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[Thaumaturge]

Blog post (6th of October, 2020)
"Depictions" Demo Released!

Summary: In which the "depictions" demo has been released, and is available to download!

Greetings and salutations!

The "Depictions" demo is complete, and is available to download! :D



You can get it from either Itch.io or IndieDB, via the following links:

Itch.io: https://thaumaturge-art.itch.io/a-door-to-the-mists-demo
IndieDB: https://www.indiedb.com/games/a-door-to-the-mists/downloads

And to go with it, here is a new trailer:




I hope that you enjoy the demo! Please feel free to leave feedback--I'm interested to know how people find the game! ^_^

That then is all for this post--stay well, and thank you for reading--and for playing, if you do! ^_^

[RealScaniX]

Yay! The new demo arrived!
 
I will check it out when I have time, the changes and new parts look great.

[Thaumaturge]

Thank you very much! :D

There's no hurry, but I'm eager to hear what you think if you do try it! ^_^

[Thaumaturge]

Blog post (12th of October, 2020)
Preparing a Publisher Pitch

Summary: In which a demo has been released; last-minute fixes are implemented beforehand; a short holiday is taken; the saving-and-loading module is made more secure; similar changes are made in the code of the game itself; the saving-and-loading module is made available on GitHub; some post-demo bugs are fixed, including a memory leak; and a pitch-deck is begun.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot comes not from the game itself, but from a work-in-progress pitch document for the game:



As you may know, the biggest news of the week just past is that the "Depictions" Demo was released! It's by no means all that was done, but it was a salient item:

As mentioned above, the new demo was released in the week just past! (And in case you missed it, here's a link to its itch page: https://thaumaturge-art.itch.io/a-door-to-the-mists-demo )

Before doing so, however, I had a few bugs to fix; last-minute things that I discovered only shortly before release. Specifically, level five had no "entrance" object, leaving the player to spawn at the level's centre; one line of text was missing; another had a stray backslash; and the end-of-demo screen wasn't being properly cleaned up, resulting in it overlaying the main menu when exited.

All of those I fixed, I believe. And with all that done, I released the demo! ^_^

Directly after the demo I took a short holiday, about one-and-a-half days long; both rest and celebration. And I'm glad that I did: I recall that it was refreshing, and that I returned to work enthused to go on! ^_^

My first major post-demo task, then, was a piece of technical work that I'd been holding off on. Indeed, something that I'd been a little anxious about, as it had the potential to seriously break things.

It had been pointed out to me, you see, that my saving-and-loading module carried a security risk: because its implementation employed the python functions "eval" and "exec" in places, someone could potentially alter a save-file to cause the game to run arbitrary code.

This had seemed like a difficult problem to solve, and had somewhat daunted me, as I recall. Furthermore, I feared that it might invalidate extant save-files--including my level-files.

But thankfully, the more time passed, the more I discovered how much simpler the fix might be. And indeed, coming to implement it in the week just past, I found that it was actually pretty straightforward for the most part, I'm glad and grateful to say!

Furthermore, it turns out that save files weren't invalidated by the changes (with the partial exception of one file in a side-project): the new implementation happily reads the old files, and indeed, the save-files that it writes are pretty much unchanged! ^_^

With that done, I then uploaded my game-saving module to GitHub (to sit alongside my key-mapping module, and a few other things); perhaps others will find it useful, as I have. ^_^

On a similar note, I went through the the code of A Door to the Mists itself and replaced a number of "exec"/"eval" usages there, too; it likewise should be a little more secure now.

I also fixed two bugs in the post-demo section of the week just past.

The first was fairly trivial: the combat code had an oversight (originating in the switch from Python 2 to Python 3, I think) that resulted in the potential for half-integral damage. This was easily corrected, as I recall.

The second was a little more alarming: feedback on the new demo revealed that quick-loading a saved game after dying in combat resulted in a memory leak!

As it turned out, while the process of loading correctly cleaned up the combat-"world", it was missing the level-"world" that was stored in the background during combat. As a result, the level wasn't cleaned up, and so memory was leaked!

I believe that I have a fix for this in place now. I'm not as confident of it as I might like, but it seems to work!

