Hey Kinoko fans!

This month has been another interesting month for the development of Star Heretic, full of interesting new challenges. I finally developed a preloader for the game this month, which loads assets like visual effects upfront before the main menu appears, and fixes the issue of ‘lag’ that I’d begun seeing due to loading assets during play. We implemented the mycopod enemy, with all its unique mechanics and kill conditions, and we developed several new abilities for starsprites, including a few for the pink and purple ones. Perhaps most boringly, but still very importantly, I also developed a new ‘tethering’ system for starsprites (which allows us to send a starsprite to follow someone or something other than Kinoko) and also managed to make it so that they work as NPCs as well as party members now, with the addition of a seamless binding and unbinding mechanic.

Just this week, I began turning some of that stuff into actual gameplay. Although we’re still designing our game’s introductory sequence, we do know have a decent idea of what we’re aiming for, and how exactly we want Kinoko to encounter his first starsprite. One of the things that vision required was for Kinoko to have to follow a starsprite as it guides him through an environment, which is obviously quite different to how starsprites ordinarily behave in Star Heretic.

I thought about developing that starsprite as its own thing, mechanically separate from the existing companion starsprites, but that would have meant duplicating things like the pathing logic and visual effects. I was also quite determined that the player should see the exact starsprite they’ve been following seamlessly join their party. I didn’t want the starsprite to ‘disappear’ and then ‘reappear’ next to Kinoko. I was adamant that it should fly over to him, and become part of the party just like that. That is where binding and unbinding comes in. Unbound starsprites have their own behaviours, controlled by scripting, but they can become part of the player’s party at the flick of a switch. There’s no reason now why I can’t develop different kinds of behaviours for unbound starsprites. Done right, this ought to really help us make them feel alive and autonomous!

And again, as ever, Chel and I have been continuing to come up with more ability concepts for the starsprites. As of Friday, we now have pretty firm concepts for three out of four abilities each for yellow, blue, red, pink, and orange starsprites, many of which have uses both in and out of combat. I’ve developed several of these already this month, with two pink abilities as well as one purple ability developed to completion earlier this month. The plan for June is to finish all of the nine (or twelve, possibly…) abilities planned for inclusion in our next demo release. I haven’t developed any for orange starsprites yet, but I’m particularly excited for those ones, with their focus on melee and close-quarters combat differentiating them from the red starsprites’ long-ranged combat.

In terms of the game’s story, which has always been kind of underdeveloped, we’ve been putting some more thought into the precise journey we want Kinoko to take in Star Heretic, as in which worlds he will visit and which characters and species he will encounter. We thought originally that Star Heretic would be split across five planets, with a central hub in Starlight City, but ever since we added the small bit of Izelmyst around the Temple of the Chime, we’ve been thinking about including smaller segments of some other planets too, if they serve the story, and possibly reconsidering which planets we want to include in larger, metroidvania-esque form, and which planets need only appear in smaller sections. Obviously more worlds means more assets, since there’s less opportunity for re-use, but Chel seems up for the challenge, so who am I to argue?

My goal for June personally, therefore, is to push on with developing more of the starsprites’ abilities, whilst also building out more of the game’s introductory sequence. Chel, on the other hand, has turned towards designing the final enemy for our next demo (and possible ‘pitch’, depending on how we end up choosing to try and fund the game’s next phase) whilst continuing to create assets for the game’s early Fungaian stages.

Before I wrap things up, on the subject of the game’s funding, please do consider supporting our work over on Patreon if you’re able to do so! However one goes about it, the making of a video game is either an incredibly costly or time-consuming endeavour – and it’s often both, unless you have the luxury of not requiring a day job to live (I sadly do not have this luxury!). Because of this, we are dependent on the generosity of our Patreon supporters. Alternatively, if you’d like to get something more immediate in return, please consider commissioning Chel for some artwork – all the money she receives from commissions, unless otherwise stated, goes directly towards Star Heretic’s coffers, making commissioning artwork another great way to support the work we do!

We’ve recently begun sharing ‘lore spotlights’ over on Patreon and in our #fