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And there's a new monthly update out as well! https://reader.tymoon.eu/article/394 There's some good progress that was made in February, so there's a lot to look at if you haven't kept up to date. I'm also hiring again, this time for a musician, so if you are one or know people that are looking for work, check out the job listing!
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Mar 6, 2021 15:38
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Shinmera posted:I'm also hiring again, this time for a musician, so if you are one or know people that are looking for work, check out the job listing! I am a composer and am very intrigued but I know another composer who would be much better for your project than me. Have sent him your job listing, but if you want to check him out, this is his website and SoundCloud: https://www.hollandalbright.com/music / https://soundcloud.com/hollandalbright He also posts short snippets on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/holland_albright_composer/) if you want to just get a quick idea of his stuff.
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Mar 9, 2021 05:44
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Cool, thanks! I'll keep an eye out for his application if it comes in and will prioritise it. There's currently over 200 applications already, so I can't possibly look at all of them in detail I'm afraid.
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Mar 9, 2021 08:08
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We've now entered phase 3 with the applications! I've hired the three finalist composers to write a one minute track for the game, based on which we'll make our final selection. The deadline for the tracks is 18th of April, so they'll have plenty of time to work on it. They've also all agreed to make it public once they're done, so I'll definitely link them here as well! Otherwise we've started with the private release of the next demo and I'm eagerly fixing all the bugs that are rolling in. On the side I've been working on a few tweaks and minor improvements, like adding a bunch of different palette options for the stranger: If any of you have ideas for other characters to add as a palette option, let me know! Adding these is easy and fun.
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Mar 30, 2021 21:56
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I'm excited to hear those tracks
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Apr 7, 2021 15:06
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We've been getting some demos in recently, and they sound amazing! I feel like it's gonna be really hard to make the final decision, again, ha ha! Also, tomorrow's the long awaited release of the vertical slice demo! We've put a ton of work into this, and according to our testers it should have around an hour+ worth of content in it. I hope you check it out!
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Apr 10, 2021 13:22
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Alright, the vertical slice demo is out! Along with a lengthy monthly update: https://reader.tymoon.eu/article/395 The demo should have around an hour of content. I hope you give it a try!
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Apr 11, 2021 20:33
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Do you have any idea how you'll integrate drawings like these into the game? Loading screens or something?
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Apr 12, 2021 07:36
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Maybe in a concept art gallery at some point? Not sure, I didn't make them with the intention of being seen in-game at all, they're just for development and the monthly updates. Ideally we wouldn't have any loading screens at all during the game, except for perhaps during fast travel, but even then load times shouldn't be very long since the assets we need to keep around aren't many or huge. That's something to explore for later though.
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Apr 12, 2021 09:41
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Our jam game is called Eternia: Pet Whisperer, and it is now up on steam! You play as a tired office worker looking to spice up their life a bit, so you go to an animal shelter to find a pet to adopt! It'll be a pretty short visual novel on account of our limited development time, but we're on track to finish it by the end of the week. We should end up with about an hour of content, which is pretty good considering we had to start pretty much from scratch! As before with Kandria, wishlisting it would be much appreciated! We'll be resuming work on Kandria next week.
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Apr 19, 2021 17:36
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Eternia is now done and sitting in Steam's approval queue! If all goes well we should release next Monday as planned. Made a trailer for it that I'm quite happy with: https://twitter.com/Shinmera/status/1387059460762447876
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Apr 27, 2021 16:21
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Oh, and the composer was finally settled last Wednesday! I'm very happy to welcome Mikel Dale onto the team: https://twitter.com/mikeldalemusic/status/1387365914400731139 Here's the other two finalist tracks as well: Joao Luis: https://filebox.tymoon.eu//file/TWpJNE13PT0= Jacob Lincke: https://filebox.tymoon.eu//file/TWpJNE1nPT0= Mikel will start next week, and I'm really excited to dive into Kandria's soundscape with him. Gonna have to first focus on a trailer, though...
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Apr 28, 2021 14:11
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Hey, there's been some delay because I hosed up, but Eternia is now finally out on Steam! Let me know if you check it out!
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May 5, 2021 12:23
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From the dev blog:quote:Still, it was heartbreaking every time I got a report, as knowing people can't even play the game and are likely very frustrated or disappointed stings a lot. Dude chill, it's a one dollar game and your first real game release. Be proud you published a game on steam. quote:Still, the amount of issues that are only uncovered by having people with various PC setups try to run your game is... well, it's not great. Maybe for Kandria you'll want to distribute like one-level demos or something in advance among friends and such. Pre-release candidates. Ask the lisp community to do some testing too, surely they'd be interested in seeing a smooth launch for a CL game.
