ok so im here to talk about some little stuff

there has been significant progress, mainly with spriting, programming, and music.

for spriting, i recently almost completed the map, which i wanted to make pretty detailed, with lots of stuff to do or look at in almost every room

if you heard the track on sound cloud: HOME OF THE WEAK V2

you can quite tell that the vibe is pretty dark and stuff

out of the many inspirations of the game, OFF by the goat Mortis Ghost, and by the other goat Alias Conrad Coldwood definitely stand above the rest. the track is mainly inspired by the track Burned Bodies

from zone 3

and yeah.

also we have a lil footage here

dust route overworld

(sr if the quality of the video isn't quite good, in the game it was waaaaaaay better)

we also made mainly progress with the battle system

what i wanted was to make the monsters feel alive and with emotions and bonds between them, so i added many interactions and many dialogues. i also wanted to give them a more unique design for some lore reasons, but here. i also wanted to give a unique approach, so i organized the ui in a different way and changed the way attacking works

here the footage:

dust route act function - YouTube

also, little warning: this game contains a fair share of blood. nothing crazy, but yeah. you'll mostly see it in battle and in the overworld menu

but a little thing we made with the health bar:

dust route hp - YouTube

and yeah, we are now working on the dummy fight

there are some stuff to do, and in the video im about to show it is quite evident, but we'll fix those things

here the footage of the dummy fight:

dust route devlog - YouTube

in the video, as you should have saw, there is the new parry mechanic

we still have to work on it, but basically, at the fight button you press parry, it skips the ball minigame and it gives you a stick in the battle box. you can destroy the attacks of the enemy and inflict him with some minor damage.

you can use this ability in any fight and it's mainly for a defense strategy, since in the game item management is important and you definitely don't want to waste any items.

now

-{ last segment of the devlog}-

now i'll talk about what the demo will have and when it could come out.

i stated before that the ruins are divided in 3 zones.

every single one with their fair share of content.

and by seeing how much stuff there is to do in zone 1, and by seeing the cliffhanger ending, we decided that the demo will be only zone 1

which will definitely last a good amount of time. considering the fights and overworld and puzzles (which could be quite complex) and the mini boss at the end, it could last more or the same as the swapfell i hate you demo. another big inspiration of the game (also little fun fact: the development of the game started in a very rough way at the release of, you know...

swapfell i hate you.

now, when it could come out?

definitely in 2026, that's for sure, but i don't know if in the late or early 2026. writing and spriting are basically done, music for zone 1 is also almost done. the major thing is coding, but yeah...

we'll see...

well now i don't know if we'll make more devlogs, this might be the last one before the demo.

well, maybe make one for progress in the battle system and give a lil glimpse at the dummy fight, but yeah

i hope you guys have a good day and stuff bye : ^ )