Wee update & Mini-Blog

Picture above: A sneak peak at LV2

Why does the text box look so much better?

One of the things I think makes my game screens standout is really thanks to your feedback. Some of you might remember that the text was hard to read, the colours, tones and textbox bg conflicted.

So I did a bunch of research, no one explicitly said what was the best way to do it. So I checked the visual novels that resonated most with players and noticed something subtle, but important.

All the text had a shadow, you wouldn't spot it if you weren't looking for it.

Because everything you see is coded by me, there is no 'shadow' function; so as always I had to make one (I simply drew the text black, then drew white/coloured text on top of it, shifted sightly off axis.

Updates

Well the leak slowed me down, but i found it and fixed it - so tonight i'll be able to make faster progress. That said, here are things i've done in the past few days:

• Infogram: so when people talk, they can tell you something i.e. about the universe, and images/gifs will appear to the left/right of them to make it easier for the player to follow what they are talking about.

• New characters: Sekarri female ship captain (Saska), and a Fox/Wolf equivalent of Fel i.e. she is packing abs, muscles and hot AF.

• Main Villain: What's an epic game without a central antagonist that can symbolise your struggle? The 'Drone fleet' and the 'Darkworlders' are too distant, too remote, too intangible for you to feel that sense of personal, existential dread. You might want to look away on this bullet as subtle spoiler. This villain is inspired by my AI I built 10 years ago, and a female version of Sephiroth.
  She will instil fear, by addressing you directly in the game. She will haunt and frustrate you.

• Battle tech demo: This is a pet project on the side, i'm working on an EPIC and I mean EPIC battle scene. It's to showcase one possible branching future of the game story line. It reveals the truth about the darkworlders (drone fleet) and i'll be honest, even i'm super creeped about about it.
  But i'd say if the battle played even half as good as it is in my head, it will be one of the best RTS battle sequences. (Big words...so lets see how close i can get to that dream) 

• Demo & Chapter progress:  Chapter 2 is in fact 5 chapters rolled into one, (i've finished 2.1 and 2.2) but it's labelled chapter 2 because that's how it's wrapped up in the plot. The demo will include all of this, plus some extra bonus content and minigames. It's hard to say if my 1 month timeline will be realistic, but definitely will be released before 2 months!

• Other: here is a quick list of features i've rolled out so you see how much i'm doing.

  • New RTS units: Tug, Replicator, harvestor, Reconissor

  • New RTS mechanics: Flocking, unit spawning for cut scenes. RTS left character cutscene, RTS right character cut scene.

  • RTS real time slowdown:  for decision choices, screen darkens slightly and bullets/laser beams slowdown whilst you get a chance to answer your assistants and make moves.

  • Audio integration: If 100 ships fire, you don't hear 100 bullet noises (that would not sound how you think).

  • Errand Mechanism: Someone asks you to do something, you do that thing and get rewarded.

  • New poses: Kira facepalm, Snep pulling her pants down (NSFW patreon version) , Tabby in an evening dinner dress, Tabby spilling her coffee.

  • 50+ bugs fixed