Hello to the New Year/What's to come!

LokiCastle here,

2025 is here. which means it's time to get back to working. 

This post will show off my road map for 2025 and the next few months in general 

Quick footnote,

Let's start off with a simple injection. The last few weeks have been extremely feverish. I've had little time to work on my RPG/other projects. The reason for my lack of time pertains to my settling-in period. In other words, moving and getting back into the groove. My internet is not helping.  I've been working on small projects and small edits to my games until I have my workspace back up and running. Which could be 1 to 2 more weeks. 

Outline

Here is an overview of the outline I use for my development roadmap that all my games follow.

Prototype 

The core aspects of the game are made. (lessons, main engine, etc) General assets are used. I make the actual pathways and events for the game. A fancy outline that I will follow to build the framework of what will one day become a fully fledged game. This phase is categorized as having mostly pre-made assets. depending on the size of the game I will split certain areas into phases calling them Prototype Phase 1, 2, and so on.  A lot of time will be spent in this section to verify that the game runs properly. 

Pre-Alpha

I begin to add graphics and animations. I will revisit the code to verify its integrity. Drastic changes can and will happen in this section. Mostly everything from this version will stay in the final version and is not subject to removal. While testing should be going smoothly. I don't believe that the game is ready for external testing. 

Alpha

At this point, I will have what feels to be a game. While it will have rough edges the game will be in a playable state for the playtesters. There are 15 to 30 minutes of playable finished gameplay at this point with a fully integrated menu. Still, the game isn't ready for the public and needs a lot more polishing before demos can start.

Beta

The game is done. It will still need polish, bug fixes, and small other quality-of-life updates but all in all. The game is ready for release. Any subsequent updates won't add anything big to the game.

Extra

Reevaluation

This requires a significant amount of time to pass. Once the time passes I will replay the game and rebuild the game from the ground up. Fixing old errors and applying better techniques. The earliest possible time to reevaluate a game is a year after its release but should be longer.

Rework

If any time during the development process. I decide to change the core aspects of a project I'm working on. The project will go into the rework phase. this is different from the prototype phase as core ideas can be completely changed in this process from the game engine to genre. 

In-depth January

The start of January 2025 I spent a lot of time working on both my RPG and a Winter VN. Over the month I slowly started to favor the VN due to time constraints and other reasons. 

Horror RPG 

Here is what I was able to accomplish for the Horror RPG. I worked on the skeleton of around 50 maps in the game. I started to add graphics to about three maps. 

One of the three maps

Maze found in level G

I finished a proper outline of the first two bosses giving a revamp to the first boss I also went back to previous areas and gave the dialogue some touch-ups. 

Shop NPCs opening dialogue revamp

Development past this point was small changes here and there. 

Winter VN (Now AG)

Close to the end of the month, I began to finish writing the entire script for the VN. After a few days, I decided to change the direction of the game from a VN to an AG(adventure game). Using the same script I made the first interaction. 

The story still follows the script but gives the player the ability to explore the world more. this is the current prototype. by February I would like this to be in pre-alpha. Nothing else major has been done for this project.

30 Day Art Challenge 

Art is a lifelong hobby/skill. It needs constant challenge and effort to push the limits of what one can be comfortable with. which is why I decided to challenge myself to draw and color 30 Art pieces for 30 days. Once done I will do a long post discussing what I learned, whether was it fun, and whether will I do it again

Here is day three (today) 

Stay tuned for more updates!