This is the next of the usual devlogs to keep you informed about my progress.

The project Late Shape Journey is now in version B.0.2.5.

A download is not available for this game yet.

Started working on custom interfaces, specifically creating the 'Chapter Selection' with additional overlay, as well as a sub-menu

Going through the asset library and filtering what the project will use in regards of music, sound, enemies and animations

Further additions to the asset library like music, characters and animations

[Outdated stuff below]

And that's it!

For anyone wondering how I do the version numbering (as it may seem a bit "fast"): The foundation work is planned to stay within the 0 mark, and any chapter afterwards will bump that number. The second is (then) intended for updates and the last one for fixes. So yes, it may be a bit "free for all" at the moment, but it won't matter later, anyway.

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Now, let's have a brief time schedule for this:

The work on the interface took me about a week. At this point I wanted to have a breather for a day or two, but then remembered that I actually hadn't done any work on sorting out the assets I want to use. They were sitting in their designated folders, but nothing more.

So I started looking into the music, sound and enemies. And yes, a lot of people may now think that this doesn't make any sense at the start of the project - but it's pretty much the way I'm handling this to actually quite the positive result. It... just gets convoluted at some points, making it difficult to decide - which is basically the reason it took a lot of the month. But, now it's mostly done and if 5% of the decision needs to be thought over at some point, it was still worth to do it.

I'm not finished entirely yet, though - which was one of the reasons I've thought about postponing this devlog. But I think staying true to the schedule will be better in the longrun.

And of course, I didn't work the whole rest of the month on it. I also had some (deserved?) pauses within it.

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Finally, some future plans I want to write about:

With the next update, we actually reach the 5th update! ... Which doesn't mean much, but anyways! For that, I intend to update the main page's text a bit, as well as the layout of the devlog. As you can already see here, I want to give a better overview before the detail section.

I also thought about getting a twitter presence after all, to use it for showing sneak peeks. I actually would like to show stuff more often after creating them, but releasing a new devlog for it would be quite excessive. Also - Steam! While I wasn't against it on paper, I didn't assume I would add the game. Now - I am neutral to it! (Big news, everyone). Anyways, this is of course not important for quite a while from now.

In regards of concept logs: I intend to do one every two devlogs (so every two months). I'm not sure if this will work out long-term, but I think it's a good balance for what I want to present about the game currently. If it seems too slow, or too fast at some point, I can still adjust it, then.

Lastly, giving info on what I plan to work on next! I didn't start doing that, as I normally roll with what I want to do... but I guess this doesn't really stop me from writing it up beforehand. If things change during the month, they just do - but at least it may give you a rough overview.

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So, what is actually planned for the next devlog update?

As the interface is still a strong focus currently, I will probably continue working on the custom interfaces. (You will see more about them below). The plan is to have it actually being finished and in working state (as much as possible).

Second, continuing the asset sorting, by finishing the enemies and sounds up, as well as looking into the characters.

Third, let's see! Let's be honest, doing everything above until the deadline would actually be more than expected. So if this would be done by then, I guess continuing some more of the default interfaces (battle, abilities, ...) would be the way to go.

And that's that. As you may note, doing it like this will actually stretch the "short" part of the devlog quite a bit. So if you're only interested in the actual changes, I will try to split the above information in different sections.

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Progress Showcase (Outdated)

This is the full chapter selection! (Yes)

As there is currently no chapter available, the state of the eighth one is actually how it would (and does) look ingame. But the different states give you a rough overview of how the menu will handle different progression in each chapter.

I will go into the whole system regarding the chapter navigation (and maybe the additional content around them) in the upcoming concept log - so stay tuned for the upcoming weeks!

This menu is basically feature complete. You can select a chapter, which will (in the future) transfer you to the chosen... well, chapter.

Toggling the overlay will give you the following:

A sub-menu which contains all additional modes!

Again, I will go into them in the corresponding log - but just as a reminder: The points stated here will be collected by playing the game. There aren't any real payments involved - it will be a bonus shop for progression and completing chapters. Maybe unnecessary to point out, but better save than sorry.

So, let's take a look at one (and the only one currently made) sub-menu:

The shop... how fitting.

While the design is set pretty much on efficiency, there was actually put (much) thought in the order of the "articles" and how you can access them easily.

Now, the above shown is items for the Portfolio. (Basically a "book" for enemies, locations and characters)

The next picture shows the second category - the Arcade:

The Arcade will give you a minigame for each chapter.

Now, as stated above, these things will be unlockable by spending the points you gain in chapters. While you can gain the necessary points for a chapter's bonus content within said chapter, you will be able to basically mix and match chapter progression and bonus content as you wish.

Again, more information on this in a concept log!

Lastly, here a snapshot of how the shop actually works already:

As you can see, the items will show their individual price, as well as a calculated balance after buying. If you don't have enough points, this window will change the "added to: ..." text to "you can't afford this".

You can also check your current points by pressing Shift... which currently also is doable while having the "Leaving?" window open... yeah. Well, it should be stated that I've also not finished this scene entirely. While the portfolio section is done, the arcade part isn't. So that's obviously the next part of the interface I will tackle before continuing with the next sub-menus.

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Now, the next part will not contain pictures - as I would only show my working folders.

As I've worked on filtering through the asset library, here are some statistics:

Music: From about 180 tracks I sorted out to use 96 (+2). Each chapter uses about 15 tracks for battle, locations and events. There are also tracks for the minigames, the system area (the custom menus), as well as an additional mode. Currently, chapters 5 and 6 are missing their battle themes still, as well as chapters 7 and 8 having no music yet.

Some may think that these are actually not that many per chapter - and they are partially right. There are actually 5 battle themes normally, as well as a theme for every location you will visit. Event scenes however are trimmed down with only 3 distinctively set themes. While this is intentional, as I want to work with silence as well, this may be one part I will look into again if I think it just isn't enough for a particular part.

Sound Effects: Have been cut from the default 345 of the engine to use 65 (+5). Again, may be a bit less, so I may add some back in. I just want to work with less is more here, as I think that this is better than having the overwhelming amount to go through every time.

Animations: Have been newly replaced by the ones from SeraphCircle (you can find him here on itch) - which I actually also use the enemy graphics from. While I haven't sorted them out yet, I've added all 189 render sheets into the project  to create animations from them at some point.

Enemies: From about 90 designs (with a lot of colouring and graphical variations) I used both to use 75 of them while having 213 (+2) individual graphics to encounter. Adding them into the database and adding additional variations by using the colour slider will give each chapter 8 individual enemies and their recolours / redesigns for other areas.

Again, this may seem as not that many individual enemies per chapter (and it isn't - let's be honest). But within the actual game I think this will work (fine), especially as it is a (known and maybe infamous) practice to recycle enemies in rpgs. The main reason (for me) is basically that you would need a big amount of graphics otherwise - like, a lot.  ... Or you could just make one game with it, instead of 8 individual ones. I guess that would be an option... (Cough)

The numbers in brackets are a few things I'm not sure of adding, yet. (Ideas for the additional mode, mainly)

Feel free to follow my project here on itch.io or via my x-profile.

The next update will be showcased on here as soon as it is ready.

Like always, thank you for reading and have a nice week, everyone.

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