Build Status Update - October Release

Hello everyone,

It's Lone_Wanderer here, also known as Baku or Deadly Illusion by now. This month has been pretty great with progress! I have been working on both coding with the engine itself and writing content.

Identity is still running on Godot 3, and I started working on a port to the most recent version, which is Godot 4. The game currently launches and the title screen is fully functional, but it crashes as soon as it tries to load up any new images, which means even basic core features have suffered changes in their functionality. We will keep you updated when we make more progress on it; the port is necessary in order to start tackling some foundational issues which cause sound and sprite bugs to occur.

As for new features for Identity itself, I also worked on fundamental things in order to support some new functionality. It's mostly simple stuff for now, since I see myself as a novice to Godot, still. For example, we can now apply colour filters on runtime, which means we won't need to upload separate variants of colour-changed images, a feature that will come in handy for future content.

Regarding content, I have written out most of what we had planned for the next Halloween release. We will be working together with Rauch and Samples, our Concept/CG Artist and Sound Designer, respectively, to deliver some scenes that have... a bit of a different tone in theme. We are finally at the point in the game's development in which the world, lore and story progression have been established, so we can now get into the more "horror" side of things. This includes scenes that take place in both previous and future days.

What exactly those scenes will be, I will leave up to your imagination for now, but in concrete, they will be part of a new feature in the game that takes place during the night. Functionally, it's like a new "dating slot" when you go to bed. That's dreams, just like the scene with the Demon in Day 9, which is part of that. This will allow us some freedom with bending reality and is intrinsically connected to Yarin's condition, so granted, it does serve a storytelling purpose. You will be able to access generic dreams, but also hang out with your spirit friends, like Corvolin.

As for Gherod, he has been busy touching up Brym's romantic scene for the end of day 9. It took us a little longer than expected, as this is indeed a moment most players are looking forward to experience, and we didn't want to disappoint, but also didn't want to "overdo it". We ended up deciding on a more linear pacing that branches into two different scenes (you will have to go back if you want to experience both), as well as an option to just cuddle and... one to break up (it's just a sad one, really.)

Finally, Day 10 is on the works, and depending on the outcome of the aforementioned scene with Brym, he will actually be sticking around for the duration of that day, whereas by default he leaves for the remainder of this first act, so expect another scene with the big drake if you are romancing him. Kovle will also be a more focal point during this day, and there may be some more terrifying revelations looming in the horizon...

That's all we've got for now! We are aiming for a release in the end of October, which is our Halloween Release, that will include new CG art and sound for Roy's special date, Brym's romantic scene, the introduction of dreams and, potentially, a date(?) with Azorin, in which you may tell him about the encounter with Camila. You might want to do that.