Hello everyone! Happy May! This month's devlog is a little short, as some things did get in the way this month, but that does not mean progress has been stopped one bit! Let's talk about everything that has happened this past month behind the scenes, as well as what the future of the game holds.

*All Screenshots are early footage, nothing is final!

Nexitron's Development BTS

The development of the game has been up and down lately, thankfully, nothing bad, but I can tell that developing this solo is getting to my head a bit. I have a tendency to not take any breaks to keep work flow going and well, that is NOT a good mentality to have LOL. I have realized this recently though, and I am taking a lot more breaks. I did experience burn out earlier in the month, but thankfully, that little time period has passed, and I am back to working. All of this has not affected the expected release date thankfully! I have left the launch window so open that the development schedule is easily interchangeable without affecting our "before GTAT6" Goal I still have in place lol. This Chapter WILL come out before it, mark my words. If I have to delay features, I will I am not kidding I am already locking it in LOL. I'm sorry if this whole thing about burnout and breaks and stress comes off as negative, but I thought I would share my thoughts about what's going on behind the scenes and be transparent about it.

Tough development months happen, and I think the stress and anxiety of wanting to make a perfect chapter is really getting to me with everyones expectations going up more and more everyday, but nevertheless, I still push to give it my all! This just happened to be one of those months. Hoping this month will be a good one though! And judging by my schedule, it just might be! (more on that later!)

This Month's Additions

Not a lot has happened this month in relation to Outside of the game's development again, so there isn't that much to say, but I will try my best to discuss everything that HAS happened.

Practically, all character sprites and faces are done!

I managed to pretty much finish all of the character sprites and character dialogue faces!! It took a while. Like, a LONG while, but I managed to get them all done! I'm not sure of the exact amount, but I think there are around 12 new sprite sheets for NPC's specifically! (A lot I know!) There are a lot of new characters and NPC's in Chapter 2. It's the Chapter the Title is named after for pete sake! But I am glad I finally managed to finish all of them. Development might be slow, and it sure does feel slow, but work is getting done!

Almost all enemy art is complete!

(Almost) All of the enemy art is completed! There's only 3 missing to my knowledge, but they aren't a priority at the moment, so I decided to hold off on those 3 for the time being because they aren't seen in Story Mode. Other than that, all bosses and normal enemies are done! If there are any I missed, then that's okay. I've given myself a couple weeks at the end of development to add in anything I missed (Along with final playtesting!) But I gotta say, I am very proud with all of the enemies I did, so many cool ones too that are some deep cut references! Could you catch them all?

Slight revisions to Chapter 2's writing were made!

If you remember last month's devlog, I said the skeletal structure of Chapter 2 was done and featured a bare bones version of the story as placeholder. Well some of it was rewritten this month! Not all of it, and not a lot, but I did rewrite some bits and pieces here and there. We're not at a finished state just yet, but I'm hoping to have it all done by the end of the month! More on that in the next section!

What's next?

This month will hopefully be a better time for development, as nothing big is stopping development this month! So, I have a ton of plans!

The RPG is planned to be done!

This month, I'm planning on wrapping up all of the main things regarding with Chapter 2 in general. The main priorities such as Cutscenes, gameplay, writing, and side features, are planned to be complete. This basically means the goal of this month is to complete Nexitron Chapter 2 with everything done except for art! If some art is left over, than it can be completed at another point in the future! This means by next month, we can finally move our priorities to the levels! So fun!

Plotting for something big in relation to marketing!

Since around October of last year, I've had an idea for something I wanted to do in relation to marketing for Chapter 2! I probably won't have details on everything until next month, but if everything goes to plan and everything works out, Nexitron will be doing something a fan game has never done yet! First of it's kind! I'm very excited about it, especially considering that a trailer comes out of it! Hoping everything goes to plan, but last night I was searching for potential trailer music! Hoping to get everything prepared in advance soon!

OH YEAH! Before I forget, there were some things I'd like to address as well in relation to not only the game, but the game page itself!

Some Changes coming in the future/during development.

I wanted to discuss a few changes you might see when we get closer and closer to release, seemingly in the few weeks before release. I won't know everything for sure until we get closer to launch but I wanted to bring it up.

The game MIGHT get a change in it's rating.

The game might get a change in rating closer to release. I don't think we'll be going any higher than Teen, but some things might get added to the rating in the future! Nothing final yet, but as I get closer to finishing, I will know for sure.

Possible Cuts in features.

Not sure if I brought it up, but I possibly brought up that I had planned to reanimate the cutscenes from chapter one. Due to deadlines and such, I plan on not doing it anymore. Making the cutscenes takes a while. A LONG while. And if I reanimate the old ones, on top of working on completely new ones, I don't think I'll be able to finish by our expected release!! So I'm cutting that out, for now. It's possible I might return to the idea in a small content update. But for now, don't expect anything from it.

Android release????

Sorry, I know everyone keeps asking me, but no. After the previous fiasco with Nexitron's mobile release that I had to take down, I have decided that it's probably not a good idea to launch a mobile port while we're still putting out updates. In it's current state, the mobile port is too broken and is pretty much beyond saving without having to rewrite the game from the ground up. And at the moment, it's just not worth it to dedicate so much time to it. A LOT of work has to go into what is compatible with Mobile devices vs what isn't, so I would need to dedicate at least a few months to making sure it all works properly. Unfortunately I do not have that time.

It is possible that it could happen after the game is done, however, with Google's upcoming rule/policy changes on "side-loaded" apps, it's possible that it just might not be legally possible. It sucks cause I know the majority of our playerbase is on mobile, but for now, you guys are just going to have to stick to the Legacy port. Again, might change in the future, but I make no promises!

Well, that's pretty much it! I feel like I've written all I could and more.

Thank you all so much for your patience once again. Game Dev is hard, and if there's any takeaway from a project like this. Have a team. Please, for your sanity, have a team if you're gonna do something as crazy as this LOL. LEARN FROM MY MISTAKES!!! Anyways, Happy May everyone! Hope to bring some better news in June! :)

-DAPixelhero