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July 28, 2026

July 28 Progress Update

Hello. I haven’t checked in in a while and I wanted to give a progress update. I was planning on posting a “system deep dive” where I pick a system/feature and I do a deep dive into how it works and how it will play in the game. Writing that up is actually taking me longer than anticipated so I’m here with a more general update as I work on that deep dive.

What’s been done recently

Honestly a lot of small/medium sized bugfixes, quality of life issues, balancing, and feature/UI work. As I play the game I write down anything that bugs me or feels “unfun” and this tends to get prioritized. Aside from the little things I’ve been working on some bigger things too:

I’ve completely reworked the menus and they no longer feel deeply unsatisfying to me. They’re not representative of what they’ll be as a released game but they’re much better for placeholder menus. Fixing the menus involved tweaking the resolution of the game which I feel like solved many of my problems. For better or for worse this will be a pretty menu heavy game so having a decent foundation for the menus will go a long way.

Content

The way I’ve gone about developing this game has been along the lines of build a system driven by metadata, add some basic content to test it, ship it, repeat. This means whenever I want to add new NPC behavior, new goods, new items, new settlement types, etc all I need to do is modify some JSON and the actual code changes are pretty minimal.

Well now I’m getting to the point where I have most of the systems I want for the October pre-alpha preview and I get to do the creative work of adding the game’s actual content which feels harder than I expected it to be. But it’s coming along nicely I think. What’s coming I gave myself a line in the sand for October 1st for making a playable pre-release alpha build so I’m focusing on doing the things that will result in a playable game on October 1st. Right now the game is playable but there isn’t a ton of content, the map sucks (it’s a placeholder still), balance is pretty bad, and the art is horrific.

General Priorities for the October 1 release

  • New game map
  • Save system
  • Character creation system, main menu, etc.
  • Adding even more content
  • More dynamic NPC AI / behavior
  • Balancing, bugfixes, etc.

The Art Shaped Elephant in the Room

I am not a good visual artist. When it comes to drawing, painting, etc I struggle to make something out of nothing. This is a problem for a solo game developer who needs to make hundreds of art assets for a game. Even for an experienced artist the assets alone will take a good amount of time.

My realistic options for October 1 are:

  • Hire an artist for the pre-alpha build
  • Keep the art as is
  • Use AI to generate “quality” placeholder art.

The problem with #1 is I have no idea if this game is going to become a game people want to play. Not only that, the game is still in so much flux right now that I feel any art I do now might be unused by the time the game reaches maturity meaning I wasted money on placeholder assets. So for now 1 is off the table until I can prove to myself that this game is worth hiring an artist for.

#2 is a pretty poor option because I feel like people will not take the game seriously with the current art. If you’ve seen screenshots in the previous posts you know that this is also a rough option. I feel like nobody will take the game seriously with the current state of the art.

Which leaves us with number 3 - AI art. Let me be clear: I refuse to let anybody pay for a game where the art assets are generated by AI. The October 1 build is what I’m using to generate interest in the game. I will not accept money for whatever is released on October 1st, it will probably be a free download from this website. Because of this, I’m going to use AI art for the rest of the placeholder assets. I think it will let me put out the most pleasant “game” I can put out on October 1. If in the coming months I can prove to myself that this game is worth investing real money into art for, I will hire an artist to replace all of my AI art with real, human created art.

Next Update: Soon

Sorry for no screenshots today. I’m on a branch where I’m completely redrawing the map and the game isn’t playable enough for me to take fresh screenshots. The next screenshots should be pretty cool compared to the previous weeks. Thank you for reading.