Status
I'm certainly not dead.
I've made plenty of progress on Therium-2, but because of school, I've been a bit stripped on time. Luckily I only have a week of work left before I can start working on the game again.
That's not to say I haven't made progress: the B path's levels are almost entirely complete. The only thing I need to finish for the B path is some dialogue, notes and the ending's cutscenes. So far, the B path is my absolute favorite level path.
The A path needs about two or three levels to be completed, and I still need to figure out the details of the ending. The C path has five levels I need to complete, and I've yet to begin in-engine development on the D path.
Story Development
An interesting point of development for the storyline was actually brought up when I was discussing the B path ending with some other people in the team (by the way, we're actually a team, isn't that weird?). The B path ending is so good that it outshines every single other path's ending. It results in the B path being a quintessential 'true' ending, while the others are just 'bad' endings.
Right now I'm working on making all the endings as unique and satisfying as the B path's. Of course, I'm so happy with the B path's ending that it's going to be difficult to make the other endings as satisfying. Once I'm done revising all of the endings, they'll hopefully be as good (or by a slim chance, better) then the B path's ending.
I'm also working on an early version of Therium-2's trailer. I want the trailer to be as polished and good as I can within time of release, so I might as well start working on it now. I'll release the trailer once I announce the release & download date of Therium-2.
The Therium-2 Dev Team
I also mentioned in this article that I have a dev team for Therium-2. I have enough people helping me with beta testing, feedback, etc to actually consider this a team. I'm still the main 'Director' and I make all the levels, but I actually have a team. Isn't that cool?
We have three beta testers, three people making/helping with scripts (including me), an assistant writer and a modeller (Rolands). Rolands is a more recent addition, but they've been making some good custom assets for Therium-2. Below is a model they did a little while back: an ancient stone rabbit statue, along with a robed version.
Though it might seem like they're in religious poses, the 'praying' motion of meeting two hands together actually just means a general 'luck and prosperity be upon you' gesture in the ancient civilization's society. The ancient civilization explored & colonized the Therium hundreds of years before the events of Therium-2, so the only legible notes that you can find will be decrepit and torn. Most of the Ancient sites you'll visit will tell the story of their downfall thru enviromental storytelling and few, confusing notes.
It's important to get the Ancient sites right, since nearly half the game is spent in ruins like these. Hopefully the tale of Ancients will be interesting to you guys.
You can find the Steam group for the Therium-2 dev team here. The group still needs a creative name and an actual logo, but for now it's just T2-Dev.
On the Steam group is a list of all the members, and what they currently are doing. If you want to join T2-Dev, you can contact me at Monolifici@gmail.com or my Steam account (accessible thru T2-Dev's Steam group). As for what you can do to help development, you can see a list of what I need help with here.
Is there an actual story to Thereium-2? One that makes real sense? I get the feeling the game is like an LSD trip rather than a sensible storyline I can follow. We go from a dream to a park to a prison to escape and then we are... where? Very confusing. Do we ever find Ghost's/Amos' sister? Is there actually a happy ending or is it just pointless venture no matter what you do in the game?