Hi everyone! I’m chiming in for a quick minute to talk about what’s coming up in the near(ish) future for The Hero’s Journey. I’ve noticed the game is getting more attention, and I want to improve it before I call it ‘completely done.’

The Road to 1.2

First, thanks to everyone who’s following The Hero’s Journey. It was a labor of love/hate over a period of 10 months. I love it, but for a while there I just wanted to get it done, and I think it shows in places, particularly the late game.

Anyone who watches my game development livestreams on Twitch (http://twitch.tv/Asvarduil - I broadcast every Sunday at 8:30PM Central Time) will be able to see some of my new developments to the game. I’m working on a new title called Sara the Shieldmage, but the 1.2 patch to The Hero’s Journey will be a side project. For every three episodes of Sara the Shieldmage I show myself developing, one will be for The Hero’s Journey.

Why is this important? It’s a live forum for you to give me suggestions and feedback about what you liked and what really didn’t work for you. Alternatively, just reply to this news topic. Either way, I’m reading all of the comments, and will work to add in your suggestions.

Patch 1.1.5

My first order of business is an intermediate patch.

T-NovaGamer had a suggestion to add some effect to let players know where to go for main storyline quests. I implemented that in my very first livestream, and have it in my personal build of the game. This is making it into 1.1.5.

I’m redesigning the Karikako Catacombs (I did that onscreen in one of my early livestreams), but thanks to some recent work done on Sara the Shieldmage, I’m going to be working on fixing the uber-buggy physics in The Hero’s Journey. Slimes should not knock you across a room, like they did in T-NovaGamer’s brief Let’s Play. Most of that work is done, I just need to migrate it to The Hero’s Journey.

A critique I keep hearing about, is the ‘Death Lines’ in Lady Barbariccia’s Evil Castle. My next THJ livestream will involve a redesign of much of that Evil Castle, while still keeping - and teaching the player how to properly use - the Hero’s Hilt, which lets you deflect blue magic.

There’s some other minor bugs that are going to be fixed as well, mostly with how the game’s music is managed. That will be a small release, probably by Halloween.

Patch 1.2

I have somewhat larger plans after that, though.

First, per feedback, I’m going to be reworking the story. There were a number of points where it simply wasn’t effective video game storytelling. I wanted to do much more with it, but simply lost motivation. Thanks to some other technology - Sara the Shieldmage helped me refine the tech to allow for it - I intend to rewrite the story to make it more engaging and suspenseful. Some locations, subplots, and characters that got cut will see daylight in 1.2. Since some mechanics, like Underthrust and Overthrust, are allowed access based on the main quest thread, this will alter how and when you get these abilities.

Another part of 1.2 will be a special title-screen mode that can be selected after beating the game. This special mode will be called, “The Hero’s Odyssey”. It will be a special challenge mode. You start off with a large pool of health, all main storyline items, and all main storyline techniques. Where it differs, is that there is no world map, these are to be one-shot challenges that are challenging. Sort of like the northwestern cave of the Manseles region. They’ll be beatable, but it will take quite some effort. Playing this mode is not recommended for the faint of heart.

The rewards will be mostly bragging rights, as Odyssey mode is intended for veterans of the game, to prove their mastery. I’m considering adding in another cut feature, an online scoreboard, specifically for this mode, so that people can compete not only to be the first one to beat a new map, but the fastest completion, or the first to complete it without taking damage, or the first to complete it without attacking a monster…all sorts of possibilities exist. But, right now these are possibilities.

So, 1.2 will be a rather large update for the game. If you’re interested in what’s to come, drop me a line in this news article. Alternatively, follow my twitch stream (noted above), or follow my YouTube account (http://youtube.com/user/TheAsvarduilProject).

In the eight months since the initial release, you all have made this an awesome game. Thanks for following it, thanks for reading this huge wall of text, and I hope I see you in a dev stream, so you can get an even better game out of this!