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.0.6.5.

A download is not available for this game yet.

== Miscellaneous ==

Added Fairy Assets from the default assets

Added additional Character Pictures for On Map Notifications

Added a missing character to 'enemies' folder

Changed Gear Category 'Body' to 'Armour' and Item 'B-Essence' to 'A-Essence'

Added 'saves.txt' to save folder explaining save file management

Adjusted the 'Go Twitter' prompt in Title Scene with 'X Profile'

Adjusted Chapter Overlay's cursor placement from 'Shop' to 'Side Stories'

Added 'Health and Safety' Splash Screen on Startup

Added a Quick Start Guide to game folder

Re-worked Keyboard and Controller Mapping to support Left/Right-handed play and 'Support' Menu respectively

Removed 4 Animation Files

Updated VisuStella Library to #129

Adjusted Saving System

= Interface =

Adjusted default interfaces (Name Input, Number Input, Choice Select)

Added Hub World Interface (Layer 1 - Partially); Base Prompts, Character Display, Partner Display, Conversation List

Added Monument Interface (Partially); Base, Character Display, Saving

= Expansion (For now) =

Added 3 new additional menu options: Music Mode, Final Feature, Bitter Bonus

Added 26 BGM, 3 BGS, 1 ME, 3 Characters, 8 Enemies, 1 Tileset, 2 Animation Files

Adjusted Logo and Title of the game

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[Progress Showcase] (Outdated)

I did talk about this one for some devlogs already and finally started working on it: The Hub Menu.

It is basically your, well, base during chapters. You progress story scenes, manage your character and partner, and do some other stuff like conversations and additional settings from here. Most importantly, this is from where you set out into Sanctums and where you return to afterwards.

As mentioned in the changelog, I only got as far as adding the first layer (the first key input) for 3 of the 6 prompts. There is a lot to include for these displays, mostly because I am integrating all 8 chapters into the event logic at once. So it will still take a while for this to be completed.

As for the menus in detail, above you can see the Character Display. It shows you the Nature, the current Stance and Elements, alongside some flavour information. On the right you can adjust the things set. In regards to prior information, you will be able to adjust your Nature if you decide to set the corresponding preference in the (Hub) Settings, basically breaking the canon for the character. Weapon will open the 'Inlay System' for you to integrate a bonus in some form.

Your partner has more or less the same system, however as upgrades will not be applied automatically (by default), you have more options here to interact with them. For example, 'Evolve' will give them items to enhance their Stance, Element and such, 'Feed' will give them the Gear Essences.

Doing any of the right options will start interaction with your pet, for all other than 'Talk' these will be a minigame of some sort. You will be able to deactivate those for upgrading in the (Hub) Settings, in case you prefer managing your pet in a simpler and faster way.

The Conversation List will keep track of any talks you open up while playing the chapter. The 'Status' will change accordingly.

Not too much else to write about here, as I presented the Conversation System already. This is basically a companion piece for you to enjoy philosophising with characters about (important) topics. Something to note here is that, as with the other systems, you will have a setting to adjust your preference to make missed conversations still viewable. They will not count to your achievement of having done all of them, but you will be able to read them, at least.

One final thing: The Hub Menu will give you notifications if you can do something in one of the sub menus. If it is something you have not seen yet, it will show 'New", if you have seen it but have not done everything there is to do, it will show 'Check'. With this you can always stay on top of things and decide what you want to do next.

This is the Monument Menu, basically an extended Save Point. You can not only check for your Character and Partner from inside Sanctums with it, you can also tweak some settings and exit the Sanctum or Chapter from there. And, well, you can save your game. And check for hints.

Do not mind the bug at the bottom by the way, it comes from changing the controls again. Still have to adjust some stuff because of it.

Some additional things: By default, you cannot upgrade your partner from inside sanctums. It is intended to go back to base and interact with them there, as I simply feel it to be most... immersive? But hey, you do not have to abide, as you can again change that within the 'Tweak' settings. Same as with the Hub Menu, there are some options in there taken from the 'Game Input' menu of the Chapter Selection, as well as some specific ones.

The Recovery will change depending on the difficulty you are playing. None (currently) is set for 'Master Mode'. Hints are enabled (and toggleable) as soon as your partner obtains the respective Class Upgrade. There is a setting for this as well: You can set it to save your toggle, or make it auto-toggle as soon as it is possible. You can decide if and when you want to see these hints.

