Happy New Year, everyone! Hope 2026 has been treating y'all nicely. I got sick in-between Christmas and New Year's Eve, but I'm much better now. I'm still working on the Second Demo through January after returning home from the Holidays.

Development may slow down in the future as I've been included in other projects that have nothing to do with Manalith or even video games. I'll still develop Manalith because this is what I want to dedicate myself to, but I gotta prioritize the work that will yield me income. Such is the society we live in.

What have I been doing?

I got some feedback here and there to improve the Second Demo, showing it to people that would be interested. Other than that, I've just been performing polish and making minor improvements and changes here and there that I hope will improve the experience. I've also added a few things that you won't notice much

That said, progress has slowed down considerably compared to November and December because it's been a while since I completed every major feature I wanted to include in the demo. I considered adding more features, but if I added everything that came to my mind, I wouldn't be releasing the demo any time soon, lmao.

In the previous Development Update post, I wanted to show a few pictures teasing some of the features in this second demo, but I noticed I couldn't access certain features, including posting more images, when I made that post. I got pretty mad! So I'll make up for it here.

A small glimpse into the new camera visuals, featuring Aerous. This was a development screenshot from a while back, and looks slightly different in-game.

A gameplay screenshot of Night 3. You can see the new look for the Mana display. What's that gem on the desk, you ask? Wouldn't you like to know.

An in-development screenshot of the Achievement List that I mentioned last time. It will be found in the Extras Menu. It will also look differently in-game.

Release Date?!

Last month, I mentioned that I didn't have a specific date for the second demo, but that it'd be out by mid-March, and maybe sooner due to my great progress last month. Yeah, about that... About that...

How about I release the second demo on January 30th? Yeah, I've decided on a date, because I really don't know what else to do other than keep playtesting, so I might as well release what I got, which I'm happy with, so I can then keep pushing forward.

But you still heard me! Manalith's second demo will release on January 30th!

That's all for this development update. I'll be having some more playtests throughout this week and the next, and if everything goes well and I don't find any major game-breaking bugs, Manalith's Demo will be out on the 30th. See you then!