wow, we don't get many 3D fan games around here!

Oh! I remembered downloading the first one, but never found the time to play it, so never knew there was a crash. I'll definitely get the second one as well!

So I had so much fun making the last game I posted here, I immediately started work on a sequel that takes place on an island frozen in the darkness of an unchanging night. It's a massive, hours-long, open world quest with five temple-areas, bosses, secrets, powerups, puzzles and tons of lore. And it turned out looking really gorgeous, with everything lit by scarce light sources in the perpetual darkness. Almost has a horror edge to it sometimes when an enemy emerges from the shadows.

Story:
Tetra and her crew dare to cross the forbidden Midnight Sea, from which no ship has ever returned, and find themselves on a strange island locked in time, where the stars don't turn and the sun never rises. They are quickly set upon by a shadow creature that has taken Tetra's form, that follows and harasses her as Tetra adventures across the island, looking for a way to end the curse of the Midnight Sea.

It's over on gamejolt here: https://gamejolt.com/games/T_MidnightSea/830029

I hope you'll give it a try.

Also, if you weren't able to play Tetra and the Lonely Island, my last game, please go back and try again. I've fixed the error that was causing that crash. You can get it here: https://gamejolt.com/games/Tetra_LI/794044

And if you like my games, please let people know about them. I don't have much of a web presence, so it would be appreciated.

Cheers, all.

Here's a surprise update. On a Saturday no less, for a change.

One, because I have some other non-dev related plans for this weekend. And two, because I simply could not wait any longer to show of this awesome new artwork that I got in.
Yeah... both of those definitely apply in equal measure...  I swear...

Anyway, what do you all think? Does it represent the game well?

Beyond the new artwork a little bit more progress has also been made on the overworld/mountain tiles, but I'll save that for a future update.

EDIT: Can't seem to attach the image. That's rare. Maybe it's too big or something?
You can also see it here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hornofbalance/horn-of-balance?ref=discovery

Progress report:

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v0.27.74 (1-2 augustus 2023)
* Expanded names in the credits
* Made a more progress on the mountain tileset (and realised I missed several exception cases)
* Made progress on grass border tiles
* Switched DW background colors

v0.27.75 (3 augustus 2023)
* Created extra grass edge tiles for more flexibility
* Completely retiled all grass borders across the worlds

I'll be taking another few days off from work soon, to finally get that mountain tileset done. It's soo close now. Just a few more tile.

Also, I've been working with a few artists this past week. As a result, all the sound effects needed for demo 2 are now in!

And: I've found a talented individual who is currently working on capsule art for the game. Not pixelart, but pretty high dev digital art. While I personally love pixelart (and all the work Kohari does for the project), going with a more "realistic" artstyle for capsule art is apparently preferred over on Steam. At the very least it'll show others that I'm willing to put a little more money behind the project. Honestly, I can't wait to show of the results.

Progress log:

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v0.27.72 (25-28 juli 2023)
* Worked with poster and sound artists
* Implemented various new sounds
* Finished final sprites details for the 3 new enemies
* Made progress spriting new mountain tiles

v0.27.73 (29-30 juli 2023)
* Tweaked and placed various NPC's along the outside path to the demo dungeon
* Adjusted various NPC's dialogue for demo purposes
* Altered some enemy placements

Another week, another bit of project progress.

Progress report:

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v0.27.66 (17 juli 2023)
* Worked with spriter on boss sprites

v0.27.67 (18 juli 2023)
* Worked with sound editor (and implemented a few new sound effects)

v0.27.68 (19 juli 2023)
* Implemented new dungeon entrance tiles

v0.27.69 (20-21 juli 2023)
* Implemented two more sound effects
* Tweaked details behind spiked ball soundvolume
* Slightly tweaked overworld tilework
* Fixed sprite allignment issue when using atk/def “sprites” while interrupting the idle animations
* Fixed spiked ball animation (and spawning) not stopping during some specific pause states and situations
* Updated overworld masking for new spritework
* Implemented new shrubbery tiles

v0.27.70 (22 juli 2023)
* Added extra frames for summon character
* Added animation and additional frames for mud golem enemy

v0.27.71 (23 juli 2023)
* Implemented new visuals for 2 enemies in the desert dungeon (= not in the demo's; might be included in the trailer)
* Fixed color issue with desert dungeon crates
* Added extra enemy type: Mud golem

Twitter is broken again today (can't see those I'm following like normal again) so I'll post the image here as well.