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May 10, 2021 16:31
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Ocean of Milk posted:From the dev blog: I'm just being open with my feelings, ha ha! I'm prone to perfectionism, so these kinds of reactions aren't unusual to me. I'm of course very happy that we managed to publish something! I assume you mean a demo of the completed game, as opposed to the vertical slice and prior demos we've been making publicly available already? The interesting thing about that is, despite both Kandria and Eternia using the same engine underneath, in its entire year that Kandria has had public, free demos available now it didn't uncover any of the issues Eternia uncovered in its first few days on Steam. I'm not sure what to make of that, really. I'd assume that quite a few people have been trying Kandria's demos, at least as many that have bought and tried Eternia by now. The only thing I can think about for that is that it's just hard to get a good sample of different setups out there, and on Steam I can more easily reach a more diverse sample set. We are still planning to do a free demo thing on Steam, but we're currently unsure when we should do that. It has to look good enough for long enough to not become a detriment in quality to the full game, and it can't spoil too much of the full game. For now we're focusing on making the vertical slice into good pitching material, and then I suppose later we can try to cut it down into a good bite of around 30 minutes for a Steam demo or something. I don't know, this kinda stuff is hard and gives me a headache.
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May 10, 2021 17:59
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The new trailer is finally out! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf9Z4MPBbfc I'm actually quite happy with how it turned out, which is a rarity for me! Struggled quite a bit with the VO script and the game footage, but overall with how much of a step up this is compared to the previous trailers I think it was well worth the time investment.
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May 17, 2021 17:53
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Shinmera posted:The new trailer is finally out! That is a good trailer! Well done!
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May 18, 2021 04:28
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Thanks! I'm glad the trailer has been well received so far! I hope I won't have to make a new one until next year, heh.
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May 18, 2021 09:56
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Hey, sorry for the lack of updates here. We're mostly hashing out internal stuff like revising the quest system, ironing out bugs, and figuring out music and such. In the meantime, though, I'm considering doing a regular dev stream for Kandria. If there's any stream-watchers here, please fill out the doodle so I can figure out a suitable time: https://doodle.com/poll/7gfcb8t38e34k8c2#calendar The actual dates don't matter, only the day of the week and time. Name also won't be public, so don't worry about that! It would be really cool to get a small stream audience going! I'm not sure if there's other places on SA where I could announce that sort of thing? Anyone know of something?
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Jun 2, 2021 16:17
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Shinmera posted:The new trailer is finally out! Looks really good!
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Jun 2, 2021 16:48
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Thanks! I'm really glad that the two weeks we spent on the trailer have been paying off! In other news, the Palestinian Aid Bundle is live on itch.io and Eternia: Pet Whisperer is a part of it. If you haven't played it yet, now's the best chance to! https://itch.io/b/902/indie-bundle-for-palestinian-aid
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Jun 4, 2021 22:02
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Oh, and it's a new month again already as well, so there's a new monthly summary up on the blog: https://reader.tymoon.eu/article/397 Also includes some other news I hadn't mentioned in the thread yet, like the announcement for development streams. If you're interested in checking those out, have a read!
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Jun 6, 2021 17:03
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I've been trying to break into imgur to get some more eyes onto the game. Today I made an effort post on level editing: https://imgur.com/gallery/VfeSh4f In the same vein I also made a longer video on YouTube that explains how to use the editor and shows off building a small sample level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlCf4ogvrhQ I'd appreciate some feedback on all that! I hope to organise a level design contest of sorts at some point, and for that to work out at all, the editor has to be in a good state. While all this is going on, we're also working on preparation stuff for the next area of the game, as well as the missing parts and features for a full demo including tutorial. So far everything's on track, which is really nice!
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Jun 12, 2021 15:07
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There's a development stream happening right now: https://stream.shinmera.com It'll happen at the same time every Sunday from here on out. If you want to make sure you get the right timezone, there's a page with a countdown and the local time here: https://events.tymoon.eu/9#9
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Jun 13, 2021 16:54
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We finally finished a first track! https://filebox.tymoon.eu//file/TWpNeU5BPT0= Also: birds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdXpC06nbxA
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Jun 21, 2021 13:48
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Still looks interesting. When will a playable demo be released?
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Jun 21, 2021 14:49
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A playable demo has been available (in various states) since march last year! You can get it here: https://kandria.com/prototype Actually, we're looking for people to do blind testing at the moment. Would you be up to do a screenshare session (over Discord or something) so I can see you play? It would be very useful for us to figure out spots where the game is frustrating or confusing.
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Jun 21, 2021 17:00
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Shinmera posted:A playable demo has been available (in various states) since march last year! Maybe, but generally my playtime is kind of weird since I work overnight. I could record it w/voice commentary if that would work
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Jun 22, 2021 08:52
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That might actually work out fine depending on the time zone stuff. I live in central europe, so assuming you're in the US that's a 6-9 hours difference. I'm usually available 9:00-22:00 CEST / 3:00-16:00 EST / 0:00-13:00 PST. Recording with voice commentary would be great, if we can't make a live session work, though I don't want to put additional work on you!
