The latest update introduces a new starter deck called Invoker, which focuses on playing spells. It took me two weeks to get the deck into a fun state, mostly because originally I did not have any creatures in the deck at all. This caused the game to not have any triggers on your own side, which was surprisingly unfun. Turns out, if you remove the main mechanic from the game it falls apart!

When I added creatures that are just defenders and never attack, the game opened up again and allowed customization, but still with a focus on casting spells. It's funny to me because at one point I almost threw the idea away, but then I got the idea to add "Fog Banks" from Magic: The Gathering. They also can't attack and nullify physical damage. The creatures in the Invoker deck are actually called "Wall of Fog", but the name doesn't get displayed properly, so it's just "Creature" at the moment. Not sure if I want to fix that because it could lead to confusion, but we'll see.

I also added five new difficulty modifiers. It was my goal to add modifiers that don't target the same area of the game twice, i.e. I didn't want another despair modifier or another curse modifier. I think it turned out pretty well, there are easier ones and harder ones, and you can mix together whatever you want to play with.

I talked about a sphere board in the last update, which I'm a bit unsure about right now. But I still want to change the system to give an additional curse slot for each activated modifier, and then remove the "unlimited curses" modifier and change it to something else. That way it's hopefully a bit more balanced, even if you only take five "easiest" difficulties to master a deck.

The road ahead looks a bit murky. Yes, I want to add more starter decks, difficulty modifiers, art, music, sounds, backgrounds. But I'm not sure if I want to keep updating the demo. A friend of mine recently suggested to simply limit the available content in the demo and just add different parts of the available content. For example, the demo always has 3 starter decks, but they could rotate depending on which one I want people to play. Maybe that's the way forward.

A part of me also just wants to stop updating the demo for a while and go full on production mode, but having player feedback is invaluable, so turning that off would be detrimental to the whole project. I need to find a balance that allows me to work on bigger stuff without spoiling everything in the demo. Again, a solution has been presented to me, and I think it's the right one.

So, what does the future hold? Let's talk about it.

Starter Decks: I want to add at least 6 more starter decks. 20 in total would be ideal, but I only have one year before release, so that could be tight. I have "easy" ideas for another 10 at least, and if I sit down for another brainstorming session I could probably come up with more. Whether they're distinct enough and fun to play, that's always a different question, but at least prototyping them is relatively fast.

Difficulty modifiers: I want to have 20 in total here as well. Adding 10 more should be relatively straight forward. I will then only offer 10 in the demo. The board is still something I can do, but at this point I'm not sure it's necessary. Maybe keep the complexity in the actual gameplay, not the run starter screen.

Music: People suggested that each boss has their own theme, but to me that sounds like way too much work. It would mean that each new boss not only needs art, but also a separate track. I think I want to have three variations for each chapter. They could also be tied to the current deck, for example, the first deck always gets the first variations, the second deck gets the second variation, and so on. It could also just be random for each run. That would probably be best. Heck, it could even vary in the chapter itself if the chapter is taking too long.

Anyway, that's already another 6 tracks. Then I want to have a fourth chapter at some point, so that's another 3 tracks. I want a music piece for winning/losing, and maybe something for the collection screen. In total, that's another 12 tracks, which, in addition to the 4 already in the game, would result in 16 tracks in total. Sounds like a good length for an album to me. But, just like the 20 decks, this sounds a bit too much for one year, so I'm going to reduce it to 12 tracks in total and scratch the music for the fourth chapter and the collection screen for now.

Art: Yes, yes, I want more art. In fact, if I want to add more bosses/blessings/curses, this is inevitable. I also want to add generic creature/spell art. This is something I'll come back to every now and then. It's very important because the visuals are the first thing people see (obviously), so they need to have a certain quality. I'm thinking of getting an artist on board for this specifically.

Backgrounds: At the moment there is one background for each chapter. While that may be alright, I do want to add more to the background, especially to individual screens like inventory, shops, etc. This might require 3D assets, which could help with "immersion" a lot.

FX: I want to make the game have more effects, although I have to be careful not to overdo it. Still, there are some obvious ones, like some kind of coin effect when buying/selling or receiving money, more effects when creatures take damage, different kinds of effects per lacrima (this could lead to way too much work with not enough payoff though), a "winning" effect, a boss card introduction scene, ... the list goes on. There's a lot I can do to spice things up.

Bugs: Systems-based games like this tend to have strange bugs and I have to reserve time for those. The previous update took me two weeks just to fix random issues. It's kind of grueling, but also a necessary evil. On a positive note, so far I've been able to fix even the most elusive bugs, and that's thanks to people already playing the game and sharing their feedback.

Balancing: This is included in the hours of making a new deck and adding modifiers, and I also consider it part of the bugs. Yes, I do have to be mindful of this as a separate category, but I think it's part of adding content, not a completely separate thing. I can't just add something without considering how it affects the rest of the game.

Story: There is a bit of a story, but it's going to be in the background, maybe revealed slowly over the course of each new starter deck. There's not really an ending. This is a game meant to be played as long as you want to. The main stories should be what you encounter in each individual run, i.e. the random enemies and the cards you get to build.

Overall, I have approximately another 500 hours and I need to divide those up into the most effective areas, the highest bang for buck ratio. Let's crunch some numbers, this is going to be ugly.

6 Decks: 120 hours
10 Modifiers: 100 hours
Music: 100 hours
Art and Backgrounds: 100 hours
FX and Bugs: 100 hours

November: 1 deck, 5 modifiers
December: 1 deck, 5 modifiers
January: 1 deck, 1 music track
February: 1 deck, 1 music track
March: 1 deck, 1 music track
April: 1 deck, 1 music track
May: 1 music track, art
June: 1 music track, FX
July: 1 music track, backgrounds
August: 1 music track, bugs
September: art, FX, bugs
October: Release

As you can see, not everything will fit into these next few months. The order will also likely change. Especially with Summer disrupting my usual workflow. But hey, at least it's a plan. Let's see if we can do it.