I'm hoping to soon put out an update to the demo, carrying the above-mentioned fixes. I'm mainly waiting to settle on one remaining question, which may depend on further demo-feedback.

And finally, I began the work shown in the screenshot above. That is, I've begun working on a pitch document for A Door to the Mists, to be used in pitching to indie publishers!

This has been an endeavour that has induced some nervousness, but also some excitement!

It's still a work-in-progress; I have a few sections yet to fill out, at the least, and perhaps more polish to do. (And more pitch-preparations to make thereafter, I believe.)

The process has been greatly aided by the pitch-deck template and pitching how-to that Raw Fury--or more specifically, Johan Toresson of Raw Fury, I believe--released to the public. (You can find those documents here, I believe: Pitch Deck Template ~ How To Pitch to Raw Fury)

Given the nature of the work done in the week just past, I haven't had much to show in this post. Let me leave you, then, with the second video that was made for release with the demo--a short look at the game's new aesthetics in motion:





That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

[Thaumaturge]

Blog post (19th of October, 2020)
Pitching and Scrolling

Summary: In which the pitch deck continues to see work; the pitch email is begun; bug-fixes are made; the level-five upper-puzzle gains some "nudges"; and mouse-wheel scrolling is better-supported.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows another look at the pitch-deck that I've been working on:



As you may imagine, much of the work of the week just past was given to preparations for making a publisher pitch, I believe. Still, a few other things were done too!

To start with, the pitch.

As shown above, I continued work on the pitch-deck in the week just past. Part of this was simply continuing to fill out its content--a process that I think that I have all but done; I have just a few small changes remaining in mind. But another part was reworking the look and feel of the thing: having encountered further examples of pitch decks, I came to feel that what I had was a little insipid. I thus reworked it, and I think that it's improved for it!

In addition to that, I began work on the pitch email, the message intended to carry and accompany the pitch deck. It essentially provides a brief introduction to the game, a link to the demo, and mention of what aid I'm asking for.

This isn't yet quite done, but I think that I've made good progress!

(One tricky thing that I discovered only last night is that my email provider may stop messages that are too large. As a result of this, I intend to rework the message to use externally-linked images, rather than included in the message, and to link to the pitch deck rather than attach it. This is perhaps not ideal--it's two more steps during which a publisher could decide to not bother--but it seems like the best approach under the circumstances.)

But not all work of the week just past was given to the pitch. The game itself saw some progress, too!

Some of the things done were fairly minor bug-fixes: The key-mapper wasn't binding the minus-key or the mouse scroll-wheel; and in level one the shelf from which the goal-book is taken retained its action-icon after that taking. These, I believe, are fixed!

Perhaps more interesting, I've added a few "nudges" to the upper puzzle of level five.

A piece of feedback indicated that this puzzle was still a little obtuse in its immediate goal, and that perhaps worse, it wasn't clear enough that there was another way of solving it than brute-forcing.

For the first point there, I've extended a character-thought to explicitly mention what the player is searching for.

And for the second, I've implemented a bit of logic that should hopefully detect the player searching close by their most recent successful search, and suggest looking for some other method.

And finally, I finally discovered a solution to a UI issue that's been plaguing the game.

A few people have mentioned that it would be convenient to be able to scroll menus via the mouse-wheel. And I've agreed--that would be a very useful feature!

Unfortunately, Panda3D's GUI system--DirectGUI--makes that somewhat awkward, at least with menus of some complexity.

For a while now I've been uncertain of how I might approach the matter, and slightly worried that the only solution was to manually bind events on every element of the relevant menus.

But in the week just past a solution came to me. In short, I circumvent the GUI system somewhat: I collect mouse-wheel events, then manually check which scrollable-area--if any--the mouse is over. (These areas being manually nominated in my menus.) If one is found, it's scrolled in code.

Having implemented this--with aid from the Panda forum--it seems to work! ^_^



As I believe that I mentioned previously, I'm hoping to update the demo soon, carrying these various post-release changes that I've made. Indeed, I want to do so before sending out my pitch, and perhaps even this week!

