February 2023 Monthly Update (Patreon)

Hello fantastic Patrons!

We've already hit February, which means it's time for another monthly update.

January was a month of working hard on a couple of projects, as well as planning a brand new one, so we have a lot of updates once again this month.

With all of that said, lets jump into the monthly update!

The Sun and the Moon

Art

Okay I know we said we were done with backgrounds last month, but we decided when testing that one additional background was needed. Here's a look at it so far:

Many bad things happen here. Sorry.

Programming

Initial programming work on the prequel is now COMPLETE! I'm personally going through the build at the moment to add music and test the scenes. That means that we'll have a new beta build this month with the full game ready for you to play! This also means it's about time we announced a release date, huh...

Release Date

The Divine Speaker: The Sun and the Moon will be releasing in March 2023! We're waiting on the last couple of art assets at the moment, so we won't give a strict date as of yet, but expect late March!

Dreambound

Art

In the art department we're still working on CGs from Ivan's route. Here's a little teaser:

As you can tell, the vibe between Ivan and Crow's route are very different, with Crow's route focussing more on embracing the past and healing, whereas Ivan... well, you'll see for yourself.

Programming & Screenshots

Chapter two of Dreambound (including escape room) is now completed in engine. We're currently playtesting the escape room for bugs, but we're very pleased at how it has come out. 

We'll announce this properly below, but a new beta for the game will also be coming out soon.

And some escape room puzzles:

I worked very hard on this literal puzzle to get it working how I envisioned it. For some behind the scenes, at first I had slots that the pieces would snap to... which looks good when you're snapping the pieces to the right places, but bad when you put the pieces in the wrong spots.

My next thought was that we could have the pieces snap to the locations only if it was the right spot. That would work, but I felt like it took out the 'joy' (if that's the right word...) you get from shuffling puzzle pieces around to try and fit in more pieces.

In the end, I decided to remove the snapping totally, and work on getting the game to just recognize when the pieces were generally in the right spot. After some testing and a lot of tweaking, it works!

The other feature that took awhile to implement was the 'inventories' on either side of the board. I spent awhile thinking on how to present all the puzzle pieces in a way that wasn't messy, which was difficult since all of them are quite large. In the end, I thought that if the game had a spot you could put the pieces where they halves in size, then they would all fit on the screen better. Actually implementing it was another thing.

Still, it was worth all the hours (days...) of programming, tweaking, fixing bugs etc. to have it come out as I pictured it!

Next, a much simpler puzzle to program (though still quite time consuming). This one involved checking which letters had been clicked in succession and comparing them to what letters were supposed to be clicked. Fun!

I personally really like the challenge that comes with working out how to make puzzles/screens/general stuff that doesn't come out of box with Ren'Py work and have a lot of fun adding these kind of things. If you have played the (very stupid) rock-paper-scissors game from the Leos Patreon DLC, then you will see how much I enjoy making silly things. For even older fans, you'll see if in the (equally stupid) selfie camera I added into The Ocean at Night.

Taipei Game Show

Thanks to Ukiyo Studios, Dreambound was live on the ground at Taipei Game Show! Here's some pictures from the event:

We're so pleased at the turn out and it was a very fun event to take part in. We'd love to come to more physical events in the future, so let me know if there's anywhere you want to see our games!

(also please someone send me a steam deck we can't buy them in Australia and they look so! cool!)

Beta

The new Dreambound Beta will be coming out in the next 1-2 days. We're currently doing our last minute checks and tests, and after one more round of playtesting I will be adding the hints into the escape room, which is always my final job after seeing where the difficulties lay.

New Unannounced Project

It's a bit of an open secret that we are starting work on our next (small) project. While we can't give too many details yet, here's a little teaser:

Any ideas?

Focus for the next month

Here's our focus for the next month:

• Ivan route CGs continued
• Ivan route writing
• Crow route editing
• Beta release for Dreambound & TDS prequel

And lots more, lets be honest...

That's all for this month!

Thank you once again for your support - it truly allows us to do what we love doing.