This time, it is a BIG one!
It'll be a bit of a long read, but I promise it's worth it!

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‎As you might've noticed, the not DEMO was in fact, not there.
(That is because it is not done yet) (waow)

ok ok, i'll tone the joking down...

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As for the DEMO; initially, I planned to launch an update for the demo fixing a few minor bugs, but... The line got kind of blurry when i fixed a specific thing, and I decided it wasn't really worth it to spend more time working on the DEMO. If it doesn't softlock or crash, then it really doesn't need updating anyways...

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Anyways, I personally dislike making "Filler" posts, but as it turns out, engagement is sort of vital for a game's reach.

So, I'll compromise with myself and make a Devlog every 3 months, aaand maybe sprinkle some posts every once in a while about the game's state and milestones and stuff.

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On that topic, the game hit 272 downloads!

That's like, an amount of people!! I hope you all weren't too disappointed with the DEMO's "content"...
Well, if you were, I hope the next segment of the game leaves you satisfied enough to crave for more!‎

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Oh, wait, right. That's... not much of an announcement, is it?

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‎I know what you're really here for.

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I think it's about time I actually show what's next to come to the game

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‎So, I'm excited to announce, The next segment!

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‎(made a tornado by mistake... i would clean it up, but it's too windy)

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In this section, the human must wander alone through an unstable section of the Ruins' Towers.

The Towers once served as support pillars for the Ruins' cavern ceiling, while also being a sort of "Apartments" for monsters from the area. After most of the Ruins' residents migrated to other areas of the Underground, only a few remain inhabiting them.
Some monsters are stronger than others, and so are some of its walls.
They are ruins for a reason, after all.

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‎...Oh, did I say they're left alone to explore?

They're not!

The towers host a (finite) amount of monsters that the human will encounter through their journey.

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Including: These guys!

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Uh, these guys too, i guess?!

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‎Okay this is getting ridiculous. Let's move on.

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Please keep in mind that this segment is meant to be as long and in-depth as Undertale's RUINS. I can't show a lot more.

So, you'll have to wait until you can walk through the Towers' yourself. Or something like, a trailer comes out eventually. (Don't count on it.)

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‎So, I found out there's an UT(dr)AU wiki, and decided to quickly make an entry on the game myself. (because i was bored and am a wiki nerd myself)

‎Though i don't plan on updating it myself from here on out, i at least brought it to speed with the DEMO's content.

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‎You can check it out for yourself. If you wanna.
https://undertaleauwiki.miraheze.org/wiki/Project_Bluelight

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( ▓▓▓▓▓▓ for breakfast)

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I'm gonna be entirely honest, most of the progress done these last months was entirely on preparations for future parts of the game.

If that seems like a bad thing, then rest assure, it isn't. Thanks to that, future leitmotifs, areas, story beats, and characters have been mostly solidified, which will lead to the game being consistent within itself, and allow me to foreshadow and link things from-to future areas.

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The bad part of that... is that since I'm the only one working on the game, time spent on future areas means time not spent on the current one!!! But that's kinda how my workflow goes, anyways. So It's a good thing there's at least a base for the game as a whole now.

Anyways, point is, progress can't be really gauged with percentages this time, since it's... really, not straightforward at all. (happy pride month lol)

So, I'll have to split the progress in several sub-segments:

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I've stablished all basic enemy battle logic. All that is needed is to connect them to Routes, and code tandem variants. (And incorporate some new sprites for some of them for expresiveness)
Still haven't touched attacks, so you can have a look at one of Fruitoid's for now.

I've also coded in all monster NPCs. All that's needed is to implement a few gags to their interactions, and connect them to Routes. (And actually remembering which room they were meant to be in, lol)

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I've begun remaking the cutscene that replaces the DEMO's ending. (There was a placeholder one made, yes)

I've rediscovered some "shaders" that were already in the code (Yes I'll implement some on specific rooms)

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I've rewritten the "random" encounter code... but... uh... okay, don't kill me for this one.
Remember how I said there wasn't much game progress done these last months?
...Well, I rewrote the random encounter code in a really cool way, but as I was implementing it to the game itself... I, uh... kinda... burned out and didn't open GMS2 for a solid month and a half.

