Hi everyone,

as I am still busy with concept work for the battle system and character progression, there will not be any update posts this month.

However, seeing that it has actually been 6 months since the very first devlog, it seems like a nice idea to just look back on what has been done so far on the project.

So, if you have looked into the older posts before, this will probably be nothing too exciting. If you have not, or just want a summary, enjoy!

Also, if you happen to be around on Twitter, here is a quick reminder that I sometimes post sneak peeks there: https://x.com/Salbei_Chris

Note: This post is related to Late Shape Journey (Beta).

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Version 0.1.0 (November '21)

Celebrating the debut of its online presence, the 'Late Shape Project' skipped over the 0.0.5 internal version and showed of the first work that had been done in order to shape what the final release would become: A technical enhanced and adjusted framework of the RPG Maker engine probably a lot of you will recognize already.

In that context, most of the plugins which would be used had been implemented and roughly set up. Additionally, a greater chunk of the initial assets planned to be used had been acquired and the very first database drafts created for testing purposes in the future.

On a bigger scope, some of the interfaces were adjusted in design and function to support the features the game would use, as well. Work was done on the status, inventory, options and title screen, among some minor menus. While I was under the impression that this would be the bigger part of the menus, I would be proven wrong in the months to come.

Click here for the full Devlog.

Version 0.1.5 (December '21)

Continuing where we left off, I had improved some of the menus from last time and started working on changing up the save and load screen. While I didn't finish them in time for the monthly update, I did also add back some information to the main menu and re-enabled the skill screen to not touch it since.

On a side note, additional plugins and assets had been added, as well.

Click here for the full Devlog.

Version 0.2.0 (January '22)

Getting into the new year with some pauses, I at least had finished up the save and load screen. I had also took the time to polish up some of the interfaces from before and had looked into minor stuff around the project, like system settings, plugin parameters and the game icon.

As most of the time, I had also looked into additional assets and concepts for the project.

Click here for the full Devlog.

Version 0.2.5 (February '22)

Leaving the default interfaces for now, I realized that there were also a lot of menus to create for what content the final game should be able to offer. With that, I had to sit down and create event-based menus from scratch and plan out how they should work for the user.

Which followed was the creation of the chapter selection scene and the additional overlay for sub menus. While not sounding like much, it was an actual more complex menu others would take their base from.

I had also started looking into the acquired and default assets to actually sort and filter them out to see what and how I would use them for future implementation into the project. Part of that had been the music and enemies, for example.

Click here for the full Devlog.

Version 0.3.0 (March '22)

Finishing up a bit of the sub-menu work, it became clear that some of the menus were a bit difficult to design at this stage of development, so I wanted to go back to the default menus... and did something completely different by adding a first bootup scene and profile menu. Still, at least the point shop screen had been finished and I had got a rough picture of how the portfolio menu would be supposed to work.

In this process, I had also improved the title screen vastly, by adding additional features and changing the background of the scene. It would now support Terms of Use, looking into the latest update, as well as the mentioned profile screen, a twitter link and hiding the interface to look at the whole background environment.

Click here for the full Devlog.

Version 0.3.5 (April '22)

Finally going back to the default interfaces, I had actually started working on the battle scene, while looking into how the system would need to be adjusted and balanced in parallel. This is also the point I am still working on at the moment, at least the latter part, actually.

I had also started the process of again finishing and polishing up stuff, this time for the project as a whole by setting up all the assets folder-wise, so that I could implement everything as intended into the project's database in the near future.

Click here for the full Devlog.

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End of Special Log

And this leaves us at the present. I hope to continue the concepts and the battle system, so that I can show you the results next month. I also really want to polish up the mentioned stuff, so that the project as a whole will get to a working foundation to be built upon.

Of course, there is still a lot to do for that in other areas, especially additional menus for the on-map gameplay, creating database items... and probably even more stuff I am not thinking about right now. While some stuff will come into play when the actual first chapter will be worked on, there are still some things left to do in order to call the foundation finished.

With that being said - I still (naively) hope to reach that point at least before I have to cheat to not get over the classic 1.0 mark - which would give me about a year if I math'd correctly. I would actually like to finish it up sooner, maybe even this year. But as more time progresses, even if I would finally get to manage more progress within one month, it does not seem that realistic any more. (As usual)

Anyways, for everyone who has occasionally followed this game's progress, or may start to in the future - thank you for reading, as always. Feel free to check back to the monthly updates by checking the itch.io's devlogs or via the project's main page: https://ingwer.itch.io/late-shape-project

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

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