Grand ol’ 2022 Update!

Happy Holidays, everyone! As 2022 comes to a close, I wanted to take some time to update you all on Verdancy Vale’s progress, and to provide a look into 2023!

THANK YOU FOR 2022!

2022 has been huge for Verdancy Vale, and I want to thank you all for your support! This year, I began to go public with information about this game that is so close to my heart, and all of the feedback I’ve received has been so wonderful and appreciated! In all honesty, I didn’t know what to expect when posting to my Youtube and Twitter, nor when creating this site or the Kickstarter page, but I am so glad I did all of it!

I’ve loved being able to speak with people, whether they’re interested in my game, or in just making their own! So thank you all for reaching out and following along!

Brand New Art!

If you’re at all familiar with this game and/or with me, you’ll know that art is my kryptonite. I love developing, writing, and composing, but the art of the situation is generally a drag for me. Sure, I spent MONTHS teaching myself pixel art, but even then, I was never satisfied with what I’d put out, and I knew that I’d be relegated to living in the shadow of the likes of Concerned Ape if I stuck with that style (whom I adore, for the record).

Well, as it so happened, I was approached by a wonderful artist late in the summer, and we’ve been working together to reconstruct the art style of Verdancy Vale since then! And while we’re still in the concept art phase, I’m so happy to finally be able to share some of it with you all!

Hubert is a fantastic artist, and together, I know we’ll be able to make Verdancy Vale something really special! So, stay tuned for LOTS of art updates in 2023!

And if you’re interested, you can check out Hubert’s portfolio here: Hubert Ziarek!

Game Scope Changes

Now that we have the art updates out of the way, onto some game changes! With the art handled by Hubert (and hopefully a growing art department in the next year), I’m able to spend far more time deepening mechanics and story elements!

I’m VERY happy to announce that we’ll be using 3D characters in the 2D environments, so animations will flow together very smoothly, and I think monsters especially will have a look of unique quirks!

Dungeons are also seeing a conceptual overhaul, though this will be explored more in a more focused blog post early next year! In a nutshell, while dungeons will still have elements of procedural generation akin to roguelikes/roguelites as planned, there will be multitudes of various challenges and routes inspired by dungeon crawlers that will keep players delving into the Chaos Weald time and time again!

Progress Thus Far

You’re probably wondering how the game’s looking after a couple years of work! Well, JUST FOR YOU, here’s a list of completed features!

Player Movement/Controls
Spellcasting
Quests + Tasks
Branching Dialogue
Inventory, Items, Shops, Storage
Procedural NPC Schedules + Movement (NPCs decide what they want to do each day and travel between points of interest!)
Plants! (Planting, Growth, Modifiers, Harvesting)
Combat (As above w/ Spellcasting, but also enemy AI and drops configuration)

All of this, in addition to a loose Co-Op mode that will continue to be developed alongside the base game to ensure that it sees a timely release!

Plans for 2023

At long last, the plans moving forward! I’m VERY excited for this coming year, and I’m even more excited to share (more frequent) updates with you all! While this list is by no means final or binding, the estimations made will help guide not only the game’s progress, but all of your anticipations as well!

In general, our goal for the coming year is to be able to provide a demo (or Early Access version, though I’m slightly averse to that concept because of its abuse in the industry) by Q4 alongside a Kickstarter campaign! Said campaign, if successful, will allow Hubert and I to expand our Art team to speed through the development of the remainder of the game, which would then see a 1.0 release in 2024!

Q1 (Jan-March)
- Art
  - Art Style Finalization
  - Ardent Design
- Engine
  - Crafting Systems
    - Town Projects
    - Alchemy/Potionmaking
    - Spell Crafting
    - Item Crafting
Q2 (Apr-Jun)
- Art
  - First NPC Models Created!
  - Dungeon 1 Creation
    - Screens
    - Monsters
- Engine
  - Dungeon Generation
Q3 (Jul-Sep)
- Art
  - Player Character Model(s)
  - Spell Effects
  - First batch of plants
- Engine
  - Cinematics
  - Character Creation
Q4 (Oct-Dec)
- Art
  - Ardent
- Engine
  - Working Demo!
- Release
  - KICKSTARTER! (Hopefully)

The Backburner

Of course, there are plenty more additions I’d like to make to Verdancy Vale someday, and here are a few to get excited about!

In-Engine Modding Tools
Headless Server Game Version
Console Versions

How can I stay updated?

Lots of ways!

First off, be sure to get notified on Kickstarter Launch here: Verdancy Vale Kickstarter !

You can follow my Twitter to see any minor updates: My Twitter !

Or my Youtube channel if you’re at all interested in game development: My Youtube !

At some point in the hopefully not-too-distant future, a Steam page will be created as well!

And if all of that doesn’t sate your Verdancy Vale hunger, sign up for the newsletter to get all of the big updates next year RIGHT IN YOUR INBOX!

And finally, again, thank you all for joining me on this journey. I love you all, and I’m so very excited to share Verdancy Vale with you all!