Hi all, it's been a while since the last devlog, but that doesn't mean the project has been sitting idle!

Since then I have decided to not release minor update patches to the demo to get feedback on smaller segments. Instead I've chosen to finish the whole of continent 2 so that the game can begin the Early Access stage. We'll dive into the details deeper below!

Steam Integration

For one, since the game will move to an Early Access build, I've decided to wrap up the Steam integration of the game and to connect to the API. The build was reviewed and is ready for publishing, but I'll be delaying it until I've finished polishing and balancing the content that's currently available. Since we are integrated with Steam, that comes with some benefits!

Cloud Save

Your save files will be available in the cloud, meaning that you can switch PC without any issue (or switch to the Steam Deck for example - this is playable!).

Steam Achievements

A fun little addition to the game is that I've inserted an initial batch of achievements! Who doesn't like collecting a few trophies right? At the time of writing there will be 28 achievements at launch.

DLC

The game is free and will remain that way - but for those who are interested in seeing more of the project and would like to support the development, there will be a 5$ founder's pack that will grant you a few cosmetics! To the players that downloaded the game and joined our Discord - you will get a founder pack for free as a token of gratitude for trying out the game!

Gameplay

Last time we discussed the 5th boss being added to the pool. Since continent 2 is currently feature-complete, that means we currently have 8 bosses available, as well as their minions! As with the rest of the monsters in the game, I want to of course extend my thanks to the resources available on Itch, since most assets in the game come from this place!

The Enraged Wildlife

A collection of monsters, mixed with bears, wolves and wasps! Their leader being the fierce Nature Golem. These will be your introduction to the new continent.  (Thanks to Craftpix for the animals, and @LuizMelo for the nature golem! )

The Undead

The undead is a collection of varied zombies, being lead by the Plaguebearer. A necromancer responsible for destroying a village and raising their villagers back from the dead using a deadly plague as its weapon. (Thanks to @unTied Games for the zombies, and @LuizMelo for the plaguebearer! )

The cultists

The cultists are a group of people that live inside the sewers of the city. They fight in absolute darkness and are lead The Black Veil, a blind monster that lives in the depths of the sewer and is known for ripping its food apart. (Thanks to @Clembod for the cultists, and @LuizMelo for The Black Veil! )

The golems

Last but not least we have the golems. They are being lead by the Juggernaut, which will be the final battle that you'll face inside of continent 2. (Thanks to @Admurin for the golem skins, and @LuizMelo for the Juggernaut! )

New Abilities

A new continent of course means that the attunement chamber will be expanded with more swappable skills! I won't list all of them here but expect a decent amount to start off with. Notably a new category will be available: defensives.

This category will allow you to swap out the skin of your shield ability! For now this is a cosmetic change, but this will change in the near future.

Equipment

Of course with the introduction of the new skills such as smithing, the pool of available equipment has been expanded vastly. Compared to the tech demo it has just about quadrupled to be exact. The number will still increase before release of Early Access.

New equipment means that a few new stats will be available to increase as well:

- Dodge Chance
- Raw Damage Multi%
- Drop Chance
- Pet Drop Chance

Besides new equipment you will find an array of new outfits and auras to unlock for your customization purposes!

Vials

New stats also means new alchemy vials! You'll be getting quite a lot more than the initial 4 that were available during the demo! What their new stat boosts will be however is for you to find out. Legend says that a legendary vial is also available to those that are lucky enough to find its fruit in the overworld...

Farming

To accomodate for the new vials, we also had to increase the amount of seeds and flowers you could collect. Throughout continent 2 you will be picking these up as random drops from monsters! Since you'll be planting a lot more plants, the usual 6 farming spots available at your house were no longer adequate, so this has now been expanded. At certain milestones in the game you will unlock more farming plots!

As a result you will be finding a lot more diversity in your garden!

(Is that a new boss skin we can spot over there?)

Housing

For those with a keen eye, you will notice something different above. That's right - more islands! As with the farming expansion, you will also unlock more islands to build on as you progress the game! In addition to this you will have a lot more decorations to play with so you can build things to your hearts content!