That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

[Thaumaturge]

Blog post (26th of October, 2020)
Stone-piled Walls

Summary: In which the demo is polished; a new demo-version is uploaded and available; the pitch -deck and -email are worked on; the first pitch is sent out; and a new level is begun.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows the bare start of a new level:



The week just past had, in a way, two parts: The first was concerned primarily with updating the demo, preparing my publisher-pitch, and then--sending out said pitch! The second, once the pitch was done, was concerned primarily with what's shown above: the building of a new level.

As mentioned above, part of the first section of the week just past was given to updating the demo.

In terms of actual changes, I added a bit of clarity to the tutorial arrow that can appear in the prologue, that points towards the enemy found there. Feedback had indicated that the purpose of this arrow might not have been as clear as I might have liked. So I added a small explanatory note, and furthermore shifted the arrow's base down a little, away from the centre of the player's view.



And with the demo-polish done, I built a new version--now marked as version 1.9.2--and uploaded it! You can get it from the same places as before:
Itch.io ~ IndieDB

I also continued work on my pitch-deck and pitch-email in the week just past. Indeed, I finished both at last! They proved tricky, in part perhaps due to my being inexperienced in making them.

But finish them I did, and indeed, I sent off my first pitch, too! I am both excited and nervous to hear back from the publisher in question! ^^;

And with that done, I moved into the second section of the week just past: that which was given to work on a new level.

This level is, refreshingly, not composed of orange sandstone! Instead, it's set beyond Tenereth, out in open grassland, and takes place in a grey-stone round-house, the abandoned home of a magic-worker.

It's another small level--but perhaps not quite as small as it appears on first entry...

As is my practice ahead of a new level, I began by sitting down and writing a draft covering the events and a description of the level. This went fairly well and smoothly, I think, and I believe that I have much of it set down!

With that done, I moved on to building the thing itself.

I took a few attempts at building those piled-stone walls: Knowing them to be fairly lumpy things, and knowing the level to be pretty small, I thought at first to build them up with geometry, rather than a flat surface only given depth by normal-mapping. I made a few stone models, and set about placing them--but this proved rather slow and tiresome. So I looked into placing them automatically. After a few mis-steps--such as in the screenshot below--I got this working. But I wasn't happy with the result.



In the end, I partially abandoned the idea of building the walls so. Instead, I painted a new normal-map for them, and made a new colour-texture from one of my base textures. But I didn't leave the wall entirely flat: instead, I used a height-map, subdivision, and a displacement modifier to knurl the walls somewhat, giving them a bit of geometric depth along with the normal-mapped shaping. The result isn't perfect, but it works, I think!



And finally, the data- and script- files for the level also saw a little work: the script was emptied out, having previously been the end-of-demo script, and the basics of the level data-file were put in place.

That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

[Thaumaturge]

Blog post (2nd of November, 2020)
Grass, My Ancient Enemy

Summary: In which work on the new level continues; door- and window- frames are made; as is a ceiling, roof, and floor; and surrounding grass is in progress.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows progress on the level shown in last week's blog-post:



Indeed, it was work on that level which occupied the week just past:

The modelling of the walls was one of the trickier parts of this work--specifically, in those places where a door or a window caused the exterior to meet the interior. In those places, the UV mapping resulted in a sudden flipping of normal-map directions, and thus an unsightly seam.

So in the week just past I set about fixing this. It took a few attempts to get right, as I recall, but what I ended up doing was as follows: the window- and door- frames are now separate objects, carefully UV-mapped and embedded into the walls. Being of limited scope and constructed piecemeal, they can simply follow a single line of stones down the texture-map, and thus avoid having to "flip" at any point. Their edges where they meet the walls are then blackened, to give an impression similar to the dark gaps present between stones in the texture-map.

The effect isn't perfect, but I think that it works!




Beyond that, I've set in place the floor, ceiling, and roof. The first of those uses new colour- and normal-map- textures based on pre-existing ones, while the latter two use a set of entirely new textures. The ceiling furthermore has some little geometric "twigs" sticking out of it, to make it seem less flat.

I'll confess that the roof gave me a little trouble, specifically in getting that fringe of twigs to look right! Nevertheless, I'm fairly happy with the result, I believe.

And finally, I started work on the grassland that surrounds the building.

As before, grass is my nemesis of old, and while an uneasy peace had for some time held, our conflict has surged anew.



