Wait, this game isn't done yet?

Yeah trying to do so much stuff at once when I only have a couple hours per day results in slower progress than intended. My intention is to just supercrunch on the Big Plot Thing since that absolutely, positively NEEDS to be in the 0.10 content update, but I've taken a couple detours to add more secrets, work on assets for upcoming stuff, and bugfixing / QoL.

The Really Cool Thing You're All Here For

The Frie boss fight is more or less complete! Some balancing considerations remains (the lightning potion might be a bit too hard to dodge now, and considering how few openings you have to melee her she's got WAY too much HP), and as you can see in the video the arena is still a work in progress, but those things will soon be corrected.

There's a heckton of branching dialogue for both her and Saltman but I find it surprisingly fast to write, and most of it is just spur-of-the-moment stuff. Some of it might change things later but it's mostly just there to make re-reading the dialogue after dying less repetitive. (As you can see the fights are pretty hard even if you're not stupid Yal jumping into attacks all the time, and I'm intentionally trying to make them hard enough that it feels worthwhile stocking up on healing items and better weapons - if you never needed to use those that entire mechanic would just be wasted)

The Slightly Less Cool Thing I Also Promised

The first of Frie's three total levels is completed. Admire statues (with and without traps), solve the first handful of actual puzzles for Carrot Coins, and be on the lookout for the dreaded Witch Slimes - the Witchcraft Workshop has it all. It's even got a toilet!

The second level is where I'm focusing my efforts right now - it's got a lot of cutscenes, and it turned out I needed to make some completely new systems to allow for those to work, like a new type of NPC that can update positions based on story flags (since the game loads the entire level at once I can't just cheat and create/destroy them when you enter a room like in my previous games and I didn't realize this was gonna get in the way of my plans until now).

There were also outright bugs that I needed to fix, like two separate ones related to stages loading improperly. If you ever experienced the level map getting blanked out, I fixed that like 2 hours before writing this devlog.

Finally, the Bread Ruins hub needed some tweaks - when actually getting to explore the part connecting to those two levels it just felt clunky to navigate (I'd made it AGES ago before movement was finalized) so I ended up overhauling that completely, adding bigger platforms and making sure all entryways were easy to get into (and see in the first place, for that matter)

Character Drama

I loved Celine so much she's been promoted to a real character now instead of just being a faceless NPC. Frie's other disciples might also receive a similar treatment in the future out of fairness...

The Part Where Things Get Dark

Pit of Okaris is gonna get expanded to double its original size. Even with a light source, finding the secret area will be difficult. But you're in no rush, right? *whistles innocently* 

The Unimportant Thing I've Been Wasting Time On

Castle Town is the main thing I've been focusing on outside of Frie. I've composed the soundtrack for the first level taking place in this area, which is a huge 5 songs (which really is the same song with 5 different arrangements) because the level has 5 themed areas - or will have when I get around to actually making it, anyway.

There's still a lot of dead, unleveldesigned space since it takes a bit of effort coming up with jokes and fun character ideas so for now I've mostly just blocked out the general flow through the area and plop down characters in random empty spots whenever inspiration strikes. I realized my first few ideas reminded me of Homestuck world names (e.g. Queen of Gems and Eternity) so I'm leaning into that more intentionally now, with characters like Goordon, King of Music and Mucus.

What's Next?

Finishing up the remaining two Frie levels and the Major Important Plot Beat. Ideally I want the first half of Castle Town to be complete including shops (I want there to always be more accessories available for sale than there are carrotcoins for), and I still have one more Bread Ruins secret level to make (all the mechanics it uses are implemented now so it's just the level design bit left).

As I said in the video description, I don't think I'll have the Frie stuff done 'til Halloween, but I'm confident I'll stop myself from overscoping for long enough to have the content update ready before the end of the year! (My targeted full release date is still "before Silksong releases")

Stay flippin', folks!

/Yal