Aww, you game tease! :D

progress!!

Keep it up, man, you're awesome!

Cool ! Can't wait to see it !

Hi, it's me again. Walking by, checking in, kind of. So, would you kindly tell us how is everything going?

The code is ready! I'm doing art content stuff atm. I will try get the demo ready as soon as possible.

The journal updates kinda tapered off as I focused more on the code, sorry about that. I did find some nasty bugs and squished them. From now on it's pretty much creating the demo content and getting everything set up for the demo release. I will try get some promo stuff during the demo development. Maybe get a video out or something.

You seem to be especially interest in the development, is there any specific reason beyond curiosity? : D

First of all, thanks for the quick reply. And ehm, actually I really don't know why I'm intrested in this project so hard. Can't explain it. Maybe it really is just curiosity. But I keep my hopes up for this game, and don't want to see it abandoned in development like many other games before. Please make it to the end.

And on my end I'm still working on writing content for the demo. A bit slower than usual due to summer vacation shaenanigans, but I can finally safely say that it's clear the exact amount of content the demo will have and it will be a bit more than originally planned.

PS: Mechanical keyboards are awesome.

Thanks for your reply as well. It's always nice to hear, that you're going to get more of a good thing, although I don't know the exact amount of content that was originally planned for the demo, but whatever :) So that's some good news. Keep it up.
And I see you've made the game logo. Looking great so far.

PS: Indeed they are.

That is one big reason why the journals talking about updates have slowed down. There was a realization that just posting a journal talking about percentages that nobody except us knows what they mean exactly wasn't exactly helpful for the people reading them. Just posting a journal every week saying "Yes, we are still working on it" wouldn't exactly help either. Even sharing a more comprehensive list of milestones about what remains to be done in the demo could be a double-edged weapon, since for example not every character takes the same effort to write, and art assets vary a lot in complexity, not to mention things like assets that get reworked can affect the rate at which we consider something "done", or maybe we work on something a bit andleave it half-finished for later. An example of the latter would be writing just the basic introduction of a character, or even the vast majority of their dialogue, but leaving things like implementing them in quest lines, their combat or their sex scene(s) for later. That could lead to the character not being finished for months, and if people look at just the numbers they could think no progress is being made. At the same time we can't just spoil the really juicy things (even if I've had to scold a certain someone in the past for showing or revealing too much) because it's better if future players experience certain things by themselves. It's a really tricky thing to balance.

That's why we encourage people to ask us any questions they have about the game. We enjoy answering them (or just building on a comment to reveal or clarify something about the game or its development) and that way we have the certainty that we're talking about things people want to hear about. As a reminder for those who might not know about it and read this comment, in Meandraco's scraps there is a variety of preview pictures that sometimes come with detailed explanations about them. And if you check their comments, it's not rare to see us answer some question or clear things up there too.

On a personal note, for a long while I've considered writing some journals about more meaningful stuff like insights on Teraurge's development, lessons learned, perhaps very vague character reveals and things like that. But ultimately I've always decided against it because I feel this is Meandraco's baby and I don't want to steal any thunder from him, even if he always says he's okay with me writing those. Dunno, I might consider doing it in the future, but I like keeping a low profile and don't like getting people too excited, so we'll see.

Just keep in mind, we're working on this. Meandraco has been on months-long periods of silence only to always return with an update about the game, so a few weeks definitely doesn't mean Teraurge is dead and that's easily proven any time by asking any question (hopefully not "When will this be released?" or "Is this still alive?") and seeing how quickly you receive an answer. We are most definitely not going to suddenly drop this after putting hundreds of hours into it, especially now that we finally have all the systems in place and everything has taken shape.

Oh and as for the logo, don't pay too much attention to it. It's just something I made with the logo we use in the current incarnation of the main menu screen, but both that screen and the logo are subject to changes. I simply decided to start using it to stand out a bit when answering questions. You know, just so people can easily tell "Oh, that's a post by that dev", which might be helpful.

Oh yes, I do understand that inside stuff should stay inside, so I'm not asking you for details. Also not much point at doing that, as of this moment it's pretty clear what the game is going to be and what features it should have. Just as you mentioned, Meandraco's concepts show all the basics. The only thing worth asking is "What is the goal of the game? Does it have a goal?" But then again it might bring up spoilers, or forementioned unfished and deep-in-plans content. If you don't want to answer - no blame from me.

On the other side, I'm poking at you, yes. It's not because I want to push you, or rush you to get things done, or whatever. Absolutely not. The problem is, I've seen this before: a humble team of developers (or a single developer) working on a game, making good progress, posting regular blog updates, releasing a demo, updating it a couple of times. Everything's fine. But then updates become not so regular, pauses between them grow in time untill *poof* turns out there's no one left to work on the game. No reasons given. And years later people still post their questions in forums like "When's the next update? It's v0.8.6c, how could this be abandoned?! It's almost done!" No one is answering to those. From this perspective I have my rights to be anxious, I hope you understand.

Anyways, you've made point too. Cannot have everything we want all the time, can we? So if you have to choose between writing a journal and working on Teraurge, it's good you pick the latter. Putting my trust in you and giving you back your silent working atmosphere. Till the demo is done. After that I will return to haunt you on a monthly basis ;)

The game does have a goal. Said goal will be obvious five minutes into the game.

That said, the game doesn't force you to actually progress towards it. You are free to pursue the main goal or just wander around, forever if you want. In fact that will be your only choice in the initial versions of the game since they will not even have the full main story, which will require multiple regions and characters fleshed out and added to the game over time. Eventually the game will have at least one or two endings involving completing the main goal, but also many more endings covering different ways of ending the adventure. Including at least some Game Overs/Bad Ends.

And hey, if you want to haunt us after the demo is done that's great. We appreciate people being interested in the project and will love to hear what you'll have to say about the demo. And at that point development will be in full swing because all the writers will start directly implementing content into the main game starting from the demo's release, so progress should be made often. Perhaps with a bit an initial consolidation period related to making some group decisions on the final style for certain things. Then again the other writers will start working using the writers version before the demo is released to get used to the code and so they can start working on their own stuff for later, so they might post their own ideas and experiences in their user pages, which could help keep you and others sated in the meantime.

Any hope for another update?

Not sure what to say in an update, other than I'm still working on the content side of things (backgrounds, sprites, dialogue, etc). Progress has been slow due to life stuff. It's still progressing though.

Good enough for me, just glad it's still going.
Thanks for the update

Hi, just to know if you are still working on it or if you had any problem?

Still working on it. No problems at the moment, just lots of work. Hopefully I can show it around soon.

Thank you, i will wait for this game with pleasure.

I haven't seen anything from you recently here. Is there a separate blog or something that you post to about progress?

There's no separate blog but I'm working on the game. The progress has been so erratic I couldn't stomach making regular updates. It's coming along very well. I do reply all the PMs so that is one way to keep up.

no eta on a demo, i s'pose?

Sorry, can't promise anything. It's looking good tho.