To be specific, while the nearby grass succumbed with little trouble--it's largely copy-pasted from level one--the distant grass is proving difficult. Several attempts were made to conquer that grass, as yet unsuccessful--but I believe that I have a new tactic in mind which may at last overthrow it...

And along the way, I made a few additional shader-variants, including a "sunlight" version of the extant player-light "decal" shader. I'm not sure of whether I ended up using any of them as of time of writing, but they may well prove useful eventually anyway--that "decal" shader especially!

That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

[Thaumaturge]

Blog post (9th of November, 2020)
Looking to the Distant Horizon

Summary: In which level-building continues; a surrounding view is (likely) done; interior furnishings are made; a minor collision issue is fixed; and a level-exit is added.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows a view out to the distant horizon of the new level, level six. Far in the distance are a line of mountains; to the right of that the green grassland fades to yellow, and amidst this stands the city of Tenereth, from which our protagonist most recently came.



Once again, the week just past was given primarily to the building of level six:

And the biggest portion of that level-building went into the level's surrounding view.

Where such a view was included in previous levels--those being the prologue and level one--a significant portion of the view was separate from the geometry that immediately surrounded the level. Specifically, it was composed of a sort of vertically-rising ring around the level, vertex-painted to represent the various features of the view. This worked well enough in those levels, I feel.

And indeed, I intended to do the same for this level--you can see the all-but-raw version of it as a grey surrounding "wall" in the screenshots of last week's blog post.

However, I found that in this case it was a little awkward to make it quite match up with the nearer geometry.

So I dropped it: in this level, all of the view is included in that nearer geometry.

Doing so did incur some tricky bits; and indeed, I ended up extending the relevant shaders somewhat, and making a separate variation in one case.

And I believe that it works! Despite the view-geometry only really extending a little way, it now appears, I feel, to stretch to the edge of the world, fading into the distant haze. ^_^

In the first screenshot above we see the view in one direction; here then is the view in another, showing the land rising into low hills:



With the view pretty much done, I think, I moved on to the interior of the little building that is the main of this area.

The furnishings here are very simple: just a straightforward table, and a set of basic shelves. The table holds little of great interest. The shelves... well, don't hold much of interest yet.

(That said, I didn't say that said furnishings are all that this area will contain... )

This work is largely done, I think, save for a few touch-ups, and for the contents of those shelves.



I also discovered and fixed an issue with the floor-collider of the building--collision geometry and scaling factors don't mix well (in this physics engine, at least)!

And finally, I've added a start to the exit-object for the level. This takes the form of a cylinder surrounding the central building, and both allows the player to leave for the next level and prevents them from wandering into the surrounding grassland. None of the specific logic for this exit is yet in place, but the thing itself is there.

That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

[ldmn]

Greets Thaumaturge!

Congrats, hope ur proggy will be successful in every way. Very appealing, compelling.
This is indeed wizardry at archmage level, methinks, to do sg 3D nice & working without any Unity/Unreal thingy.
If you have some time could you summarize why u have chosen these tools? Was it a wise decision, would u recommend your Panda3d/python combo?

Strange, that no comments arrived yet at itch.io.

Thanx, bye.

[Thaumaturge]

Greets Thaumaturge!

Greetings to you too! ^_^

Congrats, hope ur proggy will be successful in every way. Very appealing, compelling.
This is indeed wizardry at archmage level, methinks, to do sg 3D nice & working without any Unity/Unreal thingy.

Thank you indeed! Those are quite the compliments! ^_^

Although make no mistake: Panda3D is helping a lot, just as Unity or Unreal might. It's more code-focussed than I believe those other two are, but it is still doing the work of a game engine!

If you have some time could you summarize why u have chosen these tools?

To a large degree, it's because Panda-with-Python is what I'm familiar with: I've been using it for quite a long time now, and am comfortable with it, and have experience in using it.

I could pick up another engine, but of course that incurs a learning curve.

As to why I originally chose Panda3D--long before I started work on A Door to the Mists--If I recall correctly it was in part because it has a very permissive and open licence, and in part because Python seemed like a decent language, and in part because the engine seemed capable of what I wanted to do at the time.

Was it a wise decision, would u recommend your Panda3d/python combo?

Was it wise? Hmm... I don't know. I don't know how things might have turned out with a different engine, after all.

