Woah. So soon?

Yep! I mentioned in the last devlog that I wasn't going to let this reach 5 years in development. Over the last few weeks I have spent countless hours finishing all the content required for Demo 1, polishing it up, and now my time is mainly spent bouncing around balancing. There's a lot of stuff that needs changing subtly, and what feels like small changes can completely break the balance...

But, we're almost done! Demo 1 is just the first milestone, of course. Time for a callback to a previous time when the release cycle was first mentioned:

The first demo should have everything up until the first major dungeon finished.
This means:
- Inkagafar needs polishing
- Middunn needs designing
- Port Magnus needs designing
- The Doone questline needs finishing

Demo 2:
- Shivermoore needs finishing
- Shivermoore Peak needs finishing
- Shivermoore Mines need polishing
- Antiquam Silvam needs finishing

This was originally posted on Twitter around... god, it was two and a half years ago? Anyway, the original plan was for these demos to be a closed test, they were never supposed to be released publicly. I've since changed my mind a little. I am still doing a closed test to catch any major issues and bugs, but I will release Demo 1 publicly once it's "good enough". I'll do a second testing phase with Demo 2 which will contain everything up to the third major area, and then the full release will contain the final two areas and the endings (obviously). Saves should be able to transfer between demos as long as you don't delete them.

So, that's the plan. Demo 1 is currently in the beginnings of its testing phase and will not be released quite yet, there's a lot of stuff that needs fixing/changing (and probably even more things that we'll discover along the way). It's crazy to me that, almost five years after development originally started, seven years after the original documents were written, and thirteen years since the original game was made, I've almost finished the project I've put my passion and love into writing the world for.

I definitely have plans for other projects within this world at different points in time, but those will have to wait. I mean, it's taken me this long for one game... don't expect too much too soon, alright?

Alright. I'm going to spend more time getting Demo 1 into a playable state while I wait for my playtesters to be ready for playtesting. For those of you that have followed this project along all the hiatuses, all the reworks, all the rewrites, everything - thank you so much for continuing to ask me how development was going and reminding me that I have a game to finish, and that some people actually care about it.

If you'll allow me to make completely insane estimates that will 100% be wrong, the first demo should probably be out before the end of April. But again, its taken this long to get as far as I have - don't take that as a promise or guarantee. Ultimately the game will be done when it's done, and I hope you'll be there for it alongside me.