Along with this, the building mode has also been revamped. It now scales nicely to your monitor and some hotkeys were added for comfort. Pressing spacebar now places the selected object at your cursor instead of the middle of the screen. You can also cycle with your movement keys. Finally, pressing G will recover all placed objects back into your inventory for a quick clean-up.

Glyphs

A new mechanic being introduced into the game is glyphs! 

You will notice inside the attunement chamber that there are now red glyphs on the floor. Each glyph corelates to a glyph that can be found in the overworld! If you find it there, it will be unlocked inside of the attunement chamber and you will permanently receive the passive bonus that that glyph holds! Glyphs are very hidden though and won't be easy to spot, you'll have to go explore the world to find them! They can only be found in peaceful areas, so not in combat areas with monsters!

An example would be as such:

Naturally I won't spoil any of their locations however, have fun on your hunt!

Slayer

As this release will introduce proper skills into the mix, another skill will be available to you, that being slayer. Slayer is not a skill you will be actively working on, but rather passive as you fight monsters! Each monster kill will reward you some slayer XP, with more slayer XP the more difficult the monsters gets of course. The slayer master will also grant you access to your very own slayer totem. A relic that can be placed at your home and interacted with to get slayer tasks! These tasks will assign a certain amount of kills that you must get of a certain type. Completing these tasks will upgrade the totem and award some slayer XP! The totem grants passive combat stats and will upgrade your very own slayer outfit!

As a fun twist, your task can also be boss kills!

The slayer pillar isn't the only piece of kit that you can unlock from the skill. At level 10 you will unlock access to boss pillars. Each boss will have a unique pillar that you unlock once you've slayed the boss 10 times after reaching slayer level 10. You can place this pillar at your home island and use it as a quick teleport to the boss. It also tracks the total amount of kills you've gotten!

Technical improvements

Some minor improvements that do provide large QoL changes for me that aren't worth writing too much about but will speed up development process:

- Scripts have been written to provide base files for new outfits in batches, so I can add new outfits more quickly. (There are about 10 new outfits for you to grind out in this Early Access build)
- The manual player jump platforms have been removed and automated jump points have been added. This vastly improves the flow of certain areas, including the second boss, where you would often find yourself stuck because of bad boundary detection. 

When Is It Coming Out?

While the new continent is now feature-complete, I still have a list of open tasks to go through. This ranges from reworks to balancing. I will also be going back to continent 1 to make sure the old content feels a bit more up-to-scratch, so continent 2 doesn't feel like too much of a quality difference. Especially maps are being remade. I also still have a backlog open for more skilling content for the mining, smithing, woodcutting and fishing skills. I will be filling out their rewards until level 30 and cap the skill off at that point for Early Access. I will gradually increase the level cap as the game progresses.

I also am working on a heavy piece of content that you can consider an endgame grind for the end of your playthrough. This is currently in a testing phase and I will provide more info when the details are more clear.

As it stands I'm planning a release of this build early summer 2024, I'm thinking July somewhere.

Closing Points

I've decided to wipe the player save files when we will transition to Early Access. Too much has changed under the hood, and even though the legacy save files would still work, I feel like so much has changed that the player is better off starting from scratch once again. This will also make getting the achievements more fun. 

The tech demo will remain on the Itch page, but is considered legacy from this point on. Nothing from that game version will carry over to the new version.

Any Teasers?

If the above wasn't enough for you - I've decided to record some gameplay to be able to show off externally to give an idea of what the game is. For this gameplay clip I've chosen to record the final boss fight (boss 8). While it may change a bit more mechanics-wise, it gives a good idea of how fast the gameplay is. 

Be warned, spoilers ahead! Do not watch this video if you want the experience the boss fresh for yourself

That's it! As you can tell a lot has been going on for the past few months and I will continue working on the Early Access build to hopefully get some decent feedback through Steam. Thanks for the read, feel free to join the Discord to discuss!