I suspect that there would have been ups and downs with another engine as with this one. Further, some things may have been easier, and some things may have been harder.

As to whether I'd recommend it, let me say this: Panda3D is an engine that leans towards the code side of development. It doesn't offer handy editors, or visual scripting, or anything like that. Conversely, it's rather powerful and flexible, I find.

So I might say to a developer interested in Panda3D: Whether Panda would be a good choice for a given developer likely depends somewhat on how they want to develop. Perhaps download the engine--it's free, after all--and give it a try. See whether it seems to fit your development style. If so, try building a small game with it. If it still feels good, then perhaps stick with it. (Depending, perhaps, on how your experience of it compares with your experience of other engines.)

It might be worth once again pointing out the licence, which is particularly permissive.

Strange, that no comments arrived yet at itch.io.

Discoverability is a tricky thing, I fear: not many people have found A Door to the Mists, and in general only a small percentage of those who play a game comment on it, if I'm not much mistaken. As a result, I likely have too few players right now for it to be likely that one will comment!

[vdapps]

Regarding itch.io and comments: AFAIK, itch.io is not very rewarding regarding feedback. There's ton of crap (one make HTML page with circle and line and voila, you can publish the game and you're in news with same priority as your 3 years crafted game).

You have lot of people publishing there crap, and you have lot of people just downloading and not leaving feedback. But somehow itch.io is like almost must for any indie dev. So I take it like itch.io page, checked, and that's it.. one should not be disturbed if there's weak response.

[Thaumaturge]

Itch is really useful in that it provides a place in which one can easily host a game, with a fairly-attractive page, and which has at least some respectability to it. (Considerably more respectability than a Dropbox link or the like, at least!)

But indeed, discoverability is a problem, especially if one isn't already established.

(Not that it isn't a problem on Steam too, come to that!)

For the most part I am indeed trying to not let it worry me! ^_^

... and you have lot of people just downloading and not leaving feedback.

I don't think that this is specific to itch.io--my understanding is that this is normal player behaviour. In general, only a small percentage of players are motivated to give feedback. (And indeed, I think that it's normal behaviour for users in general, too, not just players of video-games.)

[Thaumaturge]

Blog post (16th of November, 2020)
Adding a Bug

Summary: In which a table and its contents are completed; shelves gain contents; inventory-item bones are made; a collectible glass jar holding a small creature is made; shader-work is done; the inventory's handling of shaders and of draw-ordering is extended; and one collectible is made to appear as two entries.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows the contents of a shelf:



The week just past was primarily a week of decor, of acquirable things, and of shader-work:

In last week's blog-post I showed a table under a window. In the week just past I finished off that table: I improved the stains, enlarged the paper-scraps, changed the texture used on many of those scraps, and rounded the pegs that hold the table-legs, as I recall.



But perhaps the biggest part of the work of the week just past was that related to contents of the shelving beside the table.

Those shelves don't have much on them, just a few items--albeit perhaps slightly more than is shown in the screenshot above.

Nearest the viewer in that screenshot are two small bones--the sort of things that a magic-worker might use. These can be taken, becoming inventory items, used to--ah, but that would be telling! (And indeed, I may become a little more cautious about spoilers from this point on!)

The bones were fairly straightforward to make, as I recall, albeit that they did end up getting a custom set of textures.



Further down the shelf can be seen a large glass jar, closed by a string-tied cloth. Inside--perhaps not very visible in the screenshot--is a small creature, a bug rather like a spider or a crab, quite dead.

This jar is a collectible, and implementing it took a little bit of work.

The making of the jar itself wasn't too difficult--it's a modified version of a jar used in a previous level. I did have to make a new version of the glass shader, one specific to sunlight rather than the player-light, but I don't think that this proved too troublesome.

The creature was a little trickier, both in modelling and texturing, but I think that I brought it to a point at which I'm satisfied with it.

However, the use of a custom glass shader did nevertheless present a problem: the inventory system had its own lighting, and had only simplistic support for custom shaders. Thus the sunlight version of the glass-shader wouldn't work, and the inventory system didn't know how to look for an inventory-specific shader.

So I attended to both of those issues: I created an inventory-specific glass-shader, and I extended the logic of the inventory system to allow it to check for such a thing.

