Hey, everyone! Neon-Gr33n here- I'm aware it's been a few months since our last full devlog, and I do apologize about the delay- there was strong intentions to have a devlog ready by the 30th of September, but there were some setbacks, a good bit of it is on me, but I have explanations.

Anyway, regardless of anything, I'm truly glad to be able to write up another devlog like this- we've got a lot to go over- so without further ado, let's get started ^^

Gritfell turns 5!!

That's right! we've been on GameJolt for 5 YEARS now, as of October 13th, 2018, our game page was created ^^

To explain why it's taken quite some time to get to where we are now- let's start with the early part of Gritfell's Development history, back when it was still called TG!UNDERFELL and had a completely different logo

Back then, the game was nothing like it is now, especially in terms of character designs, story, and a distinct lack of music (as we were unable to find any composers to assist with the project at the time) and if you're curious what the story was going to be like? It was heavily drawing from KaitoGirl, and RynoGG's takes on Underfell, we STILL even now draw some inspiration from them, but it's incredibly loose-

We were building an engine in GameMaker Studio 1.4x- things didn't quite work out- I was starting to get stressed out with school and such taking up much of my time and opted to just temporarily leave the fandom- not returning until I graduated high school, eventually, after a 4 or so year long hiatus- the project was back, and we started with @TML233 's engine (which I've since revised HEAVILY with the help of @DarkEnigma )

As you can see now- we're working our hardest to not only deliver a playable demo, but a quality result- we don't want to make a bad game- after all this time, I think it'd be best to deliver something great.

With that all being said- thank you all so much for your patience, for sticking with us even when the hiatus was ongoing, I truly can't wait to show you all what we have in store- and eventually have the full game ready, but for now, let's get into this devlog! ^^

Programming

We've been working on a FULL overhaul of the way we handle the overworld, largely to make it far more customizable, and versatile

Starting off, let's introduce the new mechanic, climbing!

What is climbing?

(Flowey shooting us to test our skills may or may not be canon >:3)

Anyway! Climbing is a mechanic that introduces a whole new layer of interaction to the world around you- and chances are, you'll find it important! It's a great way to access hidden items that are FAR too high up for you to reach.

It also acts as a way for us to have a LOT of fun with level designs, and just let our minds go wild

You'll be climbing a LOT as you navigate through the Neglected Tunnels.

What happened to combining/endowing?

I've actually gotten this question a few times in our email, and I want to elaborate on what's going on with it-

Simply put, it was problematic for the scope of our project-

We kept the mechanic in, but on a VASTLY smaller scale- Endowing is now done via a Blacksmith, while combining is done only during specific interactions, as part of a puzzle for example.

We fully intended on keeping it in some fashion and NOT removing it.

Battles?

Right! Battles, a core mechanic in any RPG, and made unique with Undertale's own bullet hell combat. we're making pretty good progress so far- primarily going back through old enemies such as Froggit and revising existing attacks while implementing no more than 1-2 extra attacks, for the sake of variety!

We've also got concept art for certain battles, but I will NOT be showing it here as it would spoil the fun >w<

I feel like that about covers programming, broadly speaking- now then, what about music

Music

As far as music goes, we've come a long way! firstly- Chapter 1's OST is essentially complete- we only have two tracks remaining.

As for later chapters though? We completed several tracks for Chapter 2 (and beyond!) I won't be linking to these directly as I don't wanna spoil anything, but I'm sure you can still find them fairly easily ^^

Writing

Remember that HUGE dialogue overhaul we mentioned in the past? It's still ongoing- I was not at all kidding when I said this was huge, haha.

Here's a summary

• Various cut scenes were revised to what may very well be the final dialogue

• Tossed around concepts for new, unique scenes

• Adjustments to the order in which the story events occur.

• ..and more!

Screenshots

"The Neglected Tree" - MaxVilocity

Grtifell now works at both 4:3 aspect ratio and 16:9!!

Revised battle menu preview, now including icons for Einar's HUD drawn by @JMaster209

Color pallete suggested by @souptaels with light inspiration from Vic the Underfella's original concepts for Underfell

Slightly outdated screenshot, but here's us experimenting with some flavor text for Monster Candy!

Closing remarks

Hey there, if you read until the end, thank you!! It's very much appreciated. you might notice that Estimated progress a section we typically include was omitted in this devlog.. Why's that? well, to put it simply, there's some HUGE changes going on to the map right now, and I don't think we have an exact estimate just quite yet, hopefully I can give a proper estimate by the time we post our next devlog.

With that being said, I want to give you all a reminder

Team Grit applications are still open!!

We're mainly looking for additional programmers, level designers and writers (I forgot to add writers in the initial post so let me get into detail here)

Writers (1-2 max)

Looking for writers to assist in writing mainline story dialogue (such as in cutscenes or battles), flavor text, route variants for certain dialogue

• Able to write fluently in English

• Creative, and able to adapt to change, or even an out of the box thinker.

• Strong familiarity with storytelling/writing

We're also open to the possibility of bringing some dedicated translators onto the team for languages such as Japanese, as we intend on including support for it when the demo is released.

See this post for more information on other available roles:

https://gamejolt.com/p/help-wanted-gritfell-hn8zihmt

Thank you so much for reading this, and remember to remain brave. love and appreciate each and every one of you :3

// Neon-Gr33n