Developer diaries #1 - December 2021

Entry 1

When I had started the development of Sacred Phoenix, the idea of a Developer Diary on YouTube had immediately come to me (we will remember the announcement made in the middle of the Pokémon Uranium’s let’s play to make the project official on August 7, 2018). But with 7 episodes more and more spaced out temporarily, there has been no sign of development since the last episode dated March 29, 2020.
In order to get back into good habits, I decided to resume the development log, but in written format. It’s less time consuming than having to edit a video, and I hope to be more punctual.


A long way to go for a new demo

Since the last major public release dated December 23, 2019 and its 15 minutes of gameplay, I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs that have slowed down the project considerably. There was a turnover in the team (we went from 9 to 4 members) and the decision was made that Sacred Phoenix would be developed independently from any community.
So, I had to take over the coding aspect and rely on Eysselia and Pipevanes to continue creating artworks and music respectively, while Thunungu acted as a "guardian angel" and gave occasional pixel art help.

All this made it take almost 20 more months to release a new real demo on September 12, 2021: the one that contains the whole prologue and brought the game time to 30 minutes.

21 months for only 15 extra minutes of gameplay? Reading this, you will think that the mountain gave birth to a mouse? And yet, no!
Behind this meager playable content lies a titanic work in game design and coding. When the Christmas 2019 demo only included the "Death Overhaul" mod and 2-3 custom menus, today’s release has seen more than half of my Ideals realized. I’m surprised myself: Loyalty Overhaul, Effectiveness Overhaul, Catch Overhaul... so many Ideals made Truths. And all this thanks to thousands of hours of coding (yes, thousands!) that I spent as a self-taught. The proof that flying with your own wings can be salutary.
That’s why the current development cycle is called “Roots of Yggdrasil”. For the past year, we have made a clean sweep of the past and focused on solid foundations in order to offer original and unique gameplay from the very beginning of the game. And after many efforts to gather all the original resources required for the prologue (tiles and NPCs were long to obtain), the Prologue is finally playable with full translation in English and Spanish.


Still some unforeseen events and delays this fall, but not for the wrong reasons

However, these achievements can quickly be lost in case of game engine migration (which has a 50/50 chance of happening). That’s why we’ve been spending our time since the fall carefully documenting our metagame and gameplay changes in “Game design documents”. They are written in French but also translated into English in case of future recruitments on the other side of the Atlantic. Needless to say, this helps me with the coding, as it allows me to establish a clear vision of my changes while helping me visualize the optimal path to code it all.

The tide is turning, as three people were able to be recruited during this fall: Cataclyptic, Dracoyan and Splittingjaws. All three of them are only helping on an ad hoc basis for the moment (we hope that the flight of the project within the English community will give them the inspiration), but it is a sign that the project is growing again after 2 years of stagnation.


This month’s goals

Our goal is to publish a “consolidated” demo of the prologue for December 23rd (the date of the 3 and a half years of the project) in English hubs. After more than twenty months of development far from any community, it’s time to make a comeback, but on a new land much larger and more promising than the old one. It will only motivate the troops to finally see the fruits of their labor.
Nevertheless, I really hope to meet the deadlines, because I’ve been running late after late since 2020. (The September 12 demo was originally scheduled... for March 15! And this month’s demo... for early September!)
The future of the project will depend on the reception that the English community will have and the potential new blood that it will bring in terms of recruitment. With a team at the height of my ambitions, I could delegate tasks (coding takes all my time) and devote myself more to writing the script.
... and why not develop on an independent engine in order to offer a really unique and high quality fangame!