But there was also an issue with the draw-ordering of the jar: it has multiple parts, set to render in a specific order. Leaving that out resulted in a less-effective impression of glass, and leaving it in interfered with either the collectible close-up or the popup that appears on acquisition.

For the collectible close-up, I added some code to find and translate draw-order states such that--within certain bounds--they fit with the expected draw-ordering of the inventory. (And increased the draw-order of the frame around the close-up to make "space" for this, if I recall correctly.)

For the popup, a simple enforced draw-order applied to the controlling node prevents any item-specific draw-orderings from taking effect. This means that its rendering won't be quite right in such cases--but it's sufficiently small and ephemeral that this shouldn't be a major problem, I feel.

(I also slightly decreased the scale of items in the collectible close-up, so that some of the broader ones--like the glass jar--feel less cramped.)



I did have one more issue with this collectible, however: the creature within the jar is intended to be part of what's interesting about the item, but being so small, it was hard to see even in the close-up.

So what I decided was this: when taken, this particular collectible not only adds the jar to the player's collection, but also separately adds the creature alone. This allows for both the jar and the creature to be easily viewed.

Doing this called for a little custom logic, but nothing too tricky at all, I believe!

And along the way, I made a few other changes, additions, and tweaks that don't seem worth detailing here! (Including the addition of an "entrance" object to the level.)

That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

[ldmn]

Uhhh, that is indie-spirit, at least what I assume so (or I am oldish) :
Even having energy for full devlogs, besides the development. I hope it's gonna worth it!

Also thanx very much for the thorough answers. Just wondering that is it normal indie-practice to work for years on a proggy, and then at the end see if it will be discovered, sold well at all?

Besides itch, perhaps Kickstarter would enhance your promoting chances, no?

[vdapps]

Itch is really useful in that it provides a place in which one can easily host a game, with a fairly-attractive page, and which has at least some respectability to it. (Considerably more respectability than a Dropbox link or the like, at least!)

But indeed, discoverability is a problem, especially if one isn't already established.

(Not that it isn't a problem on Steam too, come to that!)

For the most part I am indeed trying to not let it worry me! ^_^

... and you have lot of people just downloading and not leaving feedback.

I don't think that this is specific to itch.io--my understanding is that this is normal player behaviour. In general, only a small percentage of players are motivated to give feedback. (And indeed, I think that it's normal behaviour for users in general, too, not just players of video-games.)

Hmm, doesn't necessarily be like that. I tried Universe Quiz (free version) on itch.io and it received worse feedback (exactly zero) than later paid version on Steam. Free demo version of Universe Quiz on Microsoft Store has perfect feedback (around 260 reviews and counting without moving a finger). I think, on itch.io things are exacerbated by way more low-quality content with which platform is literally flooded (on MS store you have at least minimal quality control by submissions, on Steam one had to pay 100$ exactly to prevent releasing lot of crap).

But yes, only small percentage of users give feedback (it's not specific to itch) plus itch provides nice infrastructure to place your game or demo there.

And nice update! I like the tranquility and 'no rush' feeling from the game. In fact, I can feel traversal, exploration and puzzles. You say it's also combat. Will it be real-time, first person view combat ? Imagining 'combat' is somehow contradicting this 'no rush' feeling I have from game. I guess, it will be just occassional?

[Thaumaturge]

Hmm, doesn't necessarily be like that. I tried Universe Quiz (free version) on itch.io and it received worse feedback (exactly zero) than later paid version on Steam. Free demo version of Universe Quiz on Microsoft Store has perfect feedback (around 260 reviews and counting without moving a finger). I think, on itch.io things are exacerbated by way more low-quality content with which platform is literally flooded (on MS store you have at least minimal quality control by submissions, on Steam one had to pay 100$ exactly to prevent releasing lot of crap).

Perhaps--but the fact that two of those versions were free might have an effect, too: free software may sometimes be dismissed more quickly than paid software.

Now, you note that the MS Store version received good feedback despite being free--but that, as you pointed out, is a much more curated store than either itch or Steam, I imagine. Thus users have less to sift through, so perhaps becoming more likely to give time and consideration to any one item, and the presence of curation might somewhat counteract the impression of "free" meaning "shovelware".

