Introduction:

Hello everyone, Team Wonders here! Welcome to the June 2024 Newsletter of Wonders of Patience! A lot of progress was made this month, so enjoy!

Programming:

This might be where the most significant progress was made, allowing certain other avenues to progress too!

The Game finally has an Engine, reusing and building upon Zaxento’s Amalgamate Engine for the game, speeding up progress significantly, as there is no need to build one from scratch.

With that said, most of the features are done, most importantly:

• Walking, Animations & Collisions

• Dialogue & Cutscenes

• Battle system UI & Bullet patterns

https://youtu.be/CY53kq9dH3Y?si=8n57nis2z8VWAeb8

• And most importantly… vents!

A previous help wanted post asking for Programmers mentioned Gamemaker Studio 2 as the Engine of choice (Boy, they’re both called Engines? That’s going to be a little confusing), but the Team has ultimately switched to Gamemaker Studio 1 with this Engine, allowing for 32-bit support for older operating systems to play the game, along with quite the accuracy to UNDERTALE!

Zaxento has intended for the Engine to be open-source, so the project folder for Wonders of Patience with the Engine will be available on the Demo’s release.

Now, in terms of general progress of the game in the new Engine:

•  The first few rooms of the Ruins were finished, and three of them will be shown in the Pixel Art section.

• Few Flavor Texts, Items and Monster Encounter Intros were also added.

• A few details regarding the menus were adjusted. Things such as Charlie’s name, her equipment, etc. Along with those small adjustments, the STAT menu now has a (not so) new “feature” of sorts.

Art:

A lot was done in terms of art, we got a bunch of concepts and other types of assets done, for things like characters, environments, scenes, promotional art, and even memes! And while we can’t show it all, we still can show a few interesting things.

First thing’s first, yes, new reference art for Charlie! The definitive one this time. Not only is Charlie more expressive now, but we got two poses for her! A casual pose, and a pose where she’s (not) ready to fight! Enjoy.

New reference art for Charlie. Made by @DaWikzz!

While we’re talking about reference sheets and character designs, there’s still three more character concept art to go! And the next one is not just a concept, but reference art like Charlie’s for Toriel!

Reference art for Toriel. Made by @DaWikzz!

Yes! Toriel will make an appearance, and despite not being a major character, she’ll still be important in Charlie’s journey, providing shelter, safety… and pie!

Now, the next character concept art is for a special enemy Charlie might encounter in the Ruins, a Supervisor Whimsun!

Concept for the Supervisor Whimsun. Made by @DaWikzz!

In what way this enemy is special and why is it a supervisor? Well, I can’t tell you! You’ll only know when you play the demo.

Last, but certainly not least… the final character concept art for today! I present to you all… Scrapped characters…?

Concept for a set of characters who got scrapped. Made by @Pixelite_Studios !

You read it right, these three characters are scrapped. While it is rather sad they were scrapped before any of you could meet them, it's probably for the best, due to reasons we prefer to explain later on. Maybe on a future Newsletter? Who knows.

On other news, here's the final concept we have to show! A non character one this time around, here's concepts for a logo of… something?

Logo concepts. By @stuffbyjesh !

Of what these logos are from? Once again, I can’t say! You’ll have to discover that when you play the demo. What I can say though is that the logo chosen out of these various concepts was the bottom one! The one with the flex and wings.

Now that we’re done covering important assets like concept art and promo art, how about we show some memes that were created by the artists during the course of this month? Ready or not, here we go!

A while ago, Will said Charlie looked a bit like Lois Griffin.

And a bit after, they found this clip of Lois, who looked even more like Charlie!

So...

By @DaWikzz!

I guess they were right then, huh? And this made me think, could it be that Lois and Charlie are… one in the same?! Who knows!

Now, next up in the list of memes…

“Cuz all I really need’s a smile, smile, smile!” By @DaWikzz!

“Tell me what more can I say to make you see, that I do!” By @DaWikzz!

Some might’ve realized already, but these last two memes were a reference to something! Were you able to catch it? 

In any case, that’s all we have to show in terms of art!

Pixel Art:

Yes! Lots of pixel art! Objects, Nicknacks and a few tiles! There’s also been a lot of work on trying to get Charlie’s sprite just right.

Believe it or not, we had actually finished Charlie’s new sprites, going through a few alterations of course, but we thought we had finally finished that step of development.

