Guess it's time for one of these again.

It's been 8 months since devlog 3. I wasn't supposed to be making more until the update was finished but 8 months are 8 months. I want to use this opportunity to address some misconceptions people may or may not have about Depper Jar 2.0 and just explain what has actually happened since 1.6.0, as this update has been taking me more than 2 years to be completed.

From 1.6.0 to 2.0 (Retrospective):

As some of you may know, Depper Jar started as a test project for a much bigger game I was doing back when I was 15 years old. (If you still wonder what happened to that other game, it got cancelled.)

It was supposed to be an Undertale fangame, explaining the many similarities with it. But then the game began to stray far from that initial concept, so I ditched out the fangame thing entirely and now I consider Depper Jar an original-inspired indie game. It naturally shaped up to be like Mario & Luigi because those were my favorite turn-based RPGs when I was a kid. Since 2022, 1.6.0 is the latest version of the game avaliable to play and, in my humble opinion, it's quite awful, and many of you gave me very nice feedback and criticism which, to this day, is massively helping me in the development of the game.

I also worked on a second chapter for the game, "Test 2" for an entire year, it even had a trailer which is still up and you can watch here:

I previously stated that this chapter would be on haitus while doing 2.0 as I wasn't happy with its design. What you guys may not know is that I did a lot content before that decision. I have this build of the game from around January 2024, maybe I'll showcase it some day but it's very outdated and ugly compared to what the game is today.

I did a Patreon page that one particulary time, it used to give exclusive builds of the game too. It didn't last long because I couldn't keep up with releasing a new version of the game every so often so I shutted it down and never spoke about it since. (In case you wonder, it only lasted for 3 months). It wasn't until April 2024 where I went back to the first chapter and thought on adding new features and maybe make it prettier too, which resulted in me rebooting the game... And now, here we are!

Now, I consider 2.0 an entire reboot of the game! Which is the most accurate description I can give on the update. Everything from the previous versions got either reworked or replaced with something far better. On top of this, I should also add that I don't consider Depper Jar a test game anymore, it's just a game. I have a lot of fun doing it and I wanna keep going to see how far can it go.

Test 1 vs Part 1:

So, what did change from 1.6.0 to 2.0? I guess everything! Even the labels of the chapters got changed. I used to call each chapter "Tests" because, well, Depper Jar was a test game! With that no longer being the case anymore made me feel like getting a new label, and landed on "parts".

Now, Test 1 is known as Part 1!

Despite this, I didn't want the new part 1 to lean far from what we had before. I brought back almost all the ideas from 1.6.0's part 1 and tried to improve them to suit my current vision of the game. I previously spoke about this back in Devlog 1 but my plans kept changing ever so slightly since then so it's no longer accurate. The battle system has almost the exact same gameplay and it was only expanded upon. Many elements that felt clunky before got refined and it includes brand new features too. I added the Chain system, which rewards players from attacking enemies on their turns and increases the number of STAR points you get to perform special actions. Stylish moves were also added as an alternative way to increase the Chain on the player's turn, althought they are bit trickier to execute.

Content-wise, part 1 shares some similarities with 1.6.0. Only two enemies were brought back while the rest are new, the forest and the laboratory were also brought back with a brand new look. In this case I think it's more accurate to say only their concepts were brought back as the zones are completely different from what they were previously. The protagonist is also the same, didn't felt like changing the look.

For the stuff I didn't bring back, basically everything else, got replaced with something more thought out. The new GEAR system grants the player unique side-effects to each battle you encounter, working in a similar style as the Badge system from Paper Mario. The characters from 1.6.0 are no longer here either, I made a brand new story and set of characters for part 1 that suits my new vision for the game (As this is a reboot and it's appropriate to do so).

General progress:

I say with confidence that part 1 is content-complete in a slightly rough state. It contains all the enemies, encounters, features and many more game elements, and I'm satisfied with their inclusion. What's left to be finished is, for the most part, non-gameplay related sections of part 1, such as cutscenes, menus, the title screen, GUI, etc.

You should be able to tell by this point that my plans for the update have sort up to be more ambitious, but I couldn't be happier with the new direction of the game and I'm excited for when I finally get to show it! By the time I'm writing this (February 19th) a couple of friends have tried the latest build of the game too. The feedback's been very positive overall, and it makes me just want to release the game sooner!

My current plan now is to just focus on working exclusively on the cutscenes of part 1, non-stopping. If I keep postponing the cutscenes I'll just keep stalling forever, I hate them, but I have to do it. God have mercy on me.

I'll keep this devlog short as this was everything I wanted to ramble about without spoiling more of the game. This should be, for real this time, the last devlog before I announce the update's release, regardless of how far that is from today. I'll still keep posting a few teasers from time to time, but nothing worth being in a devlog.

As always, thanks for reading until the end and thank you for following the game!