All that said, I wouldn't be surprised if there were more of a problem on itch, indeed.

And nice update! I like the tranquility and 'no rush' feeling from the game. In fact, I can feel traversal, exploration and puzzles.

Thank you very much, on all counts! ^_^

You say it's also combat. Will it be real-time, first person view combat ? Imagining 'combat' is somehow contradicting this 'no rush' feeling I have from game. I guess, it will be just occassional?

The combat is real-time, but third-person. While it is arguably faster-paced than the main gameplay, it's not exactly a hack-and-slash affair, either--it's a matter of choosing when and how to attack, and calls perhaps for some cunning.

That said, for those who dislike it, there are options available to make it easier--or even to have the computer handle it entirely!

You can see a brief clip of the combat in the demo-trailer, here:




(There are other videos on my channel that show it more completely, but they're fairly old now, and I don't recall offhand how much has changed in the combat mechanic since they were posted! ^^; )

[Thaumaturge]

Uhhh, that is indie-spirit, at least what I assume so (or I am oldish) :
Even having energy for full devlogs, besides the development. I hope it's gonna worth it!

Ah, I missed this post previously--sorry about that!

And indeed, thank you for the hope, and I hope so too! ^_^

Also thanx very much for the thorough answers. Just wondering that is it normal indie-practice to work for years on a proggy, and then at the end see if it will be discovered, sold well at all?

I honestly don't know what is usual amongst other developers.

(Save that of course one tends to only find out whether a game sells once it's on the market, I suppose.)

Besides itch, perhaps Kickstarter would enhance your promoting chances, no?

I did consider crowdfunding at one point, but there are a few problems with it, from what I've picked up:

 - It seems to work best when you already have an audience; I think that I've read that it's not a good way of finding an audience if you enter with little to build from.
 - There are some legalities and tax implications that might make crowdfunding awkward from the country in which I live. Not impossible, perhaps, but awkward.
 - Crowdfunding is a lot of work, on top of actual development (or in place of it, should one choose to set aside development during the campaign).

[Thaumaturge]

Blog post (23rd of November, 2020)
A Room with a View

Summary: In which a refuse-heap is added; a new room is constructed; that room's contents are drawn--mostly modified--from previous levels; the room's structure is edited as called for; an exit is added; the room's surrounding view is begun; and there's something odd about said new room.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows a new room; a bedroom in this case:



The week just past was once again primarily a level-building week:

To start with, I finished off the room that I've shown in the previous few blog-posts. This involved simply the creation of a small refuse-heap against the outside of its wall; said heap is largely mulch, with a few miscellaneous items scattered within.



With that done, I moved on to the second room of level six. This one is a bedroom, and holds a bed, a table, a chest, and some carpets.

Each of these items comes, to one degree or another, from a model previously made: The table is unchanged from its use in level one; the bed is a modified version of the beds seen in level two; the carpets are likewise drawn and modified from level two; and the chest is a modified version of a chest found in level one.

The table holds a few small items: a mirror--modified from the collectible mirror that can be acquired in level one--a broken comb, and a curved shard of glass.

The chest is locked--and unpickable--but a key for it may be found. It's empty for the moment, but I intend to change that in due course.

The bed looks comfy to our protagonist, and indeed, an interaction has been added to allow the player to briefly sit, then lie upon it.



The structure of this room differs a little bit from that of the previous--you may notice in particular that it has two windows where the other had only one. Thus a little work was required to modify the model of the room itself--but thankfully this went fairly swiftly, I think, making use of elements constructed for the previous room.

Furthermore, I added an exit-object to this room, allowing the player to attempt to leave from here.

And with the room itself pretty much sorted out, I made a start on the view that surrounds it. This is still very much a work in progress, but you can see at least the start of some distant stone-faced hills, and another building nearby them:



All that said, there's something odd that you might notice about this new room: while there are, as mentioned, two windows, there's no apparent door. Hmm. Strange...



That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

[Thaumaturge]

Blog post (30th of November, 2020)
Forest and Hills

Summary: In which a view is completed; a chest responds to further actions; papers can be searched, and interacted with; a new "jigsaw puzzle" is planned; sound effects are added for the use of a bed; and character thoughts can now be skipped even in "cutscene mode".

