Since the release of Test Build 02, I have been having many thoughts about the scope I want to go for with Runecrossed. The earliest plans were incredibly ambitious (especially for my first standalone game), aiming to have SEVEN playable characters, several entire planets to explore, and each character having their own sets of armor and weapons to equip.

As you can probably gather, this did get reeled in as of the Test Builds as I realized just how much work it would all be. The revised plan was for me to refine all three of the remaining playable characters and tell a story mostly on just one planet, their homeworld Cyne.

Atien Only?

However, I'm now considering going one step further and making Atien the only playable character in Runecrossed. This is a rather difficult choice to make, considering my attachment to Efrix and Latra as characters and the potential I see in their playstyles, but I believe letting Runecrossed focus fully on Atien's moveset is most likely the best decision in this first full game of mine.

I am realizing that creating levels and 3D environments takes a lot of work. Every playable character in the roster multiplies the development time by needing to make unique levels for their movesets, and having enemies and mechanics account for their abilities. Not to mention the fact that Atien took so long to improve to the point he's at now, and that Efrix and Latra more or less would require total moveset overhauls to match the fun factor of current Atien before even getting to the "real" levels.

What's happening with Efrix and Latra, then?

They won't be re-added as playable characters, but they will still be present in the story and will of course receive similar updated models. Another thing worth noting is that I never intended for this to be the only game in the series. I have a lot of ideas on how to make playable Efrix and Latra much more fun and interesting, and fully intend to explore their gameplay types in Runecrossed 2 - by then I'll probably have more of the experience needed to make such a game more feasible. But that's getting ahead of myself; for now, I have to reel myself in and just make a game focused on Atien.

What's the new development plan?

Well, this is a bit of a tricky one. For so long the "clear path" in my mind was to do Test Build 02 around Atien, Test Build 03 focused around an Efrix revamp, then 04 for Latra, etc. But now that we're just focusing on Atien for this game, I'm not fully sure what the roadmap will look like!

The immediate next plan is to finish a v0.002.1 based upon feedback 0.002 received. The specific goals with that are mainly to further streamline Atien's moveset and make him feel even better and more intuitive to control. Removing even more "unnecessary" moves like the Down Strike, adding more quality of life to the game feel, making other moves like his Atherian Draw work better. As well as potentially improving upon presentation a bit; all those info nodes Just Placed around the world were always something I was a bit self-conscious about.

I suppose after that I'll be turning my attention towards more level design and decor. I still do not consider the "current" level layouts final, and feel I could do better - and I have a lot of fun ideas for new levels, too. I have no idea how I'll break updates up in terms of version number, when updates will become more Patreon-exclusive as I get closer to a full game, or even if it will be an updated Early Access game at a point or if I will instead just release it when it's done. I guess we'll find these things out as we go.

Anyway, thanks for reading! As always, if you have feedback about this decision or anything with the current build, feel free to let me know. See you all in 0.002.1!