If you know ANYTHING about coding, you know this is bad bad bad bad baaaaad. Now I barely understand what I was doing, and since it was 80% implemented, it doesn't CRASH... but it doesn't work as intended either. So, I now have to go and fix my own code (gulp)

Anyways I know it's not that complicated but ngl I'm dreading doing that so it's one of those things that will come way later LOL.

(Each one of these pillars represents a thing i didn't code this trimester)

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I (finally) wrote a simple draft of most future locations, events, and characters.

They were already half-set and designed (In my mind), but not written, so this was something that would have needed to happen at some point soon anyways... specially for the 3rd area. So, thanks to this, characters and their connections will be consistent. (well, they should be at least LOL)

As for art;

I've made some simple dialogue portraits for the cast of future areas, and some NPCs.

Of course they will be modified by the time they debut, but their designs shouldn't iterate much. Aside from that, I overhauled this Gamejolt page to be more appealing.

Also the GIF sprites you've seen in this very devlog will be used at some point of the game, so I can justify spending time on this as progress for the game itself!!

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I've FINALLY struck gold and finished all of the battle themes.

That's right, I've been struggling with 2/4 of those SINCE 2024. Every time I attempt to make something similar to Enemy Approaching, I'm reminded of how Toby Fox surpasses me musically. (HOW did he even make it so complexly simple.)
Seriously, I've struggled with that one track since my early days.

Oh, actually, now that we're touching the subject, this Devlog is a bit special for me too, since it overlaps with the month that marks the 9th anniversary of me "joining" the of the Undertale community (specifically, UnderTale SoundCloud).
(I just wish they let me buy minutes instead of a subscription...)

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ANYWAYS, since I'm basically turning 9 in the "fandom", I just wanted to say I'm glad I'm finally able to provide something that isn't the half-unfinished soundtrack of a half-baked AU, or a same-y X character megalo.

Alright, what i was getting at, is that all of the music for The Towers is done. (20 tracks, counting the DEMO ones)

But, in my little not-working-on-the-game phase i had, I... kinda...
made... 4 major boss battle tracks and 3 major area tracks and a sketch of the ending credits track.
Um. Yeah.

No idea what took over me, but ok, that'll come in handy in 5-10 years. I guess?
(You all will love them once they're out. Hell, i've been listening to 3 of them on loop for a while myself and they're still a WIP)

Also, all of that happened in like, a week.

HOW.

Anyways, I'm spending so much time talking about music you can't hear, it's making me feel like cartmanland...
(it IS enjoyable ngl but i kinda feel i might implode???).

So, since i mentioned earlier...
Here is the original pacifist battle theme, as a little taste:)

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(brickipede is basically a self insert now that i think about it)

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After the first devlog, I spent some time trying to get programmers to collaborate on the game. I personally DM'd most people I could find in the community that seemed somewhat skilled on the subject, or had some public experience with this... But all of them either didn't see the message, or had too much on their plate already! (it's ok lol)

Then, I tried making a public announcement, but that's something that only works if there's a public to reach. Which, honestly, I don't have much of.

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Though, I DID get messages from some people interested on the project, but sadly none of them were able to collaborate with coding... which is... the only thing actually wanted. (Shoutout to the ones who did, I really appreciate it and was really reassuring to see. Thank you.)

So, it's still just me, little old thehairdudelmao a.k.a. hadulm, making the whooooole thing.

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Just in case, if you are experienced in GameMaker, AND interested in helping out the making of this game, please reach out to me. I'll post an announcement right after this Newsletter goes live.

But, if you are NOT experienced in GameMaker and still want to help, please, please, please spread the message, retweet it, share it, whatever you must!!! this game (not desperately, but, still) needs people to code it into reality!!!

l'll make the game myself if I have to, but having more people to also make it will help it release before 204X... and I'm SEETHING for it to release!!!

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(you can skip this one, it's fine.)

