two monthly devlogs in a row. when i say we r BACK

Hello beloveds, the time for the monthly devlog is upon us.

This past month I focused on art development, as I said I would in the last devlog, so let's jump right into it! (yeah, that's right. we're keeping it short and sweet this time.)

As I mentioned before, writing would progress a lot slower in the coming months to make room for faster art development. This month, I mainly handed off routes to be edited.

So Kuna'a's second arc is currently being reviewed for developmental edits (and Wudgey is a superhero and has actually finished most of the big dev edits, meaning once I review those and we do one last pass, Kuna'a's LAST arc will be the only thing that needs to be edited!).

Etza's route has also been handed off to Allie for line editing. So as we make headway on that area, we approach the last route being DONE and ready for our Early Access release!

Now for the area I focused most on this past month: I finished a sprite recently for one of the side characters. I teased them in the last devlog as a silhouette, but here we can see a close up of how the sprite has come together!!

pronouns: they/them. and that is All i'll be disclosing on the character OLJSLIDJILDJ

It's been so long since I've completed a sprite aosdjfoaisj. These assets take me the longest to create, so I always lowkey dread them LMALIJ. And especially with how stunning the OG design was from Saf, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do the character justice. But I'm really happy with how it's come out and excited for you all to see them in game!

I've also been working on updating the other sprites after finishing this one since I was really happy with how I rendered them! I finished updating all the LI sprites---nothing major but just adding a bit more dimension to them ^^

before (top) and after (bottom)

As you can see, it virtually looks the same, I just added more shading and rendering to the sprite. I've received comments in the past saying the sprites didn't really match the rest of the art for the game, and for a while I sat on these comments to decide whether I wanted to change up the look. And while I didn't want to change anything major, I did start to feel that the rendering at least was a bit faded compared to the rest of the assets.

While I do love the soft look, I do feel like the updated versions are a bit more cohesive with the art assets while staying true to my usual art style! Hope you all like it too \o/ ((because this is permanent I already merged the rendering layers LFAJLFISJLDFIJ))

We also entered beta testing for Etza's route this past month!! YEEAAAAAAAHHHH.

my shayla

Reception so far has been positive for our sweet angel, and if you'd like to try out their beta, it will be available on my Patreon (Hydra Tier) until we enter beta testing for the Early Access build, which will contain all four routes!

Finishing Etza's beta was honestly a huge weight off my shoulders because it really means we're That Much Closer to an EA Build. In the beta versions, I do my best to make them virtually the same as the completed version with camera movements, sprite expression changes, etc. The only things missing are the actual art assets.

And since coding expressions, movements, transitions, etc. can be so time consuming for me, having the bulk of that completed for all four EA routes is a huge relief because most of the foundational work is already done :')

And then because I finally can have an actual normal life now, I've been able to squeeze some gaming time in. So of course I returned to FOM and got to unlock THEIR DRAGON

BOOOOM SHAKALAKAAAAA

Anyways, that's all for this devlog. I hope you all have been well and staying cool in the approaching summer! Until next time ^o^