I have also adjusted how saving works. Next to the Autosave triggering when changing maps, you can also save at Monuments.

You can decide between a Quicksave and a 'Full Save'. If you decide to do the latter, you will see the notification above.

Doing such a save will give you a Warp Location to this specific monument (for every Sanctum level independently), and also create a Backup onto a Reserve Slot. If you chose 'Slot 1' for your playthrough, this will be 'Slot 11' and so on. This is done as a safety measure, as the playthrough is usually saved upon the same slot constantly. If anything happens, you can get back to the last save at a monument you have done.

A quicksave is not only a few tiny little seconds faster, but does not change your warp location or reserve slot. It will also be the save done by the game most of the time... I think. I have to see about that when doing the chapter management and such.

I also have some other stuff laying around, but in concept picture only. The 'Tweak' menu for one, as well as the menu you can see above.

The Support Menu will be openable while standing idle in a Sanctum. You can view a list of Treasure in the area (the extent changeable as a preference setting), the Tutorial, warp back to the Entrance or Monument, or... change into a Fairy.

Fairy Mode (with the corresponding !, ?, . depending on your difficulty setting) will give you some benefits as long as active. You can be invincible against obstacles (Casual only), make encounters optional by passing through them (Casual and Expert), and double your moving speed (all difficulties and the only benefit during Master Mode).

Finally, there is Reserve - which lets you load your Backup Save if so desired.

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[More outdated stuff]

With all that written, we are mostly through with what I have achieved the last months. Besides some stuff I probably forgot about, and some things I will mention next.

I actually thought about a lot of things (again) and while I would not say it halted my progress per se, it of course stopped me from working on the actual stuff.

I am someone who likes to know where the road is taking me, especially for something like a hobby I set for myself and where I already know - or at least assume - that it is something which will not last forever. You cannot do stuff like this without stopping some day, and it would of course be great if you would not have to stop during development of anything. I also noticed quite often by now, that, while I do have passion for what I want to create, it is specifically that I want to create exactly this. Whenever I think about doing more or something else, I notice that it starts to not really making sense to me.

Going from there, for a long while I actually wanted to make Late Shape Tale a series, probably even the only series I want to make. Some may know from other devlogs that I intended to even only upgrade what I am doing here to continue the same gameplay and mechanics.

With that in mind, and wanting to know what I would want to do from a story point of view, I planned out Late Shape 2. You know, years and years before it would matter 'physically', but for me to know where to go with my planning and 'franchise'.

I wanted to create a continuation with one of the characters from Late Shape Tale, continuing their journey to other worlds and experiencing stories - or 'scenarios' - they had to deal with. Inspirations were drawn from stuff like Ys (Adol's adventures throughout the world), and Zelda (especially the idea and world of Link's Awakening), among basically all the ideas I had collected when I was young (like a pirate treasure, or a village with an object and mentality, but also something more anime or dystopian).

I had planned out 8 scenarios, which would progress in more or less the same fashion as the first game, culminating in a true ending and another Unreach Mode.

In the same spirit, I vaguely planned out what I want for the third and final instalment, this time focusing on one world but stories that happen in the same time frame. Different characters and more or less a big final for the series.

And the more I planned the more vague it got. Not because I did not have ideas, but because I started to care less and less.

All this could of course just be me jumping way ahead in time. That I would care when the time comes, because I would be done with what I have now and could do it 'again'. But specifically why and how I even make the first game, I can see the exact differences on how I would want to approach any sequels just for the sake of even being able to make them.

And that is the issue. That is what would not work. No matter if some ideas would be great and I would like to execute some of them. Because this is not enough to make a game. It always failed.

And there is no better example of that then the Alternate Game I wanted to make.

I planned out an entire game based on Late Shape Tale, but not connected with it directly. The idea basically being to have another game to work on when I get tired of working on the former.

So I planned it out: All characters, all dungeon levels, the whole story. It was good. It had character. It could have been a good companion piece to what I would work on most of the time.

But I scrapped it. Because I could not bother to make it for the life of me. Basically me saying 'Well I enjoyed that game in my head, but I have no intention to take all of this into reality. Done.'

