Hi everyone! Just wanted to let everyone who's been following this game that I'm not dead! It honestly came as a shock when I realised it had been two months since I released the last version of the game, and in that time, I hadn't done much work. So, I thought I should probably talk about why this was the case - but not to worry, I'm back at developing it again, and I have no intentions to abandon this until it's done!

The game is in a bit of a weird place right now - all the demos have mainly just been experiments with the movement systems and general other tech. When I first started working on the game, I didn't really have much experience in game development, and my code was... frankly a mess. A lot of what I've been doing has been to fix the underlying issues, so I can better build on top of it. It's still not great, but it's a good deal better than it was.

You may have noticed a lot of the more recent updates have been focused on the visuals. It's honestly incredible how much it's changed from the earlier versions - I was honestly happy with how it looked back then, but now I'm honestly baffled by how much better it looks. Visuals are honestly a great thing to work on - it affects your entire game, and it's easy to see the progress you're making, and it's honestly one of the most important aspects to game design. Here's a little comparison between the different versions of the game:

But... there is a flip side to this. Just under 11 months ago, I released version 0.1.13, which came with a handful of small improvements. I had just finished my degree, and found myself with a fair bit of free time. Even for a long time before that, there was one major milestone I had in the back of my mind, and I know I definitely kept bringing it up to people when I talked about my game: the first dungeon.

At that point, I was convinced I had finished all the groundwork, so I pretty quickly started working on it, creating assets for the things I had planned. When I actually got around to doing it however... I found my tools were extremely lacking. It was extremely slow to use, so... I decided I had to improve things.

When I finished it however, I realised the game really lacked any sense of progression. I definitely needed to get a solid plan about that before I worked on the first dungeon, so in came the rift collectables and the ability network. Soon after, enough told me my rocks didn't look good for me to realise I needed to rework them before I could start on my levels, so in came another visual overhaul to the rocks, as well as a daylight cycle. I then realised my fireball mechanics were very underbaked, so I worked on them some more, and then...

Nothing. I just suddenly found myself burned out again. For over a year, I had convinced myself I was on the verge of releasing the first dungeon, that I just had one more overhaul to do before I could start shaping the game into what I wanted it to be. I've had this plan for the story which's core elements have remained the same for two years, and I've been unable to actually express them in game, which is horrible from an artistic perspective. So to find myself burned out again, but this time actually on the verge of doing it, it... honestly made me question how much I actually wanted to work on this, or if I had what it took. 

It was strange - my mind wanted to work on it so badly, I didn't feel like I needed a break after a difficult task, but I couldn't actually motivate myself to work on it.

I'm not quite sure what happened, but my motivation suddenly turned back on again a couple of days ago. As if a switch had been flipped. And I am actually working on the first dungeon now. I can't make any promises or even guesses for when the next update will be (I've learned my lesson from 0.1.13), but I can at least be clear with my intentions.

The next update will be released with the first dungeon completed in its entirety, more or less (this includes the boss). This will either be easier than I expect, or take forever - the boss in particular I'm a bit nervous about. So... expect it to a little while.

Anywho, that was just a long winded way of saying I've been slacking and that I'll probably be quiet for a little while longer. I'm considering opening up a discord server for those who want to follow the game more closely - unsure right now.
As with all things, we'll just have to see!