Devlog
The Spirit has been in development by me for at least 4 years now. In fact, it could even be a little longer, at some point I lost track. As an indie developer, when developing an ambitious project that could take years, does that happen to you? The release date is creeping ever closer and there is actually still much left to do.
Polish, Polish, Polish!
I have made android games and apps before with very little success. This will be my first PC title and I have to say I am pumped! I have never felt such dedication from myself to make something I can be proud of! These last 5 months or so I have played the levels over and over at least 10-15 times each, writing pages after pages of notes.
The scary part is I am still finding game breaking issues but I am working as hard as I can to iron these out. I have made loads of progress. These notes contain things even as ridiculous as a patch of grass that must be moved. Or a rock that could look better rotated another 25 degrees. I am polishing as much as I can and fixing any issues that could potentially make the game unpleasant to play. Watching the release of cyberpunk was quite interesting to me. I don’t think I have ever seen a game ship with so many issues before. But is still sold millions! I honestly couldn’t believe it. The game was ambitious. It still looks like a brilliant game, but lets face it, I don’t think it was quite ready yet. When I make a build and start playing through again, I find myself sitting back in my chair and thinking to myself, “Damn that looks good!”. But I still find issues that just cant be there in the release version.
Deadline:
My brain is swirling with things I still need to do or need to find the time to add as soon as I can. There are still loads of things to sort out and fix. I hate to say it but I am not sure I will be done by the indicated release date on the steam page. I am considering delaying ever so slightly because I want the game to be the best it can considering it is a one man show. And I really hope that eager players will be willing to forgive me! But lets first see if that happens.
Latest Build:
I have decided to focus a few weeks on adding extra quests in game. Quests are a good way to earn extra loot and XP for your character and is the fastest way to level up and become stronger.
Added:
- Added EXP increment when completing quests.
- Added 2 new creatures. The Swarm insect and the swarm roach.
- Added more dialogue branches to the character dialogs.
- Added 1 new healing spell(Heals player and party).
- Improved the level details in the scenes(fauna and flora).
- Added a new weapon – Bone Dagger.
- Added a new mini boss – the Giant Bat.
- Added new music tracks to the game.
Nerfed:
- Improved collision on Ice rain attack.
- Improved collision on troll monster causing the player to lift off the ground
- Fixed bug where ambient sound effects are not affected by the menu options.
- Changed damage rate on all enemies.
- Improved sound effects on enemies.
- Added slight motion blur and bloom effects to the scenes.
- Fixed numerous issues that caused the player not to be able to progress.
- Fixed collision issues on the levels causing player to get stuck.
- Added code for the player to resume the last level, keeping all their items and keep track if EXP, health, mana etc.
- Smoothed out edges of the maps to improve the overall “look” of the levels.
- Fixed the enemy AI that cause them not to attack party members.
- Because of the enemy AI issue above, I had to fix an issue which caused enemy packs not to activate correctly and attack NPC characters.(This had me up for many nights... Aaaarg!)
Wishlists:
Thank you so much to everyone starting to add the game to their wishlist. I am loving the support and I must say, it is quite motivating seeing this. I just want the game to be even better for all of you. Thank you so much for the support. I will do my best not to disappoint!
Achievements:
My plan is also to add steam achievements in the game if at all possible. But this will surely cause me to have to delay the game. Will it be worth it? Probably. I know there are millions of achievement hunters out there. I might only add the achievements on the first update after the release.
Conclusion:
I will be working hard this week to try and impress all of you. I promise I will do another dev update before the release, just to give you all an indication of where we are at it the dev cycle. This week, I will still be focusing on side quests and polishing them up nicely! Until the next update, please consider adding The Spirit to your wishlist and follow us on twitter or Instagram.
Rob
