Howdy!

Looks like it's time for another devlog, where we'll be covering our most recent developments--including some more exciting news and content!

Let's go ahead and start!

Brief Catch-Up!

In case you missed our July 2021 devlog, here's a quick recap!

Stardust Woods, the first sub-location of Starlight Isles, is nearing functional completion!

This means that, for all intents and purposes, Stardust Woods is almost ready to be technically played from start to finish--albeit missing some dialogue (including per-route variations and reset-specific dialogue), assets, monster attacks, easter eggs, and a great deal of polishing.

Once Stardust Woods is functionally complete, we'll start working on Koffin Keep, and then Starstruck Village. After that, we'll focus on polishing up everything to our liking, then proceed with work on Crystal Springs--the third major area of the game.

In terms of that month's general updates:

• Script Writing -- Sections that needed more attention have been further developed, and later content is in-progress.

• Battle Writing -- All random encounter enemies' battle writing is complete. Most important battle writing for minibosses is complete.

• Adding Rooms -- To help with the pacing of the area, some new rooms have been added between existing ones.

• Enemies & Monster Attacks -- All random encounter enemies, and their ACT trees, are added in-game. Attack assets for two minibosses are complete, in various stages of in-game implementation, and random encounter monsters' attack assets are being worked on.

• Soundtrack Updates -- 14/25 planned tracks complete, ~3 nearing completion, and 7 others ranging from early concepts to not yet started.

As for everything else covered:

• The Art of Stardust Woods -- We showcased concept art which helped establish Stardust Woods' identity, including color experimentation and a comparison of early environment art with finalized assets.

• Larger Than Life -- Our next "long talking segment" which discussed our process of designing Stardust Woods' length (rooms-wise), pacing (content-wise), and size (how big they feel to the player.) This included some new screenshots!

• Starlight Isles Preview 1 -- The first spoiler-free preview video for Starlight Isles which showcases a bunch of minor side content, and predominantly features the Spider Scouts Bake Sale. We also talked about how we're keeping most of Starlight Isles under wraps, as to avoid spoiling all of the brand new things we've been doing.

• New Music -- "Eight Bits" by TRéZZY, featured in the Starlight Isles preview video, was released on our SoundCloud page.

• YouTube Soundtrack Uploads -- We uploaded the first four songs of the TS!UNDERSWAP Soundtrack to our YouTube channel, found on this playlist!

We also posted some new updates on Twitter, between last month's devlog and now:

• New bouncy mushroom sound! -- We updated the bouncy mushroom sound from its initial placeholder! Courtesy to junnboi, who made the new sound.

• SoundCloud verified! -- We've been verified on SoundCloud! Check that out!

• TS!UNDERSWAP logo concepts! -- We recently came across the original logo redesign concepts by Frigadae, who's responsible for our current logo (along with edits by Chip Potato, our art director.) These were exciting to find!

Progress Updates

Since last month's devlog, we've made more progress with Stardust Woods!

The most major news is that all rooms have been added for the area, with 31 rooms total.

This doesn't mean everything for these rooms has been added just yet, though. There's still some writing and assets needed for the last few rooms, before we're able to fully implement their content. Hopefully, this shouldn't take us way too long!

In terms of our developments from last month's devlog:

• Script Writing -- We've been focusing on writing out the final rooms of the area, and figuring out important writing still needed for earlier rooms' content--including per-route variations and some reset-specific dialogue.

  • We've also had to consider how dying in a miniboss battle will impact its pre-battle cutscene upon a reload. If a player repeatedly dies to a miniboss, and the pre-battle cutscene is longer, they'll probably end up getting annoyed every time they have to go through it.

  • To prevent this, we've started writing various iterations of pre-battle cutscenes with shortened/condensed material--letting the player get into the miniboss battle(s) quicker, and still understanding what's going on.

• Battle Writing -- The battle writing for Stardust Woods' minibosses is nearing completion! The ACT trees for both the Dogi and Greater Dog are finalized, with the Dogi's script being much more complete than Greater Dog's. Two other minibosses require finalized ACT trees, though one of those isn't currently a priority.

  • We've also started taking a look at the random encounter enemies' ACTs in-game, and discovering more opportunities for ACT interactions.

  • As we design ACT trees, we try to account for as many combinations as possible, to avoid conflicting/awkward writing. After in-game testing, we've started trying to identify any potential issues, and have even come up with more opportunities for ACT combinations and SPARE methods!

• Enemies & Monster Attacks -- We're currently still working on creating assets for monster attacks based on concept art and ideas, and then implementing them in-game.

  • Once we have all of the attacks implemented for random encounter enemies, we plan on possibly doing another Starlight Isles Preview Video, which will showcase some of the attacks.

• Soundtrack Updates -- We currently have 15 tracks completed out of a planned 27!

  • There's also ~3 tracks nearing completion, and 9 others ranging from early concepts to not yet started.

  • We don't have any tracks to reveal for this devlog, though you can expect some more to come in the future!

• Fast Travel -- We've been considering and implementing various methods of fast travel for the player throughout Starlight Isles. We've already demonstrated this with the "magic speedy goop stuff," which doubles as a puzzle mechanic and mobility/fast travel mechanic.

• Android Support -- We've gotten some work done to ensure the new puzzle/movement mechanics for Starlight Isles run smoothly on the Android port.

