Hey ya'll!

I know it's been a minute since I've talked on here, as this is just a side project connected to my comic it's not my highest priority.

I've talked before that this is the video game adaptation of Fallen Royalty (the webcomic reboot of the Askblog) and I am also building a massive fangame called Angel's Lullaby. These take up a lot of my time, but it's getting close to comic hiatus time so I can focus on my video game projects, make an artwork backlog, and take a much-needed break.

Updates

But before that-! New Royals is getting some upgrades.

all the sprite work in the main cast has been redone. Most notably, Undyne's colors are brighter, Frisk's design is more refined, and the kids are a lil taller. (the height being in part I can do flashbacks and have it more obvious they're younger)

Things I plan to update soon:

• Portraits. Some look wonky and the colors could be more vibrant/refined

• Have Asriel's sprites be drawn differently, so that he's more animated/lively throughout the opening fight

• recode the bullets to properly move away from the player

• An animation of Frisk communicating*

And by that, I mean like this:

Through hand gestures and not through dialogue or even sounds. Frisk uses ASL in my story's canon -so while it's impractical/not realistic to do accurate hand sprites (in the comic they're accurately drawn) for all the signs, just showing Frisk is signing is a nice gesture and would go a long way in characterization.

While Frisk is a fully fleshed-out character in this story, I want to keep their speech and inner thoughts limited to only the comics. We'll have characters react to what Frisk says, we'll see them gesture and emote, but never a word actually from them.

Because while Frisk isn't an extension of the player, they're very open-ended and what little we know from canon leaves a lot of room to build. Their exact wording being separated from the player feels integral to depicting them, I feel. In the comic there isn't as much of a layer of separation -and well, I started 5 years ago and wasn't considering the meta-narrative like I do now.

Chapters

I've added a Chapter Selection screen! Heavily inspired by the Sonic the Hedgehog classic games.

I'm not actually sure how well data is going to sync when new chapters are established. (Using TML's engine, IIRC the files are encrypted so I can't physically check)

I'm actually seriously considering remaking the game in FutureGamer25's top-down engine (what I use to make Angel's Lullaby, we work on it together on call), but that'll take a long time to develop so we'll see how that goes eventually!

Anyway, now that part I mentioned before...

We'll be getting side stories that cover the past of the comic. First up, will be the Bravery SOUL's journey into the Underground. It covers why they fell and then their time in the RUINS. It's not too terribly long, but it'll be a fun story. Again, this is a comic adaptation and a Visual Novel, so no real "gameplay" in the RPG sense.

Originally the side stories were going to be posted in my spare time but that was taking too long (I gotta focus my drawing efforts on Chapter 3's backlog) and I wanted this side story to be more music focused. And heck, I have a composer for this game series! This side story needs to have audio. The comic format just doesn't do it justice.

My current plan is this:

Finish up the changes I mentioned before (might save them for after the fact, we'll see if I have time) and have the upcoming side story released sometime next month.

After that, I'll do as I said, take a hiatus from the comic. I'll return to bi-weekly updates in a few months + come back to New Royals in another 6 months or so. (ideally sooner, but these projects take up so much time LOL)

Between each chapter, a new side story will be released as a game update. After the demo for Angel's Lullaby, I'll take a very long break from that and catch New Royals up to the comic version. Ideally, I'd like both to be running alongside each other.

And then... eventually...

The Darkworld game.

will be a time skip in the story and be a completely playable RPG.

Granted, this is 2 whole chapters away. (so at least a year of updates) But I'm already starting development now because I want to release it all at once. And a project this ambitious needs to start now.

So, while this project is going to take its time to be released, be assured it's in development. Hope you enjoy the new changes and hope to see you all soon!