Progress Report: Level Design is now Complete!

Hello, i hope you had a Amazing week!

This week i've managed to reach a big milestone of the project development: Completing the level design for the demo.

Also the previous system that managed the rooms present in the game and its connections has been greatly improved so rooms are easier to place, link, maintain and change making my time as a developer way easier

The post preview you can see the one of the debugs that show the connection of the map and where it leads to

The game demo will contain:

•24 rooms to explore

•A few tutorial-style rooms at the start to teach controls and mechanics

•About 2 rooms reserved for the upcoming save point feature

•Two main pathways toward the end of the map, they interconnect in places and meet again at the end of the demo

•Plenty of ambushes and items scattered throughout, so go mess around and find out!

Every room is decorated with the tilemaps and assets I made earlier.

I also added a bit of atmosphere with particles like falling leaves for the forest part of the region and a firefly-like motes in the cave areas.

NPC Emotes

Characters can now use emotes. It’s a flavor feature, but it also helps at a glance:

whether you’ve been spotted

if a lewd attack is incoming

if an enemy’s poise broke

or if they just reactivated

I’ll keep adding more over time.

Emotes give enemies more personality, and watching their reactions is honestly a lot of fun.

Some of these were inspired by the MMORPG Ragnarok Online.

Whats Next?

The demo closed beta test is getting close.

I was aiming to release it last month and missed that deadline as it still a very difficult thing to estimate and i still have diffictulties with it, but development is moving fast and nonstop!

A closed beta should be ready soon.

Before that, a few important features still need to go in.

Save System & Save Points

Save points will sit in the rooms reserved for them.

Like most games, they let you save your progress and pick it back up the next time you play.

The save system will store:

Your current save room (this also acts as the checkpoint when you get defeated)

Player level

Ambush zones you’ve cleared (once cleared, they stay cleared)

Current equipment durability

Barriers you’ve opened

Save points will also work as a hub where you can:

Restore all your items

Restore all HP / MP

Restore all equipment (optional)

Title Screen

This is the screen that opens when you launch the game. From here you’ll be able to:

Start a new game

Load a saved game

Tweak a few basic settings

I’m skipping title-screen artwork for now so the demo can come out faster.

Player Pause Menu The pause menu will show a few information of the player, like:

Level

Attributes

Current equipment durability

Equipped items

Return to title screen

And will allow you to tweak some basic settings from the game as well

I’ll also add some small handling for BGM and environment sounds.

After that, I’ll start intense playtesting.

Once everything feels solid, the closed beta can begin!

Thank for your Interest in the project

and a Special thanks for all my supporters, i hope you can enjoy the playtest soon! 🙏