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows a line of low hills in the second view that's visible in level six:



The week just past once again focussed heavily on level-construction, but this time also included some level-logic and even a little audio-work:

The view that surrounds the second room of level six (the start of which was shown last week) perhaps took up the largest portion of the work of the week just past:

The tiered hills shown last week were finished, replete with caves. A sharper hill-line was added, with grassy feet (that being the one shown in the screenshot above). And likewise added was a patch of nearby forest, the horizon dimmer beneath its leaves.

Further, the edging of the grassland was touched up somewhat, blending a little better between foreground and background, I think.



And indeed, I think that I have this view now complete!

And with the view done, I moved on to other elements of the room.

For one, I added some further interactions to the chest found there. While it already responded as appropriate to both the relevant key and attempts to open it while locked, it now also responds to an attempt to pick it, or to force it with one's sword.

Sticking with interactions, I started work on the things found within that chest--various scraps of paper, including both writings and drawings. These the player can now "remove" from the chest, after which they can be read, or collected, or dismissed, according to what they show.

Of particular note here is a set of partial map cast-offs. These I intend to be assembled via the "jigsaw puzzle" minigame--as with the puzzle found in level one--although right now they do little!

I say "remove" in inverted commas above because, technically speaking, the items aren't moved as depicted. There are in fact two sets of objects, one for within the chest, and one for without, and interacting with members of the former set simply makes them disappear, and makes the relevant member of the latter set move into position. You can see both sets laid out here, all using stand-in models:



You may recall mention from a previous blog-post that the player can briefly make use of the bed that's found in this room. Previously, the action in question lacked sound effects. In the week just past, then, I made such effects, and implemented them into the level.

And finally, I made a minor change to the logic that allows players to skip character-thoughts. Specifically, as I previously had it players could not skip during the in-engine "cutscene mode". However, this could become frustrating, and so I've now allowed skipping even in that mode.

That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^

[Thaumaturge]

Blog post (7th of December, 2020)
Map-Making

Summary: In which papers are worked on; a map-"jigsaw" is made; a chest is filled with papers; a lexicon book is added; something secret is made; a new room is begun; a new box is made; and scrolls are modelled.

Greetings and salutations!

This week's screenshot shows a new room, this one ringed by worktables:



The week just past continued to be one primarily of level-building--but in this case, also of puzzle-making and item-modelling:

In last week's blog-post, I showed some papers lined up on the floor, a start to the contents of a chest. In the week just past I continued to work with these: On the visual side, new models were made representing various types of paper-piece found here, with potential to be used in later levels, too. On the textual side, lines were written for the player's interactions with them.

Further, some of these papers are cast-off pieces of a map. These the player can collect, and attempt to assemble into a patchwork representation of a nearby area. To this end, the relevant images were drawn, specific models created to represent each part--and a new "jigsaw"-minigame constructed.

(Or rather, four "jigsaw"-minigames: the player needn't pick up all of the map-parts, and so a variant of the "jigsaw" was made for each valid combination.)

As of last week's blog-post, these various papers were laid out on the floor of the room. This wasn't their intended arrangement, and so, with their models and interactions done, I moved them into place: one set located in the chest for the player's discovery, and the other hidden beneath the floor, ready to be swapped in should the player interact with the chest-papers.



There's also now a lexicon book stored within the chest, preparatory for a translation puzzle that I intend for the next room of the level.

Moving away from the papers and chest, in the week just past I made on another new model, and the item that it represents. This is--ah, but this one is actually a secret...

With these matters done, I moved on to the next--and final--room of the level.

This is the room shown in the first screenshot above. Unlike the bedroom, this one has a standard door, leading out onto the grassland near some low, tiered hills. To one side the sharp-edged, grass-footed hills that were visible from the previous room can still be seen--if shifted a little.

This room is very much a work-in-progress! By and large the basics of the structure, contents, and view are in place, but a fair bit of work has yet to be done on all, I think. Further, none of the interactions intended for this place are yet present.

As part of this, I made a new box and two new scroll-models for use in this room.




And along the way I implemented a variety of changes, additions, and fixes that don't seem worth detailing here!

That then is all for this week--stay well, and thank you for reading! ^_^