Just in time, I've got a new monthly update! Let's take a look at what I've been up to in July and August for the game. In terms of game development, July was dominated by new lore writing, much of which has been posted in the form of completely overhauled articles for Doramor, Saernis, Korneth, Saniel, and a new article for Weijin, who never got one previously. If you haven't given them a read yet, I heartily encourage you to do so. There's tons of new information in them, even if you've read the original versions. I have some additional articles I'm putting the finishing touches on, and will have at least some of them posted within the next couple weeks. On a more personal note, July (and much of August for that matter) was a rough month. My mentor at work left, and with no one brought on to replace her, I suddenly found myself doing the work of two people (and I already needed help before that). Much like last year, I've found myself so exhausted from the workload I've had little energy to stay in front of a computer after 9-10 hour shifts that left my brain feeling rather melted, so my spare time has mostly been more in my model painting activities, and any gaming I was doing was predominantly VR-based (I picked up an Oculus Quest 2 a few months ago, and it's amazing). Thankfully, I took a much needed vacation this past weekend, and finally managed to fire up RPG Maker again to work on Episode One some more. Over the course of a couple days, I created, built, and completed an entire mercenary encampment you visit late in the episode, plus all story-related cutscenes and NPC dialogue, shop, and inn functions. So that's one more major step taken towards completing Episode One! With a little work (maybe an hour or so), I can connect all the existing exploration/dungeon maps, allowing you to play from the very start until just before the final dungeon maps (although many of the maps would still be quite...barren). I have to admit it still feels a bit weird that it's actually resembling a coherent game now, and not just a series of unconnected pieces. I like it, though! Anyway, onto the infographics! I'm restructuring the overview one to make it a little easier to read (and I was having issues getting the zoomed in version to display properly here on the site). The only changes this time around are in the final Quest section, along with the accompanying Overworld and Dungeons sections, owing to completion of the mercenary camp and at least starting some of the additional maps. Aside from building out the Overworld maps, I think my next priorities will be finishing up quest content, so they're at least playable, even if the maps are pretty empty still. I'm going to skip the Doramor City infographic this month since nothing was done for it, and instead move on to the Overworld/Dungeons map. Again, the bulk of the work was the mercenary camp, but it still feels good to be able to advance the numbers a little. I'm also just now noticing the rings don't actually match the percentage amounts. I should see if I can fix that. I might also split the Overworld and Dungeons maps into separate sections as more progress gets made, to better distinguish their individual states of completion (I was just trying to minimize potential spoilers in combining them). Finally the Other Tasks section, which shrank slightly in the Menu Functions (completed the skill damage/healing values pertaining to the mastery system), and grew in the Bug Fixing section (optimization, and some glitches pertaining to the camera zoom mechanics). As always, fix one bug and three more appear. But eventually they'll all be slain!
I think that'll wrap it up for this report. Until next time!
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