Usually I'm not exactly on time when it comes to anniversary dates if I even bother with them at all, but specifically 3 years since TRTF 3 LE dropped is a funny one and a perfect time to make some juicy announcements! I've been basically radio silent since the TRTF anniversary so this is going to be a bit of a yappathon.

As some of you may already know, back in December during the TRTF 10 year anniversary event the other recode in line, TRTF 4: Legalized, was announced. Shouldn't really come as a surprise since back when Legendary Edition dropped and people asked whether any other games would get the same treatment I think I made it clear that the fourth one would be the most likely to follow. And I did also hint that there would be more than just 3 in the game itself but that's beside the point.

Funnily enough the trailer footage aged out almost immediately cuz of me moving the asma meter shortly after, idk why I didn't put it there in the first place, so goofy so silly

One could ask why I didn't announce it here immediately and aside from the fact that I was going to shortly after and just kinda forgot, the game was still announced relatively early with only the main gameplay mostly done and wasn't worth gassing up everywhere yet in my eyes (and even that has gone through a couple reworks since). Me burning my ass out in December and rendering the rest of winter quite unproductive didn't help, but I managed to get the drive back while helping with other projects, be it coding TRTF 2 Anniversary Edition or composing for other games, since yes, Legalized will have a whole ass, full ass OST. Even the music you hear in the trailer is technically part of it since those tracks were specifically made for the trailer. The fact is, if the game was the same scale as Legendary Edition, I could've probably locked in hard and just dropped it in December, but with 4 LE I want to expand on what 3 LE did, instead of just doing the same thing again, from the small details to the various extra content. I mean at the end of the day it's still a recode but I want it to be a fairly meaty one. Hey is someone calling do you guys hear that..?

📞 "Oh by the way, despite still being abbreviated as TRTF 4 LE, Legalized does NOT have "Edition" in the name. So I just brought this up so you well, wouldn’t get confused. Well anyways, here’s the rest of the devlog, have fun."

Thanks John! Anyway, as you may notice, what the recode no longer expands on is the aspect ratio. The game will, in fact, remain 4:3 since, as I've come to learn through gameplay prototypes dating back to 2022, og TRTF 4 just does not work that well in widescreen and loses some of the vibe. And I ran into various issues while redesigning the gameplay such as:

But I'll save further yapping about the specifics for when I drop the game page, which I'm not doing right now as I want to wait until the game is in a comfy ~90% completion and there's something actually playable on the page.

Now, what about this game? While generally I think it holds up decently, there have been small things bothering me about it, and as they have accumulated I do think I'll update the game one last time to iron everything out. Do keep in mind it's not gonna be some kinda content drop or revamp, generally the game will stay the same but I do wanna polish it up so it holds up at least a bit more compared to the rest of the TRTF LE games. And it is lower on my priority list as it's less of a difficult thing and more of a time consuming one, and at the moment that time is better spent elsewhere, which brings me to:

Last month I made big boy progress on the full version of Hybrid Soldiers, a game I made for the gamejam back in December, and you can check out the demo right now if you haven't! (do keep in mind your progress will not carry over) It essentially has the main gameplay experience already, while the full version will introduce the final levels, a bonus gameplay segment with Vincent as the lead and generally more detail and flair to make the game more lively as I intended from the start but didn't have time to fully realize. Why am I plugging a completely unrelated game here you may ask? Well, it IS kinda related, since it initially started as a concept for one of the new TRTF 4 LE minigames, which I then stole, from myself, reworked and heavily expanded on for the gamejam since it happened to have basically the same theme as what I was already doing.

It may seem weird how much I'm dragging out dropping the page for Legalized but considering how I don't want to explicitly spoil much of the new stuff through screenshots and whatnot, at least not until the game has been out for a bit. had I dropped it sooner all you'd have basically is a page for a TRTF 4 with the only of note thing being the updated HUD and nothing to actually play and I don't really wanna do that (even the minigames in the trailer aren't actually in the game, I just thought it would be a cool way to present it and build up to the reveal of what the trailer was even for). Plus Legendary Edition's release was a literal april fools shadow drop, so yea I'm not exactly a hype man, I'm a funny man (or at least I try to be), and seeing people unironically wondering whether it was an actual game or if I was joshing was the funniest shit ever. But in the meantime you can have this to sink your teeth into:

The DragonLion bit will end when I finally get myself to draw a new pfp have a good day.