The 1 year anniversary for Ephilar is tomorrow! How exciting! A big thank you to everyone who’s followed along with development and/or have helped by giving feedback or making character concepts!

Now, I feel i should give some updates on the Unity Alpha’s development:

It’s on hold. I decided to take some time off from programming for the holidays. But regardless, that never stops me from coming up with ideas!

Characters and dungeons to go with each build release.

This is rather important, as it lets me get to work on each build release much faster after I finish the game’s framework.

Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Release 1:

Heavy focus on simplicity to make sure the basics work.

Assassin: Neraz (Buff reliant skills)
Bruiser: Lily (Weird mechanics)
Caster: Spitfire (Area of effect and movement)
Hunter: Alacard (Terrain interaction and Gunmaster)
Support: Xelth (Transformation and Shields)
Tank: Gailan (Taunt and targeting displays)

Dungeons: Slime Lake (Previously Jelly Overgrowth), Ley Woods.

Release 2:

Heavy focus on complexity to make sure some of the major systems in the RM version carry over to Unity.

Assassin: Sel (Toxins and odd % chance modifiers)
Bruiser: Jade (Form reliant passive, animation swapping)
Caster: Hyria (O V E R C A S T)
Hunter: Rads (We need Hunters so we’re bringing in the contest entries)
Support: Luna (Disabling and empowering specific skills)
Tank: Machwar (More Shields and more targeting)

Dungeons: Vynfall, Fallen City (Previously Vynfall, The Old Kingdom, Guard Captain Quarn only), Nelvia (Forgotten Library and Lich-Lord’s Grave).

Release 3:

Focusing on grabbing what remains while also bringing in the cool characters.

Assassin: Camellia
Bruiser: Mitch
Caster: Phoenix, Zivian
Hunter: None
Support: Vex, Daxt
Tank: None

Dungeons: Vaults of Eldan (Previously Elderon, Twisting Halls only), Edge of Reality, Vynfall (Zolrun the Infected and Void Ripper).

Release 4:

Assassin: Lafayette
Bruiser: None
Caster: Uiharu, Vira
Hunter: None
Support: Rayzon, Daniel, Eliana
Tank: None

Dungeons: Vaults of Eldan (Sanguine Seal and Tormented Descent), Nelvia (Shrine of the Nekim).

Release 5:

Assassin: Presumably none
Bruiser: None
Caster: Cyrin
Hunter: Garland
Support: None
Tank: Korv

Dungeons: Articia.

Notes

You may have spotted a few new faces in there.
It’s true! Rads, Lafayette, Vira, Garland, and Korv are all brand new characters!

Rads, Vira, and Garland are the character contest winners.

Lafayette is a creation of Maik’s.

Korv is being repurposed! Previously a boss in Articia, he’s now a playable character due to changes in Cyrin’s lore.
He will also be the second non-humanoid character to be playable, as he is a frost construct.

Now, i would like to mention that starting after Release 5, we’ll begin doing the redesigns of Mag’mar Caverns and Swamplight.

Here are the ideas for their redesigns

Mag’mar Caverns is being split into 2 dungeons…kinda
It’s only being split in 2 for a feature we plan to add at some point during the releases. The 2 split will be called Deatholme and Magmardon Mountain. The 2 as they will be on the dungeon map are listed as Ruins of Skyfold.

This dungeon will contain 2 bosses, one for each half:
General Forgebane and Lord Magmardon.

The first half is mostly focused on culling the insane survivors of the eruption, whilst the second half is about defeating the elementals.

As for Swamplight, it’s quite clear that the original idea of being slightly random didn’t work out. We’ve culled the witches and giant insects, and have left the living plant life.

But aside from that, the biggest change will be bringing it into RM.

When you can expect development to resume

I would say sometime after the new year.
As for when Release 1 will exist, i can’t make any solid statements, but i assure you i’ll finish it before the end of February.
Releases afterwards will be sped up, as i don’t need to create the framework again. The most time consuming part will be modelling and animating.

And one last thing:
After Release 6, we’ll be officially moving into beta, so we’ll focus more on adding polish and finalizing lore stuff.
There will still be more dungeons and characters!
I have 2 post-beta updates planned already, which will be really fun to put into action.

But until then, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!