December Dev Notes! (Patreon)

Hey everyone~

Can't believe it's already the end of 2022. Feels even weirder to think that it's been 3 years since I made this game as a random Twine experiment to my discord with 10 people. I try to not think about it too much though. What matters is getting this game done! 

I've been working at towards getting everything settled to hire artists to work hourly for the game. The game needs a consistent output of art, and there's enough work ahead to keep them busy until the very end. This is a big priority and I'm doing all I can to make it work.

Speaking of art, I've been working with MuscleMage to make the final UI for the game. A lot of what's currently in-game was made by myself or using loaded assets, which can make the game slower. This will be the final design, so I'll make sure it looks and feels great on all platforms. 

This leads the the optimization and balancing pass I wanna do for this month. I wanna make 2023 start as good as possible by cleaning up memory management and balancing every encounter. I'm really happy with the new combat mechanics introduced in the last version, but it led to breaking a lot of the progression. You shouldn't really be able to beat every encounter at level 7. I'll also add some payoff to growing when you're already at your size cap. Growth based builds took an unexpected hit with the introduction of the limit break mechanics. Those abilities are a big part of the game, so they're definitely gonna get the love they deserve.

The delay between passages is also pretty atrocious on low-end and mobile devices. Having to wait over 5 seconds when going back to the Bastion is unacceptable, I'll make sure it gets a lot better this month. Turns out there's a lot more mobile players out there than I expected. It's close to 50% of the whole player base!

I'm also working with Rain/Dragonien on the last room of the Nyx dungeon. This one is going to affect a certain character in a different room, so do experiment with how multiple rooms can interact with each other~

So yeah, that's what's planned for this month. Thanks so much once again for the support throughout the years. Part of me still can't believe how big this little Twine game has gotten, and getting to this point has been a strange, sometimes terrifying journey. Juggling my 40 hours day job with shipping new builds every month has been a huge challenge, but I feel like I've gained a decade worth of experience with directing, designing and writing for games through all of this.

My plan is to have Dawn of Corruption reach a beta state in 2023, with the main story done and all encounters in-game. I hope you guys enjoy the new versions throughout the year.

Cheers~ 😈💜

-Sombreve