Children of Alchemy Devlog #02 – Final tweaks

Hello fine folks of itch.io! How are you today? How's the weather?

 Wouldn't you know it, I'm back with another Children of Alchemy update, yay! Today, I'd like to share exciting news: the Children of Alchemy demo is coming out next week! That's right, the demo is largely done. Right now, all it's missing is one specific art asset. Once my sister makes that, we are good to go.

 So what's today's devlog about? Well, it's mostly going to be me talking about some final tweaks I've made for the demo, while also teasing some post-demo content I've already started working on. Work is going very smoothly and stuff is getting done surprisingly fast, which is great news for estimating a potential release date of the full version (which I'm not going to say now as to not make any promises in case something happens). Without further ado, here's what I've been working on this week.

Making the game visually interesting

 Game visuals are more than just art assets you're using – filters, image overlays, even the UI can help how your game looks greatly. I talked about the HUD quite a bit in the last entry, so I won't delve into that here, but I'll talk about something that I'm really proud of that I've made – falling petals. Which I've animated by hand. 

 Of course, these petals don't show up when the player is inside a building – I've made a switch that checks whether the player is outside or not, and made the petals display only if the switch is on. Because of plugin incompatibility, I had to add the petals in a very annoying way – through SRDude's HUD Maker. It's a great tool, but, instead of making a simple particle effect, I had to manually animate each petal to fall at a different speed and angle, also give them different opacity and so on. BUT, they're here, they're beautiful and I love them! 

 I also changed the screen tint a bit to make it more green and give it more of a historical feeling (I don't know why, but green has massive historical energy). Nothing too drastic, but it's a nice change and makes the game much more atmospheric in my opinion. To all other RM devs out there: absolutely don't be afraid to (ab)use the “Tint Screen” function! It's amazing how easily you can manipulate the game's feel with it! 

Slowly starting the post-demo content – what I'm up to

 As I said, right now, the one roadblock between me and the release of the demo is one art asset, which is currently being made by my sister. This leaves me with a lot of time to start work on other stuff. Post-demo stuff, I mean. With how smoothly work is going, I already have a semi-playable area that I'm slowly adding content to, making more sidequests, adding more enemies and so on. I also have the rough draft of a cutscene made – one that will give the player their first chunk of insight into what's happening in the imperial palace. And there's a lot of drama going on there, believe me.

 Right now, I'm focusing on making fun and engaging sidequests for the party, especially since there's a point in the story where doing the sidequests is frankly expected. There's a way to get around doing them, but it's meant for people who are really desperate not to do any story (and those people are honestly going to have a pretty bad time in this game anyway). In any case, the sidequests need to be creative and well-thought-out, so I'm putting in the work to make them that way. 

 One of the toughest parts about making the level I'm making is mapping. Spoiler alert: things take place in a bamboo forest. That is dangerous for me for two reasons. One: I suck at mapping nature. Two: there's only so much interesting stuff I can put in a place that's pretty much just bamboo. Making the area distinct and enjoyable is a real challenge for me, but I hope to do a decent job and give the player a nice experience. My design philosophy right now? Put a lot of random rocks and collectibles in there. That always seems to work. 

Adding the smallest of tweaks (or not)

Game development is a tricky subject. When you think you're done, you're only about 50% done with what you're making. Truth be told, I thought I was done about a month ago, just waiting for my sister's assets. Boy, was I wrong. What I neglected back then was the UI (which, as explained in the last entry, I've actually completely remade since then), but also the overall visual appeal of the game. I didn't apply any filters, didn't tint the screen, didn't bother with those damn petals. The game looked extremely RPG Maker and frankly unpolished – because, well, it was! Polishing a game is no easy task, especially if you're pretty much the only person making it. You just don't see certain things. Luckily, I managed to get my sister to playtest it a bit, and she provided priceless feedback. 

 Give the game to your family and friends, seriously. And, most importantly – watch them play it. 

 One more thing devs tend to neglect is the options menu. Truth be told, I'm still not completely happy with mine. Unfortunately, I lack the programming prowess to make the menu of my dreams – I've settled for some plugins that add new options for the player to fiddle with. And it's fine. Knowing when to stop is also an important skill for any dev polishing their game. Otherwise, you're just going to keep polishing forever, which is super dangerous. I sacrifice my options menu at the altar of actually finishing the demo, and I think this decision can only benefit me in the long run.

Final thoughts

Thank you so much if you're still reading. This game is a labor of love before anything else. I'm having some serious fun making it, even though there are elements of the technical/creative process that I hate with a passion. I can't wait to share it with you guys, and I can't wait to hear what else I can add or fix. Please stay tuned for the demo release next week, and please have a wonderful week in the meantime. Cheers!