Kohari has been making awesome pixelart the last several days. Check out this upcoming enemy for example. (And part of your home, as a little bonus). This'll be the first enemy you encounter while you play around with your childhood friends. So it won't hurt you too much. Or will it?

What should this earth golem? Any suggestions?


Progress report:

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v0.27.64 (14-15 juli 2023)
* Commissioned Kickstarter capsule art
* Worked with spriter on more world/cave tiles
* Implemented new house tiles
* Implemented several new door sprites variants

v0.27.65 (16 juli 2023)
* Worked with spriter on more new sprites and tiles

I can be brief about last weekend's progress: I got back to my job and got completely drained in days.  Kinda what I expected really. Took part of the weekend simply to gain back some energy.

Also, some of the new tile commissions are running into delays due to illness. Not sure when things will be back on track, but it's best to give such things time.

However. It's not all bad news! I decided to take another crack at the mountain tileset. And actually even ending up making some progress.
What do you think? This is actually the third attempt, starting from scratch. At least each attempt is getting faster. I doubt I'll have the energy to complete it during the week, but maybe I can get back to completing it by the next weekend. It's a lot of work still, but I'm getting more and more optimistic about this style.

Progress report:

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v0.27.62 (5 juli 2023)
* Fixed found issue with some item counts on the credits stats screen potentially being incorrect

v0.27.63 (8-9 juli 2023)
* Made progress spriting new mountain tiles

Well, that was the last of my free days from work  . It has put a real damper on my motivation this week so progress was less than expected. Also some real life arrangements had to be made.

So I do hope you'll forgive the placeholder assets in this new screenshot. I just really want to show of the new overworld statues as well as the water edges. Especially the later took fairly time to implemented across the entire game. What do you think? We've also been making progress on the starting house and the demo dungeon entrance visuals. Hopefully I'll be able to show that off next weekend, depending on when they come in.

As for the larger picture. These last three months have been pretty productive. I've been working on the game almost non-stop for most of that time, sometimes well into the night. As a result the first demo was been released with three follow up updates. Almost all of the character actions in the full game have been completed. Handpixeled by myself (which I honestly did not expect to be able to do beforehand). Work has now fully started on the demo 2 overworld area. This means tackling the biggest challenges like pallets, style, trees, mountains and so forth. So it's really laying the groundwork for future expansions. The first early spritework has been coming in for two more areas. Concept art and basic components just yet, but that too is essential. And about 95% of all the sound effects needed in demo 2 are now either done or commissioned, expected to be delivered by the end of juli. So all in all I'm looking back quite satisfied.

The next main goal will be to complete demo 2 before SAGE 2023, very early in september. I'll likely even target for an earlier date, but more news will come at a later date.

As a final note: the next week or two might be rough for me as I get back into work again, and am expecting a 3 month backlog waiting for me. So I might post a little less during that period.

Progress report:

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v0.27.57 (26-28 juni 2023)
* Made a little progress on implementing villain group
* Made a little progress implementing some new terrain tiles

v0.27.58 (29 juni 2023)
* Tweaked and implemented water edge tiling
* Cleaned up world tilesets
* Started edited demo dungeon outside entrance room

v0.27.59 (30 juni 2023)
* Tweaked and implemented outside statue object
* Edited shallow water object for easier use in outside areas
* Finished editing demo dungeon outside entrance room (for now)
* Changed game starting position and gear
* Edited villain visuals slightly

v0.27.60 (1 juli 2023)
* Worked with artist on new sprite/tile assets
* Finished adding NPC for each of the villains
* Implemented new visuals for various containers, like bushes

v0.27.61 (2 juli 2023)
* Implemented more new container visuals

Alright. Yeah, I need to get my life in order.
I really wish you the best! Both with your project, and in life.