General update: March 2023 (feat. Patreon tier update!) (Patreon)

Hi everyone! It's time for a general update on what I've been up to since SLARPG's launch and what's in store for the near future. But first up, some Patreon-related business to attend to!

Patreon tier update!

Starting today, my $5 "Adventurers' Guild" tier is back with new rewards! Previously, this was the tier that got people access to the SLARPG Beta and their name in the credits, which obviously isn't a thing I can offer anymore. (And I don't feel comfortable offering the same thing for whatever our next project is when I don't know what that will be.) So instead, the $5 tier now offers access to my backlog of PSD source files for my art, which was previously the reward for the $10 "Archivist" tier. For all the people who still have $5 pledges, go check out the PSD tag! Everything from SLARPG promotional art to my fursona's ref sheet to random fanart is in there.

This also means that the $10 tier has now been hidden, as it's become redundant. With the success of SLARPG's launch, I no longer need to rely on the existence of higher Patreon tiers as a financial safety net, and as such I'm scaling things back. If you're currently pledged at the unpublished $10 tier, you're free to switch to the $5 tier and retain access to the same posts. (Patreon will not do this for you automatically.)

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So, with that out of the way, what else have I been up to?

Chilling!

For the most part I've been on a much-needed break following SLARPG's release, particularly after the frantic bug-squashing and technical support of the first few weeks slowed down. Things will ramp back up again in time, but GOD was I exhausted by the end of development, and I still feel like I'm running on fumes. I'm extremely thankful that the game has been successful enough for me to take things slowly right now, rather than needing to launch straight into commissions or whatever.

But that's not to say I haven't been working at all.

Hard Mode!

The main piece of new content I'm looking into adding to SLARPG post-launch is a Hard Mode, something that's been highly requested by experienced players who'd like to have their strategies and builds pushed harder. Mainly, I want to make sure that Hard Mode makes the game more challenging without sacrificing SLARPG's design principles or making it masochistic - I don't want to give every enemy a million health and random one-hit KO's. So I've been toying around with some options in recent weeks that should make it an enjoyable challenge, and will continue to do so.

Hard Mode should be the centerpiece of the game's v2.0 update sometime in the coming months, along with a few other gameplay adjustments I'm toying with. To make sure expectations remain in check, I still have zero plans to add a big story expansion or anything like that. But I may think of a couple small things I'd like to add here and there before moving on from the game, like how Melody's cat Shadow was added in v1.1.

(I do also have another regular bug fix patch coming soon - I just haven't prioritized it because people haven't found any horrible game-breaking bugs in a while.)

The soundtrack!

As a reminder, SLARPG's full soundtrack is available through Bee's Bandcamp page, as well as on YouTube. Bee's even got some official extended loops of popular tracks! The OST will be available elsewhere (such as Steam) in due time, Bee's just had other things to attend to lately. We both kind of had to put our lives on hold in the home stretch of development, after all, and Bee was literally finalizing the mixing and mastering up until launch (and then finalizing the album through January).

Still, cool things in the works! Cool things that I won't talk about just yet...

The future

Finally, I'm beginning to think about what's next. I have two main ideas for our next game rattling around in my head, but I don't plan on repeating past mistakes and announcing anything prematurely. I'm letting those ideas marinate for now as I work on other things. Again, to keep expectations in check: we're not jumping straight into making "SLARPG 2." I would like to make something that isn't another 20-hour RPG epic right now, given the last one took eight years to finish. But I do have more ideas for this cast of characters, as well as other, unrelated ideas.

What I'm actually focusing on is learning a new engine, so I can finally be free from RPG Maker's clutches. The one I've chosen is Godot, an increasingly popular open source engine that's particularly good for 2D games (with growing support for 3D as well). I'm still very early in the process of learning Godot, especially because most educational material needs to be updated for the newly launched Godot 4, but I have a good feeling about it.

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And that's all for now! As always, thanks for the support. And for paying Patrons, don't forget to go read the big behind-the-scenes post about Zinnia!