"Well done, our dear Almari."

Life threw me a pretty rough curveball the past two years and in that chaos the parts of development I'd have preferred to work on took a bit of a hit.  But on the bright side: the story and gameplay are in their last stages of revision and are rapidly cementing into their final forms. 

I still have a tall grind on assets, dungeon design, and cutscene planning but we're moving very strongly in the direction I want things to go. Back in February I completed a new private demo build that I sent out to my testers (shoutout to Reteryisk and Kago! Please check out their stuff!) and from that I received really positive feedback  so I can confidently say the gameplay quality of life improvements are set in stone for the final game. I'm debating on doing a public release of that demo but I may hold off just to see if I can get a bit more stuff together for a lengthier build. I'll know a bit more clearly by the end of the summer if I'd like to release something new or hold off until the game is done, but overall I'd like to have a demo available that's more reflective of the final game.

As a fun aside: Reteryisk discovered the game can be run on steamdeck (featuring her cat Wizard).

Lastly, I've been making the slow transition from Twitter to Bluesky as a social media platform for Almari. If you're more inclined to follow your favorite projects on bsky please give us a follow! Or if Discord is your preferred method, Almari is partnered with the Unique Indie RPGs discord server where you can check out our channel and also check out all the other cool games cooking in there! 

Thanks for reading!

Fanart by Kago

-DemonClaus

The first draft of the final version of the story is complete! What remains from here is finalizing cutscenes, pacing, dungeon design, and creating the rest of the assets for the game! It's pretty exciting for me to finally say a crucial aspect of the game is complete. There's still a long ways to go but everything else can fall into place much more smoothly from here. 

With that bit completed, I've been able to experiment with new visuals as well as begin writing new projects!

You can see this background in motion on twitter!

As for what else I'm working on, you can check out my blog post on cohost: "What is MNY?"

(Artwork by Reteryisk)

-DemonClaus

Things are still going strong in the writing department and it is still my primary focus, plus life has finally given me a bit of a break so things are going stronger than ever. The story is approaching its final draft and the concept work for mid and late game is really coming together! 

As the story falls into place, Post Elvis has been filling in the gaps on the soundtrack as we both add new songs and begin to replace some old songs as well.

In the gameplay department, the touch encounters and battle transition are approaching their final version:

And as the writing continues I've been wrapping up and revising the planning documents for a number of dungeons as well! We were cooking last time but now we're boiling!

Outside of Almari, the team's been releasing tons of cool stuff on their own!

Post Elvis recently released his huge new album I Can't Wait To Get There. Dude's been working on this for a hot minute so please check it out! The result is really cool! 

@punkitt-is-here released the demo for her Wario Land inspired game Susan Taxpayer and also became famous for drawing My Little Pony comics?!

Decon Theed released 103 Works #09 featuring a handful of some pretty rad tracks!

Reteryisk (who voices Bethera) released two whole visual novels which is insane. Check out Pumpkin Seeds: The 51st Floor & Date Night At Mary-Jane's Therapy Club!

And lastly, I've been posting art on my Ko-fi, both Almari and not if you want to check that out and/or wanted a way to support my work!

That's probably about it for schilling for this year lol.

All in all, the game's coming along and becoming cooler day by day. 

Thanks for reading, and I hope you all have a