Older version of this set of Charlie’s sprites. Made by @CalamityChain and @ZaxentoTheGreedy

Most recent version of this set of sprites. Made by @ZaxentoTheGreedy and @CalamityChain

However, after testing these sprites in game, we realized the animations, especially the ones on her arms, looked quite wonky. So we ultimately decided to make Charlie’s arm animations be like Frisk’s, but that required us to make Charlie have Frisk’s body type.

Charlie with Frisk’s body type. Made by @ZaxentoTheGreedy .

While it worked out, we still weren’t very satisfied with how it looked, and at some point, J thought it would be a good idea to try modeling Charlie’s sprite off of this one made by Kr1sta, the creator of Soul Rush, as it looked rather good, along with it also having Frisk’s body type and arms.

Mockup sprite made by @kr1staaa

And it worked out really well! And so we decided to use it as Charlie’s new sprites.

Charlie’s new sprite based on Kr1sta’s sprite. Made by @ThatOneJ and @ZaxentoTheGreedy

A bit later, Kr1sta made another mockup sprite for Charlie, but with the old body type.

New sprite made by @kr1staaa

Despite it using the old body, this sprite is still really awesome, and it had a new ribbon that looked better than what we had. So, we decided to also incorporate it into the new sprite! And I think it went really well. The new Ribbon is something I think looks really nice and clear.

Current sprite for Charlie. Made by @ThatOneJ and @ZaxentoTheGreedy

Will this be the final version? Dunno. Even as of writing these we haven’t fully settled, but animations for this sprite are being worked on, so we'll only know if it will be the final version when we test it in game. For now, here’s a comparison between the previous and current sprite!

Comparison between the previous and current sprite respectively.

Now, onto other assets that were made... Here it is, like I promised in the Programming section: 3 finished rooms for the Ruins! And not only that, but a closer look to the new tilesets and objects! We can’t show it all yet, but here’s what we can show!

First room of the Ruins, along with a closer look to certain objects. Made by @ZaxentoTheGreedy , @JonnoPonno & @ThatOneJ

Second room of the Ruins, along with a closer look to certain objects. Made by @ZaxentoTheGreedy , @JonnoPonno & @ThatOneJ

Fourth room of the Ruins, along with a closer look to certain objects. Made by @ZaxentoTheGreedy , @JonnoPonno & @ThatOneJ

As an extra, take a closer look on another object that didn't appear in the rooms shown previously!

Made by @JonnoPonno !

Writing:

A lot had changed in the writing department. Like it was said before, the Structure of Ruins and its progression was altered greatly, and is less of a complete detour. Despite that, the area is like a remixed version of the Ruins from UNDERTALE, under new conditions relating to this period of time. Sonic CD? Perhaps not 100% there, but it’s pretty close!

A lot of stuff has been thought of ahead of time for future areas, and proper build-up and foreshadowing in earlier ones once we know about them. The plan is to have an idea on what the Journey of the Game will be before releasing the Demo, so they can receive the proper plot development and connections they deserve.

So far, I’d say meaningful Story Progress goes up to area 4! We haven’t quite figured out much afterwards, but there are probably some nuggets lying around somewhere.

I’d say the most developed areas plot-wise in order would be: Areas 1 - 4 - 2 - 3 - 5.

New Characters were thought of and expanded upon, and a particular set has even been… scrapped?! Yes, I’m talking about those three scrapped characters shown in the Art section! Because the Demo hasn’t been finalized yet, we decided against telling who they are and what their purpose was, only revealing their designs, just in case we get a eureka moment on how to utilize them. For now though, we intend to have them appear in the game as NPCS, as a bit of a cameo of sorts. Maybe in a future Newsletter we may even reveal what they were about and why their role had changed? Perhaps!

The Current Character in their place is one I think plays off of an important character in the Story really well, and has relationships that expand beyond the area you will be able to explore in the Demo. Maybe you will get to meet them one day? Sure would be nice!

Currently, the approach for the Story is quite flexible, running on a Canon Foundation, while allowing for What-if? Possibilities. You’re still able to follow a canon-esque path if you want to, of course! A lot of the stuff we know about occurs pretty early on, so a lot of possibilities could be considered the “Correct” path. Pick the one you like most!

Music:

No new songs were made for Wonders of Patience, though there was some improv music and practice done. I guess this might be a weakness of sorts? Help would be appreciated!

Conclusion:

That’s all everyone! Thank you for reading and for your interest. See you in the next Newsletter, and don’t lose your PATIENCE!