, refining, and elevating the final result.

📝 What’s Next?

Dr continued drafting additional outfit concepts and variations to help streamline the workflow.

If you’re interested in seeing more of these drafts, let us know! We’d be happy to share more behind-the-scenes content if that’s something you’d enjoy.

We will continue working hard on the project and deliver more information soon!

As always, thank you for the continued support.

We’re excited about v0.1.5—and this new workflow might help us deliver a more polished product!

—AfterDark Studio 🌙