I’m working my way across the various puzzles. It occurs to me that every room in the game has some kind of secret at this point, and that’s on top of combat.
Meanwhile you can see what it looks like when it’s not just programmer art. Thanks to Sigrid for doing the vault work.
Water’s Not Fine
The latest Tales of Strings is out! You can get it on Wechange or Itch.io! This one’s a lot shorter than the usual ToS fare, but it has four high-quality images by artist Xandrasubmarine and only costs 3$. 100% of the proceeds go to Xandra, I get nothing from this. Nothing.
Hopefully another release coming next week, so get psyched.
You should appreciate Dmitri. He is an international cat.
Ophiucus
Gaze upon the programmer art.
The maze tilesets are both integrated, I got the library tileset and put it in. I am now working my way through the rest of the game, adding puzzles and stuff to check out. Behold, the programmer art I made for the safe. It’s fully usable. I expect Sigrid will get me the real art this week.
The game is coming along quite well. They say a game only comes together right at the end and that the audience only sees the last 20% of the development. I think we’re reaching that last 20% now! For the prototype anyway.
Fan Art
So we got a lot of fan art this week and as such I have decided to save some of it for next week so it will be more special.
Our Patreon and Subscribestar are great places to support development! You can also get cool bonus stuff like concept art and early releases of Pandemonium!
And there’s always Our Discord. You can shout at Salty *in person*.
We also have a Wiki! We’d appreciate it greatly if people keep it maintained for us. :3
Bottled Starlight Games:
Runes of Pandemonium, the big adventure TF RPG, always free on Steam and Itch.io. Witch Hunter Izana, a battle-TF RPG. Available on Steam or Itch.io. Witches of Ravenbrook, a battle-TF dungeon-crawler. The prototype is out now and free on Itch.io. WoR Kickstarter page (260% funded! Thanks a lot!) String Tyrant, a survival horror game, is on Steam and Itch.io. Upcoming Prototype for Project Ophiucus! Link will be added when it’s out.
Other Bottled Starlight Stuff
Salty writes a book series, with audiobooks and illustrations, called Tales of Strings.
The maze interface is done and integrated. It handles combat and cutscenes, and is fairly modular. I also just got the finished hedge maze tileset, and have started working on the final versions.
Hund just finished the library background and I’m looking forward to the library exploration maps. The game is really coming together!
Dorothy
Xandra redid the concept and it looks really cool so I decided it’s going to get posted here and all of you have to see it.
Currently I have two story releases planned for August. Get psyched!
So I know I said I was done with the UI but not quite. See, we hit a bit of a snag. The prototype features two areas, the Hedge Maze and the Library, that are big and quite samey. There’s only so much you can do with a hedge maze and big shelves of books before all the rooms look the same and your BG artist snaps.
The solution was the maze-navigator minigame, which I am currently working on. The above screenshot is a debug maze, it’s not the final layout. It supports revealing areas as you move and is dynamically built from a tileset, though the maze layouts are handmade. The basic idea is that rather than looking at the same wall of green fifteen times as you navigate the maze, you instead use this overhead view. You will be able to find points of interest and secrets, fight enemies, and find items as you go.
As this is a prototype, when it goes live we’ll be looking for feedback. I hope this works as a way to handle this kind of samey-maze design, which is necessary in a game like this (eventually you have to have areas that aren’t that visually distinct! Making every hedge maze room unique costs money!). Hell maybe this will be the favourite part and we’ll redesign the rest of the game to have more.
Upcoming Book Releases!
The next ToS release is this very quick summer release, primarily driven by Xandra. It has pooltoy TF and is quite short (~4000 words) but has three full-size images and a cover. All proceeds will go to Xandra for this one. It’s just awaiting editing.
Koops has been working on combat animations to spice up battles a bit. Mei is done right now, Florentina and Elowen are in-progress. It looks pretty darn good and is relatively simple to do. We actually wanted to do this for RoP but the art requirements were way too high given the sheer number of forms and classes the party had. Ophiucus is a lot more restricted so animations are viable.
Meanwhile, Stinkehund has been working on the game’s backgrounds. It’s about 50% done sketching right now, with the first two (out of four) areas sketched out. We’re making good time.
I’m done the equipment scripting work now and have started on the scenario in earnest. My next goal is the hedge maze minigame, which I’ll hopefully be able to show off next week. For now, back to work.
Not one, but two different department store owners have sold everything and left town rather abruptly. Dusty gets a job helping an assessor sort through things, but the sudden departures get the attention of the Knights. Suspecting the True Path, they start snooping. They find something far, far more grand than the True Path could even imagine.
Phew! That’s four books released in July. Pretty breakneck, I gotta say. There’s a ton more to come, including a very short pool story as summer begins to wind down. This one is spooky, has mannequin TF, has some bonus art by Xandra, and some really killer worldbuilding. Check it out!
As usual, patrons of the 5$ tier can DM us for a free copy. Or you can send us poetry or just pictures of your nearby animals.
I am currently working my way through the scenario, which is objects you can find, puzzles, items, etc.