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Jun 22, 2021 09:24
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Shinmera posted:That might actually work out fine depending on the time zone stuff. I live in central europe, so assuming you're in the US that's a 6-9 hours difference. I'm usually available 9:00-22:00 CEST / 3:00-16:00 EST / 0:00-13:00 PST. Oh yeah that's probably fine then, message me on discord at greypowervan#1822
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Jun 22, 2021 11:06
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:Oh yeah that's probably fine then, message me on discord at greypowervan#1822 Thanks! Discord tells me it can't add you as a friend, though... Hm. Here's my tag: ShinmerAgain#0704
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Jun 22, 2021 12:15
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Forgot that caps matters for discord lol
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Jun 22, 2021 13:38
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Oh boy, another month gone by. This month's update has a lot of videos and gifs, so give it a look! https://reader.tymoon.eu/article/399
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Aug 2, 2021 16:59
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Sorry for being so quiet in this thread as of late, we've been very busy with conferences, planning, and all sorts of other stuff. On the upside, the game's making good progress, and we've now got a new public release for it going on as well! You can check it out here, along with a bunch of videos, new music tracks, and concept art for upcoming areas: https://reader.tymoon.eu/article/400
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Sep 5, 2021 18:49
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September went by blazingly fast. I guess that's how holidays always are, huh. Anyway, there's a short monthly update for once on account of that. Also, are there any polish goons reading this thread? I'll be in Poznan for the Game Industry Conference. Would love to meet up if you're there or around!
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Oct 4, 2021 10:18
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Shinmera posted:On the upside, the game's making good progress, and we've now got a new public release for it going on as well! Finally got around to playing through this with my husband over the weekend - it's fun! I thought the story was done very well, and the tutorial was nice and seamless. Great choice of composer too, I'm digging the music! We only noted a couple of issues: 1. I haven't played any platformers since...Mario (been playing things like Skyrim and Mini Motorways), so I was super confused about how to go up and down the different levels in the buildings. The stair graphics implied that I should be able to go up and down them, but the controls on doing that weren't covered in the tutorial so I spent a lot of time running around wondering why I couldn't follow the quest character down into the pump room just by pressing down. Once my husband explained the new convention for doing that, I didn't have any problems, but it was a very frustrating 10 minutes. 2. After we finished the pump quest, we tried to activate the lift to go back to the first chamber. It worked, but the lift went up by itself, even though our characters seemed to be standing on it. We ended up having to manually make our way back up. 3. In the cavern to the right of that first chamber, there's a pit (?) thing that you can only jump out of if you use jump and dash. This is fine for the player character, but the quest character gets stuck in there because she can't dash. It ends up being ok since she respawns when you enter a new area, but just thought I'd point it out so you're aware. 4. We tried to submit a bug report about the lift using the bug report feature...but it crashed the game while we were trying to do that. 
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Oct 4, 2021 21:12
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Leng posted:Finally got around to playing through this with my husband over the weekend - it's fun! I thought the story was done very well, and the tutorial was nice and seamless. Great choice of composer too, I'm digging the music! We only noted a couple of issues: Great, thanks a lot for giving it a shot! Re your issues: 1. yeah, we've been aware of that problem for a while, but haven't been sure how exactly to fix it yet. Probably gonna need to make the stairs be visually more part of the background, as making them physically work would be... let's say a big challenge. 2. huh. I know the NPC can't go on lifts because the AI isn't smart enough for that, but I haven't seen the lift clip through the player like that, if that's indeed what happened. 3. I'm not certain which screen you're talking about there, but the NPC should be able to make the jump on her own without falling into the pit at all... hm. 4. Ah, so that was you! I did get the report -- and fixed that issue that caused the crash. Sorry about the trouble, heh. Out of interest, did you do all the side quests at the end? And also, could you share your save file with me? Would be very interesting to see the routes you took. Assuming you're on windows, the save file should be at %AppData%/shirakumo/kandria/ and named something like 1.zip.
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Oct 4, 2021 21:28
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Shinmera posted:Out of interest, did you do all the side quests at the end? And also, could you share your save file with me? Would be very interesting to see the routes you took. Assuming you're on windows, the save file should be at %AppData%/shirakumo/kandria/ and named something like 1.zip. Sorry for the late response - I'll send you the save file! Hopefully that'll let you dig through and see what happened. We did not do the side quests yet. I was all ready to do them, and then we got distracted by something...maybe the bug report thing? and then real life took over. I'll see if we can get to them this weekend.
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Oct 7, 2021 13:53
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Alright, that's cool! No rush at all from this side.
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Oct 7, 2021 14:21
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Phew, another month gone by. At least we got some good content production going in this one, and not too many distractions from other admin related things! Full update as always on the blog: https://reader.tymoon.eu/article/403 December is gonna be a pretty short month, but I'll be sure to write a year-long roundup, which should be pretty beefy. The game changed a lot this year.
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Dec 6, 2021 11:25
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