Hi, dungeon-crawling fans! The latest video devlog is finally ready! This month we are taking a look at the last beta area and we will be listening to a short snippet of the combat music. If you keep your eyes peeled, you can even catch a glimpse of the game's crime system and its (currently minimal) implementation. But we will get to that in another update. Please, enjoy: [previewyoutube=5CI1IOQfZQA;full][/previewyoutube] As always you will find the transcript below! Best wishes, Michael -------------------------------- Hi, dungeon-crawling fans! The development of Monomyth is steadily progressing! I am still working on beta patch 4, which should be ready within the next few weeks. As I told you last time, I already added a bit of beta 4’s content in a small interim patch, most importantly the new trading system. So let’s take a look at what happened since then. I spent a good amount of time on getting the game’s main hub done. The inner fortress of Lysandria will serve as a base for your dungeon-crawling adventures below. It will be filled with shops, taverns, regular dwellings, slums and places of worship. Guards patrol the streets, NPCs populate every corner - it’s a real little underground city. You can get a drink or you can get your armor fixed. I even thought about arena fighting in the lower city tavern, but I am afraid that’s currently beyond the scope of the project. All in all, I had more ideas than I could realize and in the interest of time, I cut things down to a manageable size here and there. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/33913785/51d2b5534c41c351eb3b7b8f1d170c006faf3647.png[/img] The geometry of the place is basically done, as well as detail passes for most dwellings. I try to integrate some optional secrets and challenges here and there. For example, you are not supposed to enter any of the high city dwellings. These are guarded and off-limits for outsiders, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try going there. Just watch out for the guards. It’s details like this that make a regular hub to replenish your resources, into an actual immersive game environment and I am trying to focus on that as well. Of course, there will also be quests, it’s a social hub after all. Consequently, you will see some opportunities to use your social skills. Particularly the speech skill, which also comes in handy while trading with NPCs. The inner fortress of Lysandria is populated by a variety of characters, each with their own problems. Since you are an outsider their trust is hard to earn, but the rewards will help you in your search for your brother and the divine gift. Naturally, the inner fortress will also play a significant role in the game’s main quest. I implemented about two-thirds of the main quest’s logic by now. It still lacks a few steps, which I hope to finish in time for the open backer beta. Generally speaking, it will be playable right up until the last chapter, which will be added together with backer contents. Besides working on the new area, I also worked a bit on AI. More specifically, I made sure that combat notifications work properly. On a technical level, this only means that the player logic is properly notified if it is recognized by a hostile character’s perception system. In practical terms, this means I could finally add some combat music plus victory and death jingles. In the next few weeks, I will probably make some changes to the regular environment music as well. This will be part of a bigger polishing phase after beta patch 4. Additionally, I started working on basic voiceovers. Of course, there won’t be fully voiced dialogues in Monomyth. That would be way too expensive. However, you will see, or rather hear, voice cues for greetings, trading, idling NPCs, perhaps combat taunts, and so on. I have instructed a few voice actors to speak some lines for the game and if they are used sparingly enough it will give some more distinctive character to the game’s NPCs. Generally, we are now entering a phase of development, where I can focus on giving things a little more edge so the game stands out more. I hope I can also improve a few things in terms of aesthetics. So anyway, what’s still to do concerning beta patch 4 and where do we go directly after that? As I said, the area is mostly done, but there is still some work to do in terms of characters. I still have some writing tasks open as well as quest logic related to that. Apart from that the new area still requires proper item distribution and it needs a few shortcuts, for example, to another part of the game. The inner fortress is already properly connected to the fast-travel system, which makes it easier to return and stock up on items. Once all of these things are done, the patch will be uploaded to the beta branch and beta testers will be able to play it shortly afterwards. With that, we will finally enter the polishing phase. I have a handful of topics I want to go through during that phase but most importantly there will be a quick rework of the first two areas, performance improvements, a combat update concerning mechanics and animation, and an encounter update concerning enemies and challenges in general. I believe I will release these improvements in a series of small patches with a significantly faster iteration time than the current beta patches. Once polishing is done we will quickly start into the open backer beta and see what kind of bugs you guys can still find. After fixing those I will try to get the game ready for the general audience as soon as possible. So anyway, lots of work done, still lots of work to do. I will get back to it and keep you updated! See you soon!