With it 3 months into the year, I worry about my game progress and with my search for work in IRL, I figured I'd jump back to TML's engine instead of trying my shot of original coding. I could change my mind about that, I could find the time and feel it's worth doing the extra work...

but for now, I'm really happy!

The main reason I didn't want to use TML's because I wanted the power to know how the engine worked inside and out. Building my own for several months has taught me more confidence, experience and clarity I wouldn't have had before. Jumping back to TML's, I found I understood it on a level I hadn't before hand.

Progress

Within a few days I was able to re-apply the custom code I made for my own engine to work within TML's engine's framework.

Follower code, layered player sprites, custom inventory UI, the tittle screen etc.

In addition I designed the battle system's new look

I finished the opening cutscene: the character now has both expressions and changeable body poses. Here, they address the player name.

I'm using JuJuAdam's Coroutines and it's a blessing. It makes cut-scenes easy as butter.

My main goal is to get a play-test build out soon. I felt the game was ready for room layout design. I built all the rooms and laid out the most simple versions of the cut-scenes. Essentially, a walking simulator to gauge the pacing.

In the process of building this I realized my game lacked the proper pacing the story needed. I'd introduce an area and we'd move past it far too quickly. I wasn't allowing the game to breathe!

Yesterday I held a large team meeting and came back with some great insights -the world building and game-play were lacking and we came back with ideas on how to address it.

So back to the drawing board!

(obviously I'm not going to show the full map!)

The surface will have it's time in the lime light, as well as the main area that's been fleshed out a little more...

The Lost Kingdom just became bigger! It's- well, I'll let you play the game to find out. I'm still finding it's identity -and I have a huge thank you needed for the Angel's team for helping me out here. The inclusion of crystals (as odd as it sounds!) really made Lost Kingdom work! So thank you so much for all those who contributed in this idea.

I hope I can get that playable build out soon. After that, it's polishing the cut-scenes and puzzles. I can't promise we'll get that by next month, but I'll sure dang try!