Hey, all! It's been a while since I've posted a devlog, so I thought I'd update on what's changed.

I'm in the middle of implementing a quests and weather system. The quests system is being implemented via a plug-in as I don't really want to make a giant custom system for that... I've done enough of those. Weather also depends on a plug-in, though that's just so I can change the graphics of rain particles. The actual weather system is something more like... each day at 4 A.M. (because I made 4 A.M. be hour 0 for some reason...), there's a 1 in 20 chance for it to rain, and a 1 in 40 chance for it to storm. These odds may update in the future, and I may make it be slightly more convoluted, though I don't really want to think about that right now!

I also have decided each village will have their own song associated with them. This makes it kinda hard to get used to the overworld song, though... just know that any place that isn't a village that exists on the overworld will play the overworld theme. And on the topic of music, I slightly remastered nearly every song in the game so they are all at a consistent volume. All of the game's sound effects have been changed to be at the same volume now as well.

The main reason I'm posting this devlog is to tell you I am no longer releasing the game under the "prototype" title. This does mean the scope is expanding, as well... I came to this conclusion because the game is far past the prototype stages. I recently played a March 2023 build of the game, and I'd consider THAT to be a prototype. And then there was the really really old 2021-2022 version of the game... I'd call THAT PRE-prototype. REGARDLESS! The game is going to release in an alpha stage now.

The scope of the game, when I will be able to release the alpha build, is going to be something along these lines; a few fully explore-able overworld areas, a mostly finished server hub to explore, and a completely finished 1st server - being the Wild West server. There will also be a few side quests, some of which I'm very excited to work on...! Of course, all of these things are subject to change, and may not even be the same by the time a major alpha update rolls out. I want this game to be fun and somewhat content-filled for its first presentation to the public. Hopefully bug-free as well, but we all know that's an oxymoron.

Thanks for stickin' around. I hope the delay isn't too inconvenient, but you've all had enough patience to wait since 2021, so what's another year--I mean, couple months! Let's be hopeful here...

P.S, I finally finished the closing animation for the settings menu. It took me 9 months... seriously, what's wrong with me!?

P.P.S, I drew those silly images to get used to a new color palette, but I also think they're cute, so I wanted to post them here.