Development Update; Dec. 17th, 2018 - Demo News! (Patreon)

Today we've got a small announcement and a big development update!

Firstly...

Side-Quest Demo! (working title) + General Release Window

As you might see above, we've been developing a side-scroller engine alongside our VN engine! Thus far, merging the two concepts, side-scrolling and first person VN + detective adventuring has been successful!

But wait! Is this still Side-Quest? Where does a castle play into Side-Quest's original plot?

It doesn't! This is for Side-Quest Demo (working title)! Which is a playable demo for the larger Side-Quest game!

Is This A New And Separate Project?

We would say definitively ~no~, it isn't. Our current plans for Side-Quest are remaining true to the last update we gave you, and development has been both extremely productive and fairly uneventful.

As much of Side-Quest's development so far has been testing new concepts and fleshing out a game, we decided that the best way to make sure something as ambitious as Side-Quest could work would be to start off with a smaller version of it. This way we'd also have something new and fun to show our patrons sooner!

Sooner? How Much Sooner?

It's still unclear! Our hope is to make it before the end of December, but the end of December is rapidly approaching! Worst case scenario, we don't believe at all that it will be long after December's end before release!

So what have we gotten done?

Art!

Our artists have been hard at work pouring themselves into sprites and designs! You can see, in the top .gif, our test sprite for the main character, but our final designs are shaping up to look a little more like...

These!

With an art style maybe a little closer to...

This!

Plus, it wouldn't be a Con-Quest game without pretty girls, now would it?

Designs not final, but may be used.

Design!

Design has been coming along great! So far, with the extra focus that comes with narrowing the scope of the planned demo, we've been able to figure out our games' desired core loop and how we want the minute-to-minute gameplay to play out!

So far it's looking as though Side-Quest Demo's gameplay is going to be split into three separate parts:

Sidescrolling Action
Investigative Adventuring
and
Visual Novel

With the gameplay interchanging between these parts with relative ease and a strong core of intrigue and action tying it all together, we're so far really happy with how the gameplay itself is turning out!

Also, in regards to the visual novel portion of the game...

Here, we're showing off just some subtle camera movements that can track the emotions of the character you're speaking to in fun ways. As the demo is going to prominently feature speaking to a singular character, we're looking for ways to make the camera fun and dynamic even without large, sweeping motions. 

And here's just us testing the look of Investigating an Object:

Writing!

The first draft is complete! It's a small story, detached from the Con-Quest universe and playing out in a limited number of areas with a focus on mystery and romance!

We won't reveal too much here, but it's a fun ride that de-emphasizes drowning the player in cutscenes and moves along at a good clip!

This new script was also created with the game's new core loop and gameplay in mind, so it will resemble, better, how the actual pace of the final Side-Quest product should play out, rather than simply taking a pre-fab visual novel script and spreading it over gameplay.

Music!

Our in-house musician has created a couple of small looping tracks to keep mood without distracting the player from the game's proceedings and we've been able to bring in an outside musician to help us add some color to the background score!
___

We'll naturally keep you updated as progress continues!

Thanks to all our patrons and we'll talk soon!