Howdy, folks!

I hope you've all had a great holiday season! The last time I posted a devlog was back in December, so I've got quite a bit of new stuff to share with you today!

As some of you might know, there's somewhat of a tradition where every year I release a new trailer for DF on my birthday (which is today, February 21st). On this day in 2018 I released a trailer for the "DF Demo", then in 2019 I released a trailer for "DF Chapter 1", and in 2020 I released the "v2.0 Gameplay Trailer".

This year, the game isn't ready to receive a new trailer just yet, but there will be a proper trailer for v2.5.0 at some point closer to its release. I won't be making the trailer on my own this time around, instead I'll be receiving some help from SnowTheFox, so I hope you look forward to it! No longer will DF's trailers be made with Windows Movie Maker lol.

Until then, I hope you enjoy this Progress Report! Let's get started!

New Features in v2.5.0

I'll start by going through some new features and additions that I've yet to talk about. I'm still keeping most of the update's new content a secret though, so you'll have to wait to see everything for yourself!

The first thing I'd like to show off is the new starting area! DFC's current starting area has always come across to me as a bit bland; it serves its purpose, but it could be a lot more visually interesting. Now that DFC is receiving a huge graphical makeover, it seemed like the right time to finally address this! Here's what it looks like now:

I've noticed that people like to hang around in the starting area sometimes, so I hope that this new design makes it a nicer spot for you!

Next, Undernet has received a makeover too! I felt that it needed to be more consistent in its design, so I redid most of the menus. The homepage now includes the date, your ping, and shows how long is left until your next daily gift. Being able to see your daily gift here was inspired by a fanmade concept for DF's Undernet that I saw a while back, so when redesigning the homepage I thought it'd be nice to include it!

The search functionality has also been improved, so you can now search for players using their ID instead of their username if you need to! You can choose which one you want to search with by using the arrow keys.

I've also added a second page to user profiles, so you can see if someone has a partner and what its stats are!

You may have noticed the "artwork" at the top there. That's right, I've added the ability for players to draw custom artwork to display on their Undernet profiles!

You can select "Draw" from the Undernet homepage and create some black-and-white pixel art to show off! This was inspired a bit by Splatoon, and was something I considered adding as far back as DF Classic. I'm happy to finally have gotten the chance to add it!

We're aware that some people might try to create some... "undesirable" artwork using this new feature. We will ban individuals who create inappropriate artwork or write nasty messages, so please don't abuse this feature. Custom artwork must abide by all the same rules as regular messages.

Don't worry though, it is possible to disable custom artwork from being displayed at all if you don't want to see them. You can do this by using the new "Safety Mode" option in your Settings! Using this will block custom artwork from being shown to you, as well as enabling other safety features.

Undernet is also now accessible in Offline Mode! It won't have its usual online functionality, like searching for profiles and posting artwork, but this does mean you'll now be able to get Undercoins and use the DarknerNet stores when playing offline!

Next up is the new Daily Gift system! Daily Gifts have now been changed so that you will randomly receive 1 of 4 possible gifts: gold, undercoins, pogs, and a new "glitch ticket"! It also now shows you a visual representation of what you got from your gift.

You may be wondering what these new "glitch tickets" are. It was suggested to me that there should be another way to get "corruption battles" besides rare encounters, so I've added this new system where you can speak to an NPC who will summon a corruption battle for you, in exchange for five glitch tickets!

You can view how many glitch tickets you have from the new "KEY" category in your ITEMS menu!

Here you can see all of the story-related collectibles you've obtained, as well as your glitch tickets, the tem key, and the VIP pass. If you've already bought the tem key, it is no longer an item that will take up space in your inventory, so it will automatically move to your "KEY" menu instead.

Another thing I've been working on is redoing a lot of the game's menus. This includes the PvP menu, which has received a new look and new functionality!

You'll now be able to view a complete list of players instead of the list getting cut off and not being able to see the rest of it. Also, instead of typing in the ID of the player you want to fight, you can simply just select their name from the list! This makes the process of PvP a lot more streamlined!

The PvP menu has also been divided into two categories: "LOCAL PVP" and "GLOBAL PVP". When in "LOCAL PVP", you'll only see a list of people in the same room as you who are looking to PvP. In "GLOBAL PVP", you'll see a list of everyone in the game who wants to PvP, so you can invite someone no matter where they are. You can toggle which category to look at by using the left and right arrow keys!

The next feature I'd like to talk about is not neccessarily a fun feature, but one that I think is important. You will now have the ability to "block" other players. If you block someone, you will no longer see them in the overworld and will not be able to see any messages from them. We'd suggest using this if someone is annoying you, talking about something you'd rather not see, or if there's someone you want to avoid, and they're not technically doing anything that breaks our rules. You can do this by going to the CELL menu and select "BLOCKING":

This will bring you to a menu where you can choose to block someone, unblock someone, or view a list of the people you've blocked. To block someone, you simply need to enter their user ID (which you can find on their Undernet profile), and that's it! They won't be notified that you've blocked them, so don't worry about making things awkward.