As some can now believe, it was still kind of demotivating. Wasting all that energy and time on some dream that was not what you expected at first. And it also leaves you with a question: 'What do you actually want to do? Do you only want to make that one game and be done with it? Quit your hobby after... I dunno, still a long time from now, but be done with it afterwards.'

The only thing left to me was taking the scraps and think back on how I decided to make Late Shape Tale. Doing what I want to do and nothing more. Would there be any other game, genre, something, I still want to make as well?

Yes. Actually. But only one. And so it came to this:

You can clearly see me keeping the same style with the logo, and I also will not change too much about how I create this game.

That being said, it will not be a dungeon crawler rpg. It will be a thievery stealth game. In RPG Maker - I know. Still, it is the only thing I actually would be interested to tackle and, the way I want to do it, it seems possible.

So there you go: The second game I want to work on. But not for a while. I currently intend to look into it when the next iteration of the software comes around. And maybe even then from time to time. It would be neat to see myself working on both games, but I am not sure if I will ever be able to manage this satisfyingly. And at the end of the day, I want to focus on Late Shape Tale and make sure that new content is not prolonged even more.

... But on the other hand, I do not see myself not getting into it for ... however long that game will take, either. So we will see how I will do it.

Next, I added another project to the list. Or the final one, I suppose:

Anyone remember when I wrote about my past games and how they were not that great and should be left behind?

I finally bit into the lime and decided to bring the old era of time-related games back for what I did find they did right.

As that was only 10% of all they were, I will obviously remake them and expand their content. I also will adjust stuff like the not so great story, as much as possible.

The games will never be more than they were intended to be, but coming from that view point, I believe I can make them to proper and enjoyable experiences. So I will do that in the future and basically complete my 'trilogy of projects' after all.

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With all that said, I want to mention that I have added both of them, as well as the Late Shape Tale Game Page to my profile site, which I have also expanded with two more games from other creators, as well as assets from the four main creators I use for these projects.

I have also set up the community area on the Late Shape Project Page which will host the communities for all three games in the future. There is no content there yet, but it is at least mostly done for now.

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With that, we come to the last part of my 'big plans', which you can see above already.

Not only did I lay out what else to make, but also how to expand Late Shape Tale once more as it will be the only game in that regard I want to create.

I am not completely done on that front, as I am eager to edge onto the limit as much as possible, but I will share with you what I have for now.

First, as you can see I changed the Title to 'Late Shape Tale F'.

What does the 'F' stand for?

I dunno.

The idea behind is to have it there as some other jrpgs, mostly showing that it is an extension of the original game/concept.

When I still had the vision of making it a series, it actually could be seen as 'First'. Or 'Fancy'. Or whatever you wanted it to be. I since then changed it to 'Final' or 'Full' for obvious reasons. But I actually like the idea of it just being 'F' kind of more. Do actually any of those jrpgs know why they add that letter? Is it only unknown in my mind? I actually do not even want to know, it makes it funnier.

With that out of the way, what did I decide to add?

First off, I extended the Chapter Overlay by adding 3 more Sub Menus.

'Jukebox' will allow you to listen to all the music of the game once you have unlocked it in some way. 'Master!' is an additional minigame you will unlock after finishing 'Resolution'.

And Resolution is:

An entire new chapter. The Epilogue, or if you go by me naming Unreach Chapter 9 internally, Chapter 10.

While I intended for the story in Unreach Mode to be a conclusion, it still left something open. Something I wanted to tackle in other ways - or just drop entirely. After all the planning and thinking, I came to this additional story which will give an end - and hope - for that one last character.

It may not have been necessary, and came from the idea of making more with them. But it is one additional story I actually liked and want to tell. To send the game off. Well, at least in that regard.

From a content perspective, I added more that I want to see in the game, as well.

Not only do I plan to add an 'Overture', basically a small tutorial-like chapter/sanctum to start the game with, but I also decided to add more sanctums at the end as additional content. Not full chapters or too much story, but simply sanctums of some extent for more gameplay.

I think that does actually stretch it as far as you can go with... all I want to do with this game. There cannot be too much more I believe. But as said, I have not marked my brainstorming as done as of now.

All of that expending has also left me with some re-adjusting. I changed some of the information on the game page, at least for now, and I have to adjust game stuff I have already created as well. Not the most fun stuff in the world, but it will be worth it and is basically why I did all of that future thinking in the first place. To get to all this, know what I want, and can work on it motivated.

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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