So, when writing this Devlog I realized i should probably post the soundtrack to Soundcloud as well. So now there's an official Soundcloud page as well! (Expect the songs to come post-release)

In each track's description there's a little composer comment from me, just for fun. There's also updated versions of some of the tracks seen in the demo... so it's better to listen to these instead.

Here are the links:)

‎ CHOOSE YOUR SOUNDTRACK
ORIGINAL UNDERTALE

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Also, something i'd like to state somewhere, is that even if i DO link leitmotifs in a somewhat similar way to Toby Fox's music... i also do tend to, uh... mislink? motifs?
For example. you might hear a future track and realize, "hey, that sounds like that one old song he made", and yeah! i do reuse previous melodies sometimes even if they're from entirely different things. think of it as some sort of accidental watermark lol.

BUT i also do this on purpose at times. so, even if you hate me for this, you should probably take external motif linking with a grain of salt before assuming a meaningful connection.

sometimes music is just music.

Also, I don't think i ever stated this, but you're free to use my music however you want, as long as long as you credit & link me for it, AND as long it isn't just a reupload.
I will never personally strike down anything that uses my music. And if for some reason it happens, please reach out to me so I can look into it.

That is the whole point of the "original" soundtrack existing, after all.

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(you can also skip this one)
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(but i'd appreciate if you don't lol)

look, i pride myself on being honest. i DON'T like making self promotions or ANY promotions at ALL. if for some odd reason you knew about my stuff, you'd know i only did so like, 2 times in 9 years.

but, it's now been 8 MONTHS of unemployment for me. I'm really, REALLY lucky my mom can take care of me for now. and trust me, I've been looking and applying even to the shittiest jobs around, but there is simply so much unemployed people where i live, that it's always a gamble.

i'd hate to ask for money or donations or something. but, if you really really want to support me as a creator, you can always commission me for some music. it's a win-win.

but, if you don't have the money on you, you can always just stream my music (anywhere but soundcloud).
I do get some revenue from that, but it's barely enough to cover bus expenses and wifi as of now. So if you streamed some of my music, that'd do wonders for me!
Add them to playlists, play them on loop, name your newborn like them, do whatever you want!!!
but i SWEAR i have some good stuff up on streaming lol.

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In case you're interested, I recently published an album of "Thematic Music Discs" for the first 16 updates of a certain block game. (Before they started doing those for every update since 1.16)

It was going to be an add-on originally, but it's been 2 years since they're done and they still haven't made music discs easily moddable for custom sounds. So that'll have to wait until they finish doing it.

You can listen to it on Youtube, Bandcamp, Spotify, or somewhere else, probably.

Also, some time ago i published ANOTHER album of a conceptual game that doesn't exist. It's a direct (non-official) sequel to "Sonic Triple Trouble 16-bit". (I'm not crazy I ain't making that a game myself)

You can listen to it on Bandcamp, Spotify, or somewhere else, probably. Oddly not youtube, for some reason.

So... what's next?

(back to game stuff)

There's still a lot to do, but I'm glad i managed to chip away at what i could so far. Some of the things to tackle are fully re-connecting the DEMO area to this one, making sure all regular battles work well, route checks are done right... and maybe start making some of the bullet patterns for other enemies. Hell, maybe even some cutscene work, it's been a while since i last touched those.

Of course, I'm massively underestimating HOW much work there is still to do. But that's what i'll try to manage this trimester. (nobody told me when you make a game you have to make the whole thing moment)

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Next Announcement?

Well, as always, expect big announcements in Devlogs.

Expect Devlogs in March - June - September - December.
(Ideally, on the 12th.)

Though, you can probably expect some... less dev-loggy posts in the meantime. I'll give it a try. Hell, maybe some actual art. It's been a while since i last drew something properly.

TL;DR
game going well, ruined towers coming next, prepared future things for consistency, and reworking some systems.
still need help coding it.

written by
@thehairdudelmao , as always lol

#eggsforbreakfast #projectbluelight #pblight #undertale #undertalecyan #undertalelightblue #undertalebluelight #undertalebluebutslightlylight #undertalefangame #undertalenews #dage