Hey everybody,

I was so caught up in things that I completely forgot to do actual updates. Long story short (as I'm on my break from work right now):
- A demo has now also been released on Steam! It was a bit more complicated than expected at first, but it's yet another milestone reached.
- Already updated the demo based on the Steam stats: the early areas have been made slightly simpler (= more hints and smoother curve). The average Steam playtime has been going up, so that's good!
- There's still new dungeon music coming in.
- A new batch of sound effects has also been commissioned, covering about 1/3 of all the remaining sounds needed for the full game. So that's actually big step being made on that front.
- And also put out the next pixel art commission package. So there's progress on all fronts of development at the moment.

Progress report:

Code: [Select]

v0.28.025 (22 januari 2024)
* Adjusted sound effects when using the cane item without magic or at an invalid location
* Fixed funny glitch resulting a dual 360 sword atk when the enemy blocks the hit during certain frames
* Fixed not being able to create magic blocks on some bridges

v0.28.026 (26 januari 2024)
* Tinkered around a lot looking to replace a few more old sound effects; replaced one more sound effect
* Reviewed latest music track

v0.28.027 (29 januari 2024)
* Made new demo version for sound effect commission testing

v0.28.028 (30 januari 2024)
* Added boss name to initialse encounting of the demo boss
* Fixed max amount of secret(chests) on the credits screen to be 4 instead of 3

v0.28.029 (3 februari 2024)
* Added sound effect to adjusting sound effect volume

v0.28.030 (5-7 februari 2024)
* Reviewed new music and sound effects
* Fixed a placeholder mountain tile accidently visible again
* Implemented various new sound effects

v0.28.031 (8 februari 2024)
* Reviewed more new sound effects
* Delete button no longer acts as default cancel button
* Several more keyboard buttons (including the numlock area) are now valid for key rebinding
* Made intro boss do less damage
* Added extra text and visual hints to weakpoint intro boss
* Added more hints to the early demo obstacles (= mostly making sure players don't just receive text based hints)
* Tweaked NPC dialogue hinttext
* Rotated starting equipable elementals
* Added extra sound effect to rusted buttons
* Added hinttext to intro boss fight

======================
Released demo 2.2
======================

v0.28.032 (9-10 februari 2024)
* Put out new pixel art commission package
* Tiled another new room
* Reviewed more French translations

v0.28.033 (11 februari 2024)
* Reviewed more French translations
* Reviewed new music demo

Some big news this weekend:
- We have a Kickstarter start date -> March 8th!
Follow the project here for a notification the instance it starts. Which will help get one of the cheaper early bird copies .
- Also demo 2.1 has been released over on Itch!
- And the Steam review process has been initiated, so expect the demo on Steam soon as well!

More details can be read over in this Itch blog post:
https://hornofbalance.itch.io/horn-of-balance-pre-ks-demo/devlog/668213/10-demo-update-and-kickstarter-launch-date

Ah. How long has it been in progress?
I'd love to wait on the full game.

I started development in 2005/2006 lol. Last update was in 2017.

Yikes. I have a long wait ahead then.

Someone actually uploaded a playthrough of the entire demo on YouTube 6 years ago, that I enjoyed a lot.

https://youtu.be/j_qnKcEqbjU?si=xydS20o3PDBv2Wxx

Ah. How long has it been in progress?
I'd love to wait on the full game.

I started development in 2005/2006 lol. Last update was in 2017.

Ah. How long has it been in progress?
I'd love to wait on the full game.

I really should check this one out. No idea how complete it is though.

2 out of 8 dungeons are finished. You can play through the story up until the end of the second dungeon/boss.

I really should check this one out. No idea how complete it is though.

Progress report:

Code: [Select]

v0.28.020 (15 januari 2024)
* Fixed minor coloring irregularity within demo boss fight
* Tweaked boss atk values ever so slightly
* Fixed collision issues after hitting an enemy with the atk boost if it does not kill the enemy
* Fixed a placeholder sprite showing up in the demo dungeon mountain range

v0.28.021 (18 januari 2024)
* Fixed masking issue in the cave to the big demo dungeon
* Reviewed new music demos

v0.28.022 (19 januari 2024)
* Temporarily disabled french language for the next demo
* Added extra language debug function
* Default character name is set to Linden
* Expanded screen resolution options
* Made smaller pushable statues easier to distinguish

v0.28.023 (20 januari 2024)
* Re-enabled french language in the options
* Replaced the upslash sound effect with the actual custom sound made for it. (Can't believe I forgot to actually apply it) :S
* Prepared next sound effect commission package

v0.28.024 (21 januari 2024)
* Added new visuals for floor grates
* Fixed small tiling issue in dungeon A04
* Added new visuals for magical blocks
* Created and added new (dis)appear animation for magical blocks
* Fixed small oversight between magic blocks and enemy collisions
* Made hero immune while a little into performing the 360 attack

Very nice! Still love seeing these mockups, noticed the blurry background was using actual background tiles