Time for another devlog! This time we’ll cover some progress, a few changes I’ve made and others I’d like to make, and some goals I have as the end of the year approaches. Let’s get into it!

I think in my last devlog I mentioned completing all of the environment artwork for Chapter 2 - a huge relief! Generally environments take me the longest, so the majority of the work is behind us now. Now I’ve moved onto the sprites, which I expect to take forever but hopefully not quite as long as the environments did. I have 4 scenes complete already and fortunately two of those are some of the most action-packed, which means for the most part, the worst of it is behind us. Here’s a little bit of the work I’ve done so far:

Before…

and After!

Not bad, right? There’s still a long way to go, but we’re certainly getting there. I organize my files by the scene, and so far I’ve done 4 of 25 scenes.

Next, we’ll talk about some of the things I’ve changed as well as things I’ve been thinking of changing in the future - feedback is appreciated. First and arguably most important, I’ve finally gone through and organized the story, rewriting everything and making small changes/tying things together as I go. 5 parts planned is something I’ve advertised for a long time, but I think I’ve cut it down to 4. I decided a lot of the later segments of the game weren’t benefiting the overall story, so changes were made. Sometimes our vision is a little too grand and the story we want to tell suffers for it - never be afraid to make some changes.

Next, I added better transitions to and from the game menus and the journal. The journal received the biggest overhaul of all and I’m honestly really proud of how it looks! I added a slide effect that mimics a page flipping without having to go through the work of animating each page flip by hand (which, while possible, would be a lot of work to do in the Ren’Py engine and to put it bluntly…it’s a little above my skill level). You can also now exit the journal menu by clicking outside of the journal itself! It’s a small detail but it makes it a little bit easier to navigate to and from the menu. I’ll have before and after videos on my socials soon, so stay tuned for that if it interests you.

In a perfect world, I’d also like to add a better animation for the journal icon, which is pretty plain right now. I’m thinking opening and closing the book when it’s inactive, and a cute little page flip when the player hovers over. Thoughts? Do we think it’s worth it to the overall playing experience?

Other things I’d like to change before Chapter 2 drops include the textbox, a few in-game fonts, and maybe adding in a more riveting opening scene to Chapter 1. It’s a lot of work, but I really want this thing to be special before it officially launches. If all goes well, I’ve also been considering making some changes and additions to Chapter 1 that would introduce an inventory system and a few more choices. This is something that would probably push the release date back quite a bit, but I think it’ll be worth it while the fanbase can still be viewed under a microscope, rather than later when (hopefully!) a lot more people will be kept waiting.

On the topic of fans, let’s talk about wishlists. Right now, we’re sitting comfortably at 477 wishlists on Steam. It’s certainly well below what the average game pulls, but I expected that going into this. 477 people are interested in playing my game in the state it’s in - I think that’s something to be proud of. With that said, I’d love to see if I could make it to 500 by the end of the year. That sounds manageable to me! Wanna help out? You can wishlist Divine Omen here. Thank you!

Another personal goal of mine is to have all the artwork complete by the end of the year. The game certainly won’t be ready for release, but having the largest part of it complete would be incredible. We’ll see!

That’s it for this devlog - to recap, things are going well. Life gets in the way of progress occasionally, but fortunately progress doesn’t have to be linear. Hopefully my next update will have more good news and maybe even an estimate on a release date! Yippee! Thanks for reading :-)