Demons Within devlog: The Essence Wheel rework and previews

Hey hey!

Whew! It's been quite some busy weeks! I've been meaning to write this post, along with a few others that I have in mind, last week, but didn't manage to get time to sit down and write it properly. I also wanted to really show what I've been working on, but hadn't found the best way to do it. I made a video, but Patreon doesn't allow NSFW creators to post videos anymore, so... well, I found a way. We'll get to that soon!

We all know the essence wheel that you see in the image above pretty well. We've had it since the beginning of the game and though it has gotten a few improvements and glow-ups over time, I've been meaning to give it a proper touch-up for a few updates already. I finally found the place to do it while working in the very soon-to-be-coming Shelter collaboration. We'll see the wheel over there in Shelter as well, and since Raus was the one who made the visuals for the wheel way back then, we took the opportunity to improve it!

Both of us are much better at dealing with Ren'Py now. In my case, after spending so much time already coding the mini-game, I'm getting really proficient at it! In Raus' case, he's learned a lot of new tricks and bits to do with images (which you can definitely see in Shelter's last updates). We applied all that we know into making the wheel not only look better, but be MUCH better code-wise. It should be less demanding, which is something I always keep in mind for Android devices, and most importantly, it should be easier for me to code back and forth, which will speed things up in the future, as this is something that, as you can guess, appears a lot and will continue to do so.

Without further ado, here's a small preview of what it's looking like now. I added a little special something that has never been seen before, so enjoy it. ;)

https://youtube.com/shorts/Qq2A-7RYwnk?feature=share

Starting from the next updates, including the Shelter collab update, the new wheel will replace all instances of the wheel in the game so far. It was... a bit more work than predicted, to redo all its features and replace it in every single location in the game so far, but the longer I waited to do it, the worse it would be. I also managed to code in a way now that, hopefully, if there are new additions or improvements in the future, it won't require me to go over the whole game and adjust every single wheel. That's a big win!

As you can see... Another thing is that, before, we had it prepared for Lust and later on for Sloth, but every essence that came in the future to be seen in the wheel would require further time and work. In this new way, we have managed to make it work smoothly for everything already, making it future-proof. ;)

I urge you all not to read too much into what you see here. The wheel will show up in the game in many different ways, so don't take this as a guarantee of anything. Read this however you will. ;)

At any rate, it is ready!

I'm working tirelessly on the collaboration, and I'm finally moving on to coding up the visuals for the last bit of content we'll see in there! We've made many assets and put a lot of effort into making sure this collaboration will look and feel pretty cool, so I hope you all will like it!

I'll keep you all updated as we go as best as I can!

Again, big kudos to Raus for making it so awesome. :) Although Blain has made pretty much every other asset, interface, and sprite, Raus was the one who made the original wheel, as I mentioned, so I got to work with him to make it even better! Blain and I are working on... other super cool pieces for the game, but more on that soon too!

That's it for today! Cheers!