Weeks like this are really necessary for my creative well-being. I worked quite a bit, but instead of it being all toward one driving purpose, I was free to flit around between many different objectives. I feel much less behind now, so let me do all the normal update stuff, plus give an account of non-TLS stuff that's on my plate.
NORMAL STUFF
Look at the above image Annikath made! I've been trying to use it to promote TLS, since promotion is one of my weaknesses. I tried to put it up on Hentai Foundry, only for the original to get rejected for being too high quality. -_- If any of you want to share the above image, feel free to download the better one from Patreon. You could follow my HF account, not that it's very active. I'm also open to ideas of places to go promote.
Right after that, please look at the ghost sprites! I've wanted to replace the flame enemies in OEA, since they're obvious RTP, and my best idea so far is to use these ghostly spirit things. Anyone have strong opinions or alternate suggestions?
Still no Ulfina rework. T-T I'll keep poking the sprite artist.
Map-wise, please take a look if you're into that. Mostly more New Canisan stuff this week. We worked a while on the exterior aesthetic... I think the clifftops are still too bland, but what do you guys think? There's also a new version of the rafters in which they're translucent; I may yet remove them, but I want people to at least play with them first. The game makes very little use of overhead layers, which is a key indicator of visual fanciness.
SIDE PROJECT OVERVIEW
Once Ever After: Lots of hard work was done last month, so this isn't really a primary focus. It comes down to two things: doing promotional work, and waiting on mapping/coding/spriting. For promotion, I'm taking steps to make a trailer for the game. I also intend to make a Newgrounds demo of the early sections, once I have some quality of life improvements to the game overall.
Don't Save the Princess: I know this isn't everyone's cup of tea, and I have sometimes thought that dropping a project would instantly clear my plate. Don't want to fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy, after all. However, I still intend to keep moving forward with it, for a number of reasons.
One of these is that I think the core gameplay loop is solid, even if not to the taste of some here. The Newgrounds demo has a pretty decent rating for a simple experiment - what's especially notable is that while my games usually have a higher early rating from fan support, DStP's rating started off low and actually increased later, long after fans stopped rating.
There's a new build of this coming, focused less on new content (it only adds one world) than on some core improvements. I hope that build will feel like a step up, but I'll fully evaluate my investment in this one after the new version launches.
Book Stuff: I have completed all the writing and editing I'm contractually obligated to do through early 2022, though I'll probably choose to write some more stuff. I put off the release of the second book in The Brightest Shadow for several months in order to focus on TLS, but I really need to get it out soon. Perhaps more info later.
Other Stuff: As I've mentioned, I try to restrain myself from starting up on new projects, as much as I want to sometimes. That said, I've been getting more offers lately, including some that might give me a chance to make use of old work that got abandoned. I hope I can finish up some of these to make space for them, but will hold back meanwhile.
Okay... I think that's everything. I'm pretty happy with my work overall, but I do sometimes miss the days when my weekly updates were like "Uh, here's a screenshot of some stuff I'm working on."
Sierra Lee
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