  • We don't want people to have trouble with completing puzzles, or progressing through the area, on Android. Rather than designing this port as "the game on another platform," we make adjustments to ensure the gameplay is designed for Android users as well.

After testing an older build (before the inclusion of the final rooms of the area) to see how long a person's first playthrough would be, we reached 40 minutes--this included interacting with nearly everything multiple times, and exploring every room.

We currently estimate that Stardust Woods as a whole may take, at most, between an hour to an hour and a half for someone's first playthrough--though this is a rough estimate, and does not account for blind players' experiences.

Screenshots

While we've been wanting to keep Stardust Woods (and by extension, Starlight Isles) mostly secret--so we don't spoil players before they're even able to play--we figured it'd be nice to show off some more spoiler-free screenshots!

By the time the player has gotten through the vast majority of the area, they reunite with the skeleton brothers after a period of separation.

This results in a nice walk through the forest!

(We promise, there won't be one of these cutscenes for every single area.)

We've also taken some feedback into account regarding the JOURNAL, with how it originally didn't show the player which section has been updated. After toying around with different concepts--many of which didn't work due to space limitations, or colors blending together--we settled on a subtle glow effect, which will display on the most recently-updated section!

Ready Your Weapon!

Here's another quality of life change, which we like to call "Ready Your Weapon!"

When attacking a new weapon for the first time, you'll be given a little heads-up that the crosshair will be different! This gives you a little bit of time to prepare yourself, rather than being immediately expected to line up your shots with something completely unfamiliar.

Undertale's weapons all shared the same targeting crosshair, though had different patterns to stand apart from one another. Through our incorporation of unique targets for each weapon, that degree of consistency was lost--hopefully, this little addition will solve that problem!

This will apply to every weapon in the game (besides the default one). This currently includes the Toy Gun ("Get ready to shoot!") and Dented Pan ("Get ready to flip!")

Koffin Keep

Once we get Stardust Woods in a functionally complete state, we'll begin in-game development for the second sub-area of Starlight Isles--Koffin Keep, an entirely original location.

Since that's coming up pretty soon, we figured we'd give you guys an early look into our plans!

Our current plan is for Koffin Keep to be a smaller, self-contained, nonlinear area where the player can complete tasks at their own pace. This layout and progression differs significantly from previous areas in the game--and those from Undertale--which are largely linear, with the exception of exploration side areas which branch off from the main path.

We're really excited to get into this area, as well as the mechanics and character interactions it has to offer! While it won't be anywhere near as large as Stardust Woods (and neither will Starstruck Village be), its size and amount of content will be paced appropriately.

We'll eventually give more updates on Koffin Keep as we get closer into development of the area, as well as some tidbits on Koffin-K himself! For a character we're really proud of, and a fan favorite to some, we really haven't talked much about him or given a clear view of his personality.

Since we've finalized his backstory and other aspects of him, we hope to fix that in the near future.

Other Updates

Since we've been prioritizing development on Starlight Isles, there are various things we've talked about in the past that we haven't been able to give our full attention to. As a quick recap:

• Spep Mode: In order to set more realistic goals for ourselves, we've figured that Spep Mode will be limited to Ruined Home--due to the area's size, we're thinking we could create a unique story for Spep Mode with a beginning, middle, and end, simply using the normal Ruined Home as a base for it.

• Soundtrack Uploads: We're hoping to get some more soundtrack uploads completed for the YouTube channel, but don't have any promises right now. In order to make creating uploads easier, we had created a template of sorts--simple visuals, structure, and effects, where only the thumbnail image, text, and music need to be changed.

• Developer Commentary Stream: Unfortunately, we still don't have any dates figured out for this just yet. We're hoping to have one before the end of summer, but no promises.

• Demo Art Book: While we haven't been able to work on the demo "art book" PDF, we plan on continuing to share tidbits of information and concept art from its development via social media--particularly Twitter, where we give semi-frequent updates on development!

Community Spotlight

Time for our third Community Spotlight!

We started these back in June 2021 to highlight community fanworks, and fellow fan-projects.

First up, we've got an animated music video of LucasPucas's "Stage Fright" / adaptation of Mettacrit's fight by Santims Animations!

I had originally come across this back in July as I was looking through our GameJolt Community. After checking it out, I really loved the ways in which Mettacrit's attacks--as well as the battle itself--were adapted in an animation form. The inclusion of the audience, with monsters such as The Ruined Knights, was also really cute!

( - Beethovenus)

Next up, it's some funky fanart of Crossbones by mwehster!

I really like how Crossbones was adapted into this kind of art style! He feels both goofy and semi-threatening as he's prepared for a funk-off.

( - Beethovenus)

Here, we have some fanart of Asgore enjoying a cup of tea, by GonerBoy!

I really enjoy how peaceful Asgore looks. He just wants some tea. What a sweet ol' chap.

( - SuperKirbylover)

Finally, we have some fanart of Asgore and Chara resting under a tree by drosserghoul.

The painted look gives a nice, relaxing feeling. They're just sitting together and appreciating the time they're spending with one another... it's nice.

( - SuperKirbylover)

And with that, this month's devlog is done!

We're really happy with the progress we've been making, and we're excited to share more details about what we're doing at some point! While there's still a lot we'll be keeping under wraps, we hope to tease some more content in the near future.

- Beethovenus and Team Switched