Sin Spire - Dev Log 29

Hello everyone! I hope you're all doing well. May was... a bit of a weird month. Not much got done, unfortunately. As some of you know, I took a break at the beginning of the month (which I mentioned in the last dev log), and then managed to squeeze in a couple of tasks before running into some major PC issues.

After a sudden bluescreen, my boot drive stopped booting entirely. And to make a long (and painful) story short, I ended up replacing both my boot SSD and motherboard. The good news? The system is now running much better than before the issues began.

Once my PC was back in working order, I spent some time stress testing everything to make sure it was stable. Admittedly, I got a little distracted by the flurry of recent game releases but I'm back now and truly ready to dive in again.

The Past Week

Mostly, I've been reinstalling software and making sure my development tools are working. To ease back in, I started with something simple: a new outfit the Witness.

As you might remember, the last version of the game introduced alternate outfits for the Witnesses to better reflect the dungeon they're in. The only outlier was the final dungeon, where the Witness still wore her original dress from the Catacombs. This new outfit addresses that and you can see what it looks like at the top of this post.

Originally, I had planned to give her metal hooks in place of hands, but I've held off on that idea for now. The new look is made to sit alongside other enemies like the Bound, with its black plastic/leather look.

Everything Else

Well, I’m at a bit of a strange point in development where I can’t say much without potentially spoiling things. We're nearing the end of the game, and from here on out, just about anything I say could give something away.

I’m not sure how sensitive you all are to spoilers for a game like this, but personally, I’d rather let certain moments and reveals happen in-game rather than in a dev log.

That said, here’s a small checklist of the big remaining tasks I need to complete before reaching beta:

• Finish Boss Fight #6

• Create the final boss arena

• Create the final boss fight

• Create cutscenes for before and after the final boss

• Create alternate cutscenes based on player choices

Okay, that last one might be a small spoiler - but I think most of you saw that one coming. I won’t say what those choices are, but they should be fairly obvious by now.

I’ll also need to sort through a lot of recorded dialogue to make sure it matches the cutscenes. Some of these may end up being presented more like standard dialogue scenes rather than full-blown cinematic ones - we’ll see how things go.

As for the hand-crafted final dungeon I had planned: I’ve decided to put it on hold for now. If I find there’s a pacing issue between Boss 6 and the final boss, I’ll revisit it as a stretch goal. But for the time being, I want to focus entirely on finishing the core game.

What's next?

Bug fixes and small additions are taking a backseat until we hit beta. My goal is to have a playable version of the game - from beginning to end - by the end of this month or early next. After that, I’ll focus on polishing, fixing bugs, and preparing for a proper release.

I know it might sound ambitious, but at this point I need to give myself a firmer deadline to stay on track. Burnout has definitely crept in, and without something concrete to work toward, I could easily slip into procrastination mode.

That's all for now. I'll check in again next time with more (probably vague) updates on how the endgame is shaping up. In the meantime, I need to knuckle down and start animating - there's a lot to do on that front, especially with the boss fights and cutscenes. See you all later.