(This isn't a game release, it's just information about how development's progressing! If you just wanted to see if there's a new download, you can stop reading now.)

I'm a master of overscoping and delaying things, and I know the one thing that everyone hates about games stuck in development hell is a lack of information - things have been awfully quiet about Oddity, Silksong, Freedom Planet 2 on the communication front just to name a few - so I've got this idea to post semiregular (Weekly? Every 2 weeks? Every month? Haven't figured that part out yet!) status updates about how Burgertale development is progressing just so anyone that cares at least won't be left completely in the dark until the day I emerge from under a rock and release it.

Real Life Shenanigans

Development might slow down a bit in the foreseeable future - I'm about to start a new job and I don't know how my free time will be affected just yet. Stress levels and general life satisfaction will probably head in the right direction, at least - among other things I'm rid of the most obnoxious commute I've ever had to deal with. And either way, I've been super-crunching for a while to get the demo done in time for Game Maker Awards submissions and that pace isn't sustainable even if I had all the free time I wanted. It's time to work smarter, not harder!

Scope of the next update

I've designed and envisioned the game to be super nonlinear (that's why you can use spellboosting to get through areas before you're supposed to be able to, for instance) but that also means that it's hard to provide natural stopping points - the next demo/relase version might not be ready until I've finished the first three worlds (Bread Ruins, Lake Slushi and Nugget Mines), or at least done some good progress on them. I'm considering just finishing Bread and Nugget, leaving the snow world for later - I don't wanna get too many comparisons to Snowdin after the first world is a purple ruin, so Nugget Mines is supposed to be the "real" second world.

What's not done

I've essentially not done any new levels so far, in the "completed" sense - I've done some basic grayboxing and assets for two new levels but they're still in a very unfinished state.

I've also not progressed on Bread Ruins - the next thing up chronologically is the fight against Saltman and boss fights are a lot of work. Story boss fights will also need integration with - you guessed it - the story, and I'm still figuring out how to make it integrate seamlessly - Undertale and most other turn-based games have a natural stopping point between player actions (i.e. the turns) but in an action-RPG it's a bit harder to progress story mid-fight without it feeling like you're getting interrupted.

What's done

There's been a lot of new systems, and behind-the-scenes changes that fixes things that were duct taped together last second for the demo. For instance, the maths behind the Grimoire menu was completely busted and getting too many spells would just break it down completely. (The number for "too many" was 3, and since the demo lets you get exactly 3 spells there's some incredibly messy stuff hacked in last-second to work around the problem)

I was eventually forced to rewrite it from scratch, and do things in a much slower and stupider way, but at least you don't end up selecting every spell at once anymore:

Other "system" changes include bugfixes for a bunch of things that may or may not have been noticeable - for instance the code that updates the map doesn't run during a screen transition anymore, because scrolling diagonally would sometimes register rooms you hadn't been in yet thanks to the camera briefly being inside them. There's dozens of little issues like that.

There's also some "for the future" systems that are necessary for things I wanna add later, but has no discernible effects yet - like trapping the player in a level until they beat it, which will be needed for future story events.

Other things in the works are new uses for collectibles: you can hand in Shiny Wings to a collector for benefits, you can upgrade your scarf to fit more accessories, Tippy's storage is actually implemented and you can repair equipment before it breaks. (I know breakable weapons is a very contentious mechanic but there's still way too little stuff you actually need to SPEND gold on and without it, it was almost impossible to not literally end up having more gold than you could spend)

Most of the level design work has gone to the Burger Nexus itself - in the current demo the Nugget Mines area just ends at the "not done yet" barrier, I've been toiling away at fleshing it out into a real hub area with several level entrances.

There's also a large social area, the Wild Burger Saloon. I wrote about 600 total lines of dialog for this place! Thankfully you don't need to read it all at once. The area's story starts off as the standard wild west "cowboys vs natives" stuff that got old a century ago, but with some unexpected twists that may or may not be a commentary on contemporary working conditions, and the impact of marketing...

(Also there's tons of birds. Wouldn't be Nugget Mines without chickens, right?)

Having references to alcohol is crossing a line and I'm still mentally debating just how many of them I want to cross - there's already a handful of instances of Big Swearing, and some of the darker plot stuff I've got planned involves Big Blood, and of course the game already has jumpscares (as you might've noticed if you ran out of time) but doesn't involve Big Horror. Yet. I don't want to make the game so dark the first few hours comes off as just a facade (the gameplay still is the star of the show!) and I don't consider myself qualified to make a good serious story about real life issues either. But I wanna add a little bit of edge to give the story stakes, and give the player some actually tough decisions to make. Like, being evil actually is a considerably, gamechangingly more beneficial choice, but are you prepared to sacrifice a major character to get that power?

Also, I'm gonna try having more likeable characters going forward - I feel like my cynism is leaking through in my writing too much and everyone's just mean to you for no reason. Please let me know if any dialogue feels out of place!

On a more lighthearted note, there's 4 new enemies just waiting for a chance to say hello! With bullets! I already feel bad about just using Slimes and Balons everywhere in the demo so expect a lot more area-specific enemy types going forward.

Whew, this devlog got WAY longer than expected - I'll try to be less verbose in the future, and hopefully have some actual game content to show off that can speak for itself. Until then, whenever it might be!

Stay flippin', folks!

- Yal