art update (arbitrarily numbered) 18 (Patreon)

Art update arbitrarily numbered 18(because I have no idea how many times I've done this before and because I like'm legal! Oh hello Mellon lord... just a joke guys we're not ready to talk about the Mellon lord yet)

I'm going to talk a bit about the latest build in general as well,so if you still want to go into that unspoiled, read this some time later. I mean it's not like you've already guessed it by just looking at that trailer we posted...

Anyway, if you've had the chance to play the latest build, you might have been enjoying some of the virtual sun on Ember Island! We hope you liked your time there even though some bugs made it harder for some than others. We've been getting some good feedback though and are working on getting rid of problems people are telling us about. Seriously, there's always one(yeah right...) more bug. Annoying but with the very short build-to-player schedule hard to prevent.

I don't think I need to tell you what I've finished since the last art update. The early access change-log pretty much has that covered. Ah Ember Island.. it just kept growing and growing from a very small little trip to something which rivals our very first build. It was crazy getting it all together but I'm very happy we did manage to do it.

Except for the very first build (that'll always be our "baby") I really liked the different feel Ember Island has.  In my opinion the coder really outdid himself with the mini-games which he included. I think it makes Ember island feel more playful, something very different from fighting earth kingdom soldiers. We felt strongly about presenting Ember Island as one big update which you could finish immediately without having to wait for the next build. but we had to make a few sacrifices for that which we intend to fix/add later on.

But enough about that (before I'll bore you all to death). What am I working on right now? Well, except a few miscellaneous files:

- a new scene for Mai and

- a new scene for Azula 

plus their backgrounds.

Both of them with more than the usual amount of frames etc so I've been busy.

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Something else I've also been wanting to mention.

We've had a couple of people ask us for a walkthrough. If anything, we'd like to help you guys out, but I think just handing over the "book with the answers" is a bad thing. With a walkthrough it's just so tempting to start playing the game as if you're following a recipe, ruining much of the sense of mystery and surprise in the process.

In the end doing it without a walkthrough (besides the occasional frustrations) will yield the most enjoyment. So if we're going to write one it'll be after we finish the game, Which would also give us the chance to include the scene raffle winners' scenes. After all, they can come up with a new scene in whatever book they want with the characters of their choosing and we try to include those in an organic way into the story.

That doesn't mean we don't at least want to try and help you along so here's a few hints which hopefully help you if you're having problems in book 2. Just a reminder, Ember island is unique to the Love/Zuko route so don't go looking for it when you're playing as a thief.

- Did you make it to general when fighting? Awesome, fight some more and you get more money and possibly girls, but to unlock more parts of the story it isn't necessary to go beyond that. At ease soldier!

- Do you see the option to play a scene which you've already seen once? Play it again, it might play out a bit differently and unlock something. If it's exactly the same as the last time you'll need to go elsewhere to progress the story.

- The guards in the tavern are pretty finnicky when it comes to allowing you to partake in their banter, but when they do it's pretty important.

- Uncle Iroh(Zuko route) likes drinking tea but every now and then he shares some important information.   What is that Uncle? I need to make Azula go down... on me!?

- Rei needs your hard throbbing...   tactical advice!

Ah, almost forgot this, but the new scene raffle and sketch raffle winners of this time have been contacted so if you didn't get a personal message from us, we wish you better luck next time.  I always feel happy when I get to write someone who has won, but at the same time sad others didn't. I'm such a pansy...

The winner of the former sketch raffle has kindly allowed us to share the result with our other patrons. You can find it in the rar file accompanying this post.