August Developer Diary #8 (Patreon)

Hey, VoidBounders.

Another month passed, another developer diary lurks around the corner. This is what the team mostly worked on in the month of July, and even though this was already mentioned during the public release of our new demo, I think it's better to be thorough and post our progress in our monthly developer diary all the same!

-Spaceship "Setek" introduced. Player can now explore the ship and interact with the crew.

-Planet "Tripteen" introduced. Player can now explore and interact with the friendly denizens of the planet.

-New NPCs added to populate the new areas, some more friendly and useful than others.

-Six new BGM tracks added to complement the new locations.

-Three new SFX sounds added.

-New animations added in some areas for the sake of fluidity.

-New changes to the art complementing new developmental changes.

-New standing art variations.

-New battle objects added in the form of deployable Turret, Shield and Mine. [Found in player inventory]

-New Balance changes to the combat systems. Integrating the new battle objects without overpowering either Caly or the enemies, was priority one.

-The story gap between Caly's rescue and her first dungeon dive now filled. The newly implemented content answers a lot of questions thereby giving the player a clearer sense of the VoidBound world and the lore behind it.

-Based on player feedback, game intro has been revisited, resized and reduced to counter player fatigue due to "Wall of Text" syndrome. Players will now feel closer to playing a RPG/VN with "to the point" conversations, rather than reading a Light Novel with large text dumps.

Technical Changes:

-Cinematic completely revamped with High Def video elements. Player can also choose to skip them if they so desire by pressing "Shift" key.

-New custom elements and plugins added to the engine effectively expanding new capabilities, some of which will be discussed in later patches.

-Heavy polishing and optimization rendered to make the new plugins mesh properly with the old ones for the sake of smoother game experience.

-Experimentation with partial Voice Acting. Caly's character will now audibly exclaim her emotions in certain scenarios. Very limited implementation however and player can disable it if they so desire, though we'd be grateful for your feedback on VA's performance.

-Memory leaks patched after some players reported crashes under certain system specs.

-Enemy AI re-scripted. Bots will now move unpredictably and players will now have to adjust strategy on turn by turn basis.