Hi everyone! It’s been a while since my last update, so I’m checking in. I’ll try to be brief, but since I like to write, I can’t promise I’ll manage it haha
Highlights
Development: the game has kept a steady development pace throughout the year — that means there are weekly advances across the different areas of the game (pixel art, level design, programming, story progress, etc.), at least 4 days each week. I’m very proud of keeping this rhythm, since it’s allowing me to stay focused and move forward naturally with the project.
New Title Screen.
Testplay: I ran a couple of playtests and the results were great. As always, I got very relevant feedback on different aspects of the game, but there are two key lessons I’m taking away:
“What’s fun for the dev isn’t necessarily fun for players”: my game has a strong focus on humor, but watching people play I realized that what’s funny to me as the developer isn’t necessarily funny for the player. For example, at one point I thought it would be amusing to have enemies that could kill you in two hits, but players’ reactions were the opposite of what I expected: frustration, anger, and a desire to avoid battles. The two-hit thing tied into story and humor, but I ultimately took the feedback and managed to convey the same original idea in a less frustrating way.
Balance is the hardest part. Of course, the first five battles in the game are relatively easy to balance because, as the developer, you know quite well what options the player has. However, as characters learn skills and can diversify strategies, their actions and playstyles become less predictable and therefore harder to balance. I’ve made several adjustments to improve the gameplay experience, but I think balancing will require the most testing once the game is finished.
Pixel art: lots and lots of pixel art — for playable characters and NPCs. New backgrounds and animations. I love it.
Mask, Glasses, Cat Face?
Watch your step, Temus!
Introducing Tuna, Zerra’s Adventure official pet hamster.
Character redesigns: there were some design changes for characters who join the team (Forson, Araldi). At one point Mort, the cowboy, was going to be part of the adventure, but for various reasons he didn’t quite convince me, so I finally chose to replace him with Egon, a somewhat world-weary adult who I feel offers more interesting interaction options with the party. Either way, Mort will still show up somewhere in the game ;)
Old Forson vs New Forson
Bye Mort, hi Egon!
Systems: I managed to implement a new Skill Tree system that I like much more than the old one. Best part: it’s far more flexible, highly customizable, and visually clearer for the player, so I feel the effort was worth it.
New Skill Tree!
Demo: this has been the focus of the last three months of development. I’m polishing it as much as I can before making it public. Basically, I want the vertical slice to make the game’s intent crystal clear, so I’m putting all the effort into that =)
Zerra's Adventure running on Steam Deck <3
Difficulties: bugs, bugs, and more bugs. I’ve been fixing a bunch of bugs, but of course new ones keep appearing… still, the game is steadily becoming less dependent on these lovely companions that I’ll be dealing with until launch day (and of course after that… hahaha)
All nice and tidy, but… what happened with the Kickstarter campaign?
The campaign will run next year, during the first half — exact window to be confirmed. The actions, funding goals, and tiers are already set; what remains is assembling the trailer and finishing the art that will support the process. The demo I’m finishing will accompany the campaign (or it might be available earlier — I still have to decide that), but people will definitely be able to try the game to see if it’s something they want to support.
And that’s all for now. I hope to have another report by the end of the year, during the last days of December, to share how things have progressed.
Thanks so much again for taking the time to read and for your interest in following this project. See you soon!