The End... (of 2023)

Merry Christmas, or merry whatever it is you do around this time of the year.

I've been a bit silent on the socials in the beginning of this month. The reason is all the stuff going on around the holidays combined with some sort of autistic episode. It's been the same irl and it's a miracle I still have friends.

However! I haven't been idle, and I've been working at the game. In fact, here's the latest update, in which the Protagonist and Barrel goes spelunking: Link to 0.44.9 . There' a bit of """cave exploration""", something about some green crystals. Hope it'll have been worth the wait!

In addition to this update, I will try to squeeze out a version with more bug-fixes before the year is over. A few parts of the game have reached an almost AAA-studio-game-launch level of jankiness again. I'll update the silver bonus stuff as well before the year is over.

So that's 2023. What about 2024? Well, as you know, the game is something I work on when I got free time. So it's hard to set strict deadlines. But personally, finishing up the main story of the game is something I'd like to achieve in 2024.

I figure, with the patreon-income supplementing my overall income, I can work less on my irl-job, and more on the game. Once the main plot is over, I can try my hand at some other games, I got a lot of ideas, and I could of course add some additional side-stories to Goblin Layer if people still want more.

After Goblin Layer is done, I think for future projects I might switch to using Ren'Py. I don't mind Rpgmaker, it's fun to work with, but Ren'Py would be much easier for cross-platform releases. I still haven't figured out how to make this shit work reliably on Android, and Linux/Mac can be a hit or miss. Ren'Py would be easier in that regard. RpgmMV is simply a bit old by now. But we can just have polls for all this stuff when the time comes, and see what you guys prefer.

Also, as you might know, I've been learning Blender. I think 2024 will be the year where I can start using it for the in-game scenes. It will be an overall quality upgrade. I've mostly nailed down the workflow for recreating a character model in Blender. In the progress of remaking everyone in Blender, most will get new outfits and maybe new hairstyles as well. So I'll be posting some 'concept art' at a later date, to let people give their opinions on what kinda outfits and hairstyles they prefer.

Also II, Last month we had a poll for which storylines people would like to see prioritized development-wise, and the winner was... a scene in with a Dark Elf? So much for 'Goblin' Layer. Well, in any case, I'm gonna make a new year special of sorts starring the Dark Elf, it might be a recurring character, we'll see. Aiming for a release in mid-January in any case. Will probably have more of these polls.

Also III, If you don't hear from me during the first week of January, it's because I'm being forced to socialize irl. I'll get back to work once that's done.

Finally, a big thank you to everyone who's been supporting me this year, it really helps keeping me motivated to create more!

/Parodos