I'm sure that I don't need to say this, but it is not possible to block admins or myself, so if you were thinking about doing that then you're out of luck lol.

I hope that the ability to block will be useful, but hopefully you won't even need to use it. It's better to have the option than to not have it, at least!

But remember, if someone is breaking the rules, be sure to report them to us, which you can do via our GameJolt Community or through our Discord. We're currently working on a more convenient way to report/appeal, which I'll tell you about as soon as I'm able to!

That's the last new feature I'll be talking about for now. You'll find out the rest when the update releases! I'll now move on to talking about Story Quests for a bit.

Status of DFC's Story Quests

By now you probably know what "Story Quests" are, but in case you're out of the loop, the "Master Quest" from previous versions of the game is being replaced with new "Story Quests" that take place in the regular overworld. Don't worry, the old Master Quest worlds are still in the game, and have been repurposed and even slightly redesigned!

The storyline of DFC has completely changed from the original story; it's no longer about all of the main characters going missing, but instead something that I think you'll find a bit more interesting ;)

You can play the Story Quests in any order you want; there is no limitation to which area you can start from. However, I do recommend heading to the Ruins first. I consider this area to be the true "starting point" of the story, and there are some important events in other areas that are locked until you complete the Ruins first. Don't let me stop you though, start wherever you want!

Here are some new screenshots from the Ruins:

Speaking of "locked events", there are quite a few optional events throughout the game. Some characters may move to different locations and have different things to say depending on where you are in the story. I hope these events help to make the game's world feel more immersive!

As part of the Story Quests, each area also has a new boss fight. Here's a sneak peek of the Snowdin boss fight against Papyrus!

Papyrus is no pushover in this game (when it comes to his attacks, I mean)! In fact, all of the new bosses have some pretty intense attacks! If you're the type of player looking for a challenge, then these bosses are for you. I wonder if their increased strength has something to do with... him.

I guess you'll just have to find out for yourself!

As of right now, all of the boss fights (and the majority of the final boss) have their attacks completed, it's just a matter of implementing all of the new content into the game now!

Anyway, you might be wondering about a release date for v2.5.0. Well, before I tell you, let me share some new music with you first!

New Music from v2.5.0

To give you some new stuff to listen to while you wait for the update, here are two new tracks!

The first track is a new battle theme! The battle theme that you're all familiar with by now was made all the way back in 2018, before DFC even existed, so we felt that it was about time to replace it lol. This track was made by Synth Mints, so give it a listen!

The next track is a new intro theme! You'll have to wait until the update releases to see the new intro, but for now, here's the theme to go with it, made by Perpetrator!

DFC v2.5.0 Release Date

Okay, so I've got good news and bad news.

The good news is that I'm ready to give you a date for when I expect the update to be finished!

The bad news is that it's not in March.

Unfortunately, the game needs a bit more time than what I initially expected. The scope of the update has expanded significantly from my original plans, and its long development time is proof of that. I also hope that my consistent sharing of progress has given you faith that development has been going well, so the delay is not because of a slow pace!

Let me be clear: v2.5.0 is the final update for DFC. All of the content that I've ever planned to include in the game will be in this update. I have no plans to make a v2.6.0 or beyond anymore, at most I would consider smaller v2.5.x patches with tiny additions and bug fixes, but that's it.

As such, I want to make sure that this update is as polished and full of content as it can possibly be. To make that happen, I'm gonna have to ask you guys to wait a little longer.

The expected release date for v2.5.0 is Saturday, April 10th, give or take. Funnily enough, v2.0.0 was released on April 11th last year, so that means the final update for DFC might release almost one year after the first!

I hope that you understand why I've had to push back the update a bit. I'm a full-time university student, and education comes before making a fangame. There's also a lot of stuff in the update that I haven't shown you yet, so I hope that when you launch v2.5.0, you'll immediately be able to see why it's taken so long to make. I hope that you'll feel it was worth the wait!

Conclusion

Anyway, that concludes this devlog! I've tried to really improve my presentation with this one, less words and more GIFs. Hopefully you liked it!

Oh, but before I forget, you might have noticed that "DF Classic" is no longer its own download on the GameJolt page. This is because DF Classic has now been included as part of the DF Forgotten Collection! This is to help make the page a bit less cluttered. I've also added the 2019 April Fools game as part of the collection, since it was requested that I include it. I hope that those who wanted it have fun with it!

Well, thanks for reading, and as always, stay determined!