Sin Spire – Dev Log 26

Hello everyone! I am now back after my brief break and have already gotten back to work. Like I mentioned in the previous dev log, my current priority is focusing on Alpha 0.0.5, which should contain all the dungeons and boss fights leading up to the end sequence of the game. The goal right now is to make sure everything is implemented – even if it’s a bit rough around the edges.

As of right now, I’m happy to report that each dungeon is now fully playable. Each one has its own Stalker, boss fight and visuals. So regardless of how work-in-progress things are, you should be able to play through most of the game come next release. There is still a lot of work to be done, obviously, especially in regards to balance and polish.

Boss Fights

The dungeon boss fights are currently playable and mostly complete. The fifth boss is basically finished, but the two before it still need a fair bit of work in terms of animation, balancing, and overall presentation.

You’ll notice a bit of a shift in design compared to the Witch fight. These newer encounters lean more into raw damage output rather than specific move sets with counters. You’ll be relying on parrying, positioning, and keeping up pressure rather than memorizing patterns.

This wasn’t exactly the direction I originally wanted to take boss fights in, but due to time constraints, something had to give. There are still bosses outside the dungeons that need attention, so maybe those will get a bit more love – though no promises.

Stalkers overall have been something of a headache, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have some regrets about including them. That said, they’re a big part of both the gameplay and the story, so they’re here to stay.

Dungeons

As mentioned, the remaining dungeons are mostly done, though they still need balance adjustments. I think the Slacker’s dungeon from the last build turned out well – it encourages players to pay attention to their surroundings thanks to the traps.

In the last two dungeons, however, I dialed back traps quite a bit, but that’s had the unintended side effect of making them a little too easy to rush through. You can essentially sprint past everything with minimal resistance, even with the addition of more dangerous enemies.

Rather than adding a new mechanic like the obsidian keys to gate progress, I’m considering reintroducing the traps I had dialed back on. At this point in the game, players should be familiar enough with them to avoid being caught off guard too easily.

I’m also thinking about adding new enemy types specifically designed to slow the player down, rather than just spicing up combat variety. Something like the Smiler – an enemy that messes with player movement – might work, though I don’t have any solid concepts just yet.

Story

With the game now playable up to the end sequence, the story also needs more attention. A lot of the core narrative is already in, but much of the flavor text is still missing – and that’s something I’ll be focusing on soon.

I’m also working on Ophelia’s Pendant, which will be dynamically spawned into a dungeon once that part of her quest is active. I plan to use a similar system for spawning notes. The challenge will be making sure the system is robust, but not frustrating – so players don’t miss out on key lore, or the pendant itself.

Speaking of Ophelia, her story has been written for a while, but since she hasn’t been voiced yet, I haven’t rushed to finish her quest logic. Hopefully that will change soon, but I’m still waiting on the voice lines. A part of me is tempted to delay her quest until beta, but I don’t want to risk alpha players locking themselves out of it if they keep their saves after clearing all the dungeons.

Translation

This is one of the most frequently asked questions I get. The reason the game doesn’t currently support other languages is simply because I wanted to wait until most of the English text was finalized. Now that we’re getting close to that point, I’m planning to start looking for translators.

The main hurdle now is just finding the right people. I’ve already set up a language switching system in-game, though it currently doesn’t do anything without translations. If you’re interested in helping out, feel free to reach out on Discord!

What’s Next

There’s a lot of polishing and balancing ahead, though most of that will probably come during the beta phase. In the short term, I’m focusing on:

• Animations for boss fights (especially purification scenes)

• Animations for the new enemies (again, specifically purification)

• Visual variants for enemies based on the dungeon they appear in

And of course, if I get Ophelia’s lines, I’ll start implementing the rest of her questline as soon as possible.

That’s all for now. Thanks as always for following along, and I’ll see you in the next update!