Demons Within Update 13(?) devlog: Something different coming soon!

Hey hey!

Alright, it's devlog time! In fact, it's past devlog time already! I've been wanting to sit down and write up what I've been doing for you guys for a while, and it's finally time to get that done.

I've written the first devlog about Update 13, telling you all a bit about what's going to be in there and all that. Not enough, I reckon, but I was still figuring it out! I have a chunk of Update 13 written down and everything planned by now, and I was working on it for quite a while, but as I also mentioned in that other devlog, I've been doing a bunch of things all at once! All for the sake of making Demons Within the absolute BEST it can be, I think, and I'm extremely excited for all of them.

That being said, for the last week and a half, I have put Update 13 work on a bit of a halt to instead get the final tids and bits done for the much-awaited A Demon Within Shelter collaboration. I hope you all know what I'm talking about! I'll dedicate this devlog to talk a little bit about everything I've been preparing for that, how cool I hope it will be, and how it will help Demons Within as well!

I'll start by saying that for pretty much the entirety of the last week, I've been doing a bit of a rework of our beloved essence wheel that we see and use in-game so often. Raus was the one who made the wheel at the beginning, and though 95% of the game's interface is made by Blain, that little piece was not! In the end, it came in handy. We'll be seeing the essence wheel playing a part on the Shelter side of the story, and it will feature in both games in its new, nicer-looking, and improved version! Its functionality will remain pretty much the same, but I hope you'll like the new look! Code-wise, it is also better, faster, and more efficient, so hopefully that'll help a lot (especially on Android devices). Easier for me to use and improve upon it as well! It'll be a great thing!

Since that is a very Demons Within focused feature, I'll try to get some screenshots and maybe even a small video of comparison to show you all in the next devlog or a post for it! In the meantime, Raus and I have also been working on the collaboration screen. I'll talk a little bit about how it's gonna work!

Nothing says more than a picture, so here's a look at the visuals I've been working on with Raus for the chapter selection and unlock for this little side story:

This is coming straight from the game! Mind you that some things are still in the works, so this isn't its final look, but it's getting there! Almost there, in fact!

You'll see this same screen in both Demons Within and Shelter. As we mentioned in the collaboration announcement, this story will be played on BOTH games, alternating between the two as the chapters get released! We hope it's gonna be a fun little journey through both worlds, interacting with characters, seeing new interactions, and even discovering lore tidbits from both sides!

I guess the biggest thing I wanted to say in this devlog is that, though Update 13 of Demons Within is getting a little delayed because of this, you'll all be getting a special, Patreon-first (as usual) update of Demons Within with the beginning content of this collaboration very soon! We're not ready quite yet to give a decisive release date as there are a bunch of knicks and knacks to figure out, but in this first release you can expect to see the prologue of the story on both sides (different prologues), as well as Chapter 1 continuing the first part of this story right here on the Demons Within side! All in all, the prologue and Chapter 1 make for about 15k words of story to go through, which is honestly the size of a sizeable Demons Within update on itself. And there's even more to read on Shelter's side! Though it won't be the continuation of our story just yet, I hope you all will enjoy it a lot nevertheless!

After this first release, the next one will be Chapter 2 on Shelter's side, which will come a bit later and between Shelter updates as well as we both work on it between our regular updates.

Though we are still figuring things out, you can expect that, as per our usual schedules, the collaboration content will be exclusive to a special, enhanced version of Update 12 of Demons Within and also of the latest version of Shelter, but as soon as Update 12 goes public, that content will also be public while the newest one might be tied to newer version. Basically, it should evolve alongside the main stories on both sides and be released in the same way. We'll see, though!

This is a new endeavor for both Raus and me, but we're both extremely excited to join our worlds in a little bit of silliness in this joint venture! We think that whoever enjoys Demons Within, Shelter, or both will get a lot out of it!

This is it for now. It's plenty already! As soon as we're a little bit more ready and confident, we'll give you all a release date for this 'half-update', and then release it! You can expect it to come very soon!

And I'll be talking more about Update 13 and more Demons Within stuff in the next devlogs, too!

Cheers!