Hello everyone! It’s September…. can you believe it….? [h1]Falaz[/h1] [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31931167/efa4cdf1c65d82f3dea2747883c2eb54f596d90c.png[/img] Falaz is a small town located directly on the border with Aerand in the middle of the marshlands of Vescha. Despite being a border town, they are known as being something of a sleepy town of retirees and children – a nice place to visit for peace and quiet. Not many people pass through despite the crossing because the marshlands and Viche forest are so annoying to travel through. Here are some of the homes you can find here: [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31931167/76d9edef18397c6c487c7c07af01ad3b2d465f99.png[/img] Most homes are pretty cozy – made of brick and wood. Since they happen to live in a marsh zone surrounded by forest, many homes have fireplaces in them to help with the chill. The smoke helps keep the bugs away too! Sewing is also a common past time. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/31931167/77cbd80fa8f055f51cdc95c59321227a35c1336e.png[/img] Since many people don’t come through very often, the general store and the inn share the same building. There’s not a whole lot of space for sleeping, and the general store is even smaller. There aren’t even any employees – just write down what you’re buying or if you’re staying the night and leave the payment at the books. Honesty is key. [h1]Splash Screens, Animals and More[/h1] We worked on a variety of improvements this past month so here’s a few of them below! [previewyoutube=Il96iYopddI;full][/previewyoutube] One improvement we made was adding a splash screen when the game starts up. We made changes to the loading speed the other month but it meant that when the game booted up everything was preloaded. When that happens, the main menu screen would appear but it would be “frozen” and so you couldn’t interact with the game. It was very confusing and annoying :( So we’ve inserted this handy splash screen which will deal with the preloading. So when the buttons appear on the main menu screen you can click them immediately :) [previewyoutube=BKTrriHt21Q;full][/previewyoutube] We also focused on adding various animals and bugs and giving them some AI. So for example, if you run through fireflies they’ll scatter and disappear. [previewyoutube=DrM9yvEhyJA;full][/previewyoutube] For others, they’ll wander around a predefined area and do little actions like bouncing or eating nuts, grass, etc. We still have a few more to implement, like cats, but here’s a good showing of most of them. Once we’re all done, we’ll be adding these fellows to the existing maps and it should make things feel more alive. [h1]Admin Updates[/h1] A couple other misc admin updates that don’t really fit in anywhere: [list] [*] Thank you to everyone who sent kind messages about the news last month. It’s always awkward to reply “thank you” to these kind of messages individually – so please just know we read them all and appreciate them very much. Once again, thank you for your understanding. [*] Our twitch is no longer. If you’re interested in Tuesday 8pm EST Gataela streams you can find them [url=https://www.twitch.tv/azurempress]here[/url]. [*] We now have a [url=https://bsky.app/profile/gataelaproject.bsky.social]bluesky[/url]! [/list] [h1]What’s Next?[/h1] As per usual we’re continuing to focus on interiors and MSQ and if we’re lucky some more misc improvements. [list] [*]Niande Interiors [*]Adding MSQ Cutscenes [/list] Have a good start to fall!