Development Log

Floramel Scene & VN Art Pipeline Latest

Floramel's scene is nearly complete — code and prototype done, waiting on final art. This cutscene is being earmarked as one of the five game trailers. Massive batch of new character art and VN cutscene artwork currently in the design pipeline.

Snow Assets, Forge Content & New Units

• Snow Assets — Cliffs, snow tiles, frozen waterfalls, frozen trees, crystal caves, crystal orb switches
• Forge: Soul Tanks — Destroy to release entropy of the dead and prevent consumption
• Extraction Chambers — Slaves placed inside for entropy extraction via torture
• Dark Crystal — Containment for special prisoners, frozen in crystal, subconsciously investigated
• Entropy Spire — Now in development
• Human Gunship — Off-the-shelf attack chopper for when the Sekarri need humanity to step up
• FOM Soldiers — Complete with grenades and flashbangs

Drunmuire Breakthrough

A major creative breakthrough on the Drunmuire level. The final piece that unites all sublevels, stitches the story together, and explains key lore about Amu and Entropy — while linking Earth in a meaningful way. A Scottish female Gaelic singer is being brought on for the main theme.

Team Decoupling & Dominion Dropships

• Team Decoupling — Press I to decouple party members. Set behaviour: Search and Destroy, Loose Support, Hold the Fort, or Default
• Dominion Dropship — Code for dynamic ambushes at the worst moments

This isn't a JRPG — your team doesn't need to follow you everywhere. Independent unit behaviour adds real tactical depth to RPG sections.

Mothership Design & RTS Building

Three motherships finalised: Drone Freighter, Drone Carrier, and Research Ship. All three can have turrets, power, and field generators installed. Constructor drones fly between them to do the work. No modular hell — just giant carriers you upgrade.

• Drone Carrier can launch a massive shell from its cannon
• Enemy Drone mothership can hack your ships out of range
• Counter with forward shielding and carrier cannon strikes

RPG Exploration Design

Building out big RPG exploration levels. Outside of towns, players will find:

• Chests and treasure items
• Lone travellers to talk to
• Collector cards and data logs
• Save points
• Chant spots for echo shards
• Espers to chase for XP
• Amu's fragments — collectible pieces she left behind, key to the lore

Pixel Art & Boss Walker

Pixel artist returns to work on a boss spider bot walker — Dominion walkers inspired by War of the Worlds tripods that players must bring down. Also finalising the RTS mothership approach: simplified to core + research + supercarrier, no modular mess.

RTS Release Notes — Major Rewrite

The RTS has been completely rewritten. All old code archived and rebuilt from scratch.

• 200x faster loading — almost instant
• 60% code reduction — cleaner, more maintainable
• Cruise Mode — ships fast travel at 3x speed, 1.4x vulnerability
• Ship damage VFX — ships vent gas and fire near destruction
• In-game RTS Menu — briefing, reserve fleet, formations, music, save, settings
• Dynamic grouping — 0.1mt to 100mt group sizes, adjustable in-game
• AI Intelligence System — IQ 0-4, tactical preferences (Defensive/Offensive/Explore/Pass), scope (Passive/Pragmatic/Aggressive)

RTS Complete Overhaul Begins

The entire RTS system has been stripped out and rebuilt. Skills gained over the past year of RPG development made the complexity gap obvious — the RTS is simpler to build than expected. All previous showcase levels (Battle with Morrigan, rescuing Tabby, the Nexus Point) will be rebuilt, but it's mostly copy-paste now.

Performance Optimisation & Florida Map

The Florida map hit performance issues. Root cause: collision checks running for all entities on and off screen. Solution: event manager that specifies which off-screen activities matter. After the fix, performance is validated — Python proven viable for the engine via C under the covers, same approach used by all AI frameworks.

• 100 enemies shooting on screen in daylight — no lag
• 30-50 in night mode with lighting effects
• 20 to 300+ enemies per map depending on size

Cutscenes, Music & Automated Dialogue

• Freexyl comms cutscene — for when the boss calls in
• Cutscenes synced to music timing — cinematic feel
• Florida plot — written and implemented
• FOM Briefing cutscenes — reusable template
• Vanguard Intel Terminal — briefing system
• RPG Dialogue Chain automated — just add conversation text and character names, it does the rest

Also in flight: Dominion gunship, Gdansk level, Amu's cave background art (real, not AI). A new music track is being composed for an enchanted forest scene on Mirelexia where you fight the original Drone Commander.

All Core RPG Battle Objectives Done

• Thunderporter fully complete — animates, interacts, sends enemies in batches, terminal to disable for 60 seconds
• All core RPG battle objectives done — can now pump out 10 playable levels in a day or two
• Side Quests planning page created — preserving ideas for DC2 to prevent scope creep

• Polish Thunderporter bombing
• Polish evac visuals and mortar
• Entropy Spire art
• Honnehari temple
• Forge boss mechanism

Thunderporter, Data Uplink & Prisoners

• Data uplink panel — Activate the panel next to the prison and enter override codes in real-time (Amu/Kira send you codes to enter)
• Thunderporter done — enemies zip down fast with 1-second vulnerability window
• Thunderporter scheduling — batched sends with map limits
• All Dominion weapons completed
• Slave transport truck — in progress with new artist

Prisoner rescue and evacuation coding underway. Complex work but the systems are coming together. Decided to include children as prisoners for stakes — if a kid dies, instant mission failure.

Drone FPV & Dominion Weapons

• Drone FPV support mode — call in the drone for close support instead of a strike; dual chain gun follows you
• Field generator in game
• Thunderporter now in game
• New character designs — next big batch finalised

Dominion Base Essentials Complete

• Dominion base essentials — the hardest stuff, done
• Map editor tile fill — drag/select area to fill with tiles instead of one at a time
• Collision masks and structures — all complete
• Dominion wall gates — can be blown down, "very satisfying"

Art Direction & Character Work

Major push on replacing all AI-generated art with hand-drawn work. New character reveals including Deritonian Chronicler designs. Concept art for the 1985 opening scene — Kane with his Pride, Ivakan, Snep and Gia arm wrestling, Makara and others on Gallahan's Boulevard.