I did that post once, and then die for months thing again.
Time to rectify that...with an update! So, where's SEM been since I posted the last update? Where have I been? Good questions, which I'm sure you haven't asked, but I will supply answers to anyway!
Starting with myself, I have been mostly scarce on the game development side of things for the last couple months of 2014 due to life in general. Mostly working real jobs, trying to find a stable source of income, and basically just 'living'. Which meant that my work on SEM slowed down to a crawl. Admittedly, now, I'm essentially working full time, so it's not like I actually have the chance to speed up SEM's development, but I am pushing beyond all odds to do so.
Now, on the SEM front, the move to Ace has pretty much gone swimmingly. Scene and conversation flow have been implemented perfectly, the symbol map system has been improved from Sacred Earth: Promise, and I've done a good amount of work on the game's initial story events. The game's first 'chapter' can basically be played from start to end. The entire game's story has been written down for the first time in SEM's history, giving me a clear plan and idea of how to proceed at all points. All character designs have been updated, finally consolidating everyone into the same sort of style.
What's left now though? ...Quite a bit unfortunately. The game's combat system has not been set up still, and a lot of mechanics simply do not exist, which will require commissioning. Character battle sprites need to be edited, or even flat out created from scratch. I need to design and implement a main menu and sub menus, and of course, I need to create all of the story events from chapter 2 onward.
It's too much work for one man, frankly. And even though I've pruned this game down to the most manageable chunks I can over the years, SEM still manages to be a towering beast to the lone individual. There have been times where I considered giving in to the allure of crowdfunding and running a kickstarter, but...I quickly realize that's a dumb idea. And so I keep on the straight road, plodding towards the distance.
Thankfully I have friends helping me out. Of which I am eternally grateful for(And entirely unworthy), but nonetheless, I suppose that's enough rambling. Let's have some visual proof that I haven't been slacking off!
Conversation in town
Current Symbol Map design
Character Concepts
And that's all for now. I'll try and update this more regularly, and keep a proper development schedule all around, but...when has that ever happened?
Anyway, till next time!