The journal tracks your status now (the stuff on the left is journal entries which aren’t done yet). As mentioned in other posts, equipment is handled automatically. You keep all the best stats from whatever equipment you’ve found. In addition, catalysts in Ophiucus are per-character. Mei uses the Sword and Gauntlet catalysts (atk and def) while Elowen uses the Flame/Freeze/Shock catalysts. This allows me greater precision in controlling how encounters play out.
I have a few puzzles I want to put in the game that are more than just finding items and using them, which is going to require some on-screen UI work. The game is starting to come together and is almost in a playable state!
Major Story Updates!
Yep, we have two new releases this week, and next week will be another release!
The First Joust is a free demo story. You can get it on Itch.io or Wechange.me, totally free! It’s an introduction to the series, containing an action packed bank robbery. If you’re not sure if the Knights of Justice are for you, then check it and find out!
Meanwhile, Tense Wire was written several years ago (as a commission, in fact) and was originally three stories. They are a prequel and sequel to String Tyrant, starring a new doll named Patrice who takes it upon herself to solve the mysteries of the manor. Check it out on Itch.io or Wechange.me. As usual patrons can send me a DM for a free copy.
Tense Wire reveals a lot of the lore surrounding String Tyrant, so if you wanted to know more about the game, it’s a great companion piece. It’s also spooky and has doll TF so what’s not to love? It even has a ton of free bonus art which you can download on the Itch page!
Next week, Their Base Material. A spooky story that negotiates the fine line between spooky living mannequins and real estate price spikes.
Ophiucus combat is now “done”, in that all of the major features are in place. I need to do polish work but I am now officially moving on to the scenario. Since a lot of the art isn’t complete, I’m going to get as much done as I can and then move on to WoR’s engine work.
I will still periodically post Ophiucus stuff as it develops. There’s still a ton of writing and things to do. Durrdiss is also working on the game’s music but it wasn’t ready today so patrons will get to hear it next week.
After only a few months of struggle, already the True Path has proven itself to be a ruthless adversary. The inexperienced Knights find themselves against an elite tiger hybrid assassin who takes pleasure in humiliating Kent in particular. He needs to get better with his sword, and Kendo classes aren’t going to cut it. Someone offers to teach him, but power always comes with a price.
This one’s action heavy with some powerful moments and is the earliest story in the timeline released thus far. It was a joy to write and there’s more coming this month! As usual if you’re a patron you can send me a DM for a copy.
Combat is now “Pretty Much Done”. I have a bunch of polish I want to put in place, realigning things and adding more descriptions, but you can now play combat start to finish. Effects, TF sequences, and game-overs are now in.
I am going to spend the next week working on polish, and then it’s time for the primary scenario.
I am also pulling in the other Bottled Starlight artists so we can get this done. Koops is going to be helping out with battle animations while Hund is still working on the backgrounds. I want to get the scenario and combat work ready so I can switch to WoR while the artists finish the rest.
Upcoming Stories
Twin Jade Eyes is 90% done editing and will likely be released tomorrow, maybe even tonight. There is also a free “demo” story that’s done editing and just needs cover art, which will be released whenever that’s ready.
I’m aiming for two releases in July. Look forward to that!
Our Patreon and Subscribestar are great places to support development! You can also get cool bonus stuff like concept art and early releases of Pandemonium!
And there’s always Our Discord. You can shout at Salty *in person*.
We also have a Wiki! We’d appreciate it greatly if people keep it maintained for us. :3
Bottled Starlight Games:
Runes of Pandemonium, the big adventure TF RPG, always free on Steam and Itch.io. Witch Hunter Izana, a battle-TF RPG. Available on Steam or Itch.io. Witches of Ravenbrook, a battle-TF dungeon-crawler. The prototype is out now and free on Itch.io. WoR Kickstarter page (260% funded! Thanks a lot!) String Tyrant, a survival horror game, is on Steam and Itch.io. Upcoming Prototype for Project Ophiucus! Link will be added when it’s out.
Combat is now “mostly” done. Still lots of improvements to be made, more abilities and enemies to program, and so on, but you can now get into battle, win, and get experience.
I think this stat-up indicator is pretty nifty, telling you what bonuses you get whenever your characters level-up. This is better than what you got in RoP!
I will be spending the next week making combat more functional, like adding retreating, making bad-end handlers, and so on. Ophiucus is coming along really well.
I just want to point out the GLARING CANONICAL ERRORS. Namely that Camelot doesn’t do pizza delivery (except literally one time) (it’s not in a released story).
I am currently working on the victory sequence, which you can see above. Combat is coming along nicely, with the basics all in place. I still need to do work on the layouts and alignments of everything, of course.
After combat is done, I believe that’s it for the sub-functions and it will be time to start assembling the scenario. There’s still a lot to do, this project has ended up becoming a lot bigger than I had expected (AS USUAL) but on the bright side, I can start work on WoR once my part of the coding is done, as a lot of art assets are still in production.
I might have to pull in Koops to help finish the prototype’s art. We’ll see!
Upcoming Knights Covers
These are the upcoming covers for the next four ToS stories coming up. I’m pretty hyped for all of them, I gotta say.
Pandemonium Development 