Sin Spire – Dev Log 32

Hello everyone! This week wasn’t as productive as the last, unfortunately, so I’ll keep this log brief on details. I had to take care of some non-dev maintenance – boring stuff I won’t get into – but I still managed to make some progress toward the next version of the game. The goal is still to get the update out soon.
Here’s the bare minimum of what to expect in the next version:
  • Animations for Savina
  • Animations for Ophelia
  • Ophelia’s quest ending (mostly an exposition dump)
  • New animations for a few enemies
  • First version of Free Mode

Since a lot of people were practically begging to see it, I’ve decided to unlock Free Mode for players who’ve completed the current content (made it up to the Mangler boss). I’ll just strip out what I don’t want to be revealed yet. There are still a few enemies without animations in Free Mode, but that shouldn’t take too long to set up.
I have fallen a bit behind on animation (again), so next week I’ll be focusing hard on Ophelia’s scenes and then going back to purification animations if time permits. Even though her scenes might be harder to access than Savina’s, finishing her content will wrap up all the story content prior to the game’s ending.
This next update will be version 0.0.5a, not 0.0.6, as I’m treating this as an intermediate build for the finale. I want August to be the month where I wrap everything up in regards to content. Sin Spire has taken a long time to come together and, once I finish that core set of content, the game hits its minimal viable state and could technically be released.
Timeline
My ideal timeline for the rest of the game’s developed is as follows:
  • Release the next update before the end of the month, ideally next week
  • Work on the two final boss fights and ending cutscenes
  • Do a final pass for bug fixes and clean up any leftovers that are no longer used
  • Release the game

If any of the extra content I planned isn’t finished in time – such as additional enemy animations – I will probably cut it and save it for a future update. I know that might sound a little disappointing but at some point, I have to draw the line and content-lock the game.
Looking ahead to future projects, I’ll be doing more thorough planning now that I’ve got the experience of working on this and know what my limits are. I feel like I say this every few dev logs, but it’s something that is always in the back of my mind along with the various ideas of what I want to do next.
Anyway, that’s pretty much all I have for this week – anymore and I’ll start rambling about unrelated things. After finishing the boss fights and ending cutscenes, I’ll also need to start thinking about promotional material, such as a trailer and whatever else comes up. I’m not experienced with video editing, so we’ll see how that goes when we get there.
If the next update isn’t ready by next week, I’ll still try and post another dev log. There’s already enough content to make the next update worthwhile, I believe, but I’d really like to get Ophelia’s stuff done to for all the reasons I’ve mentioned.
Thanks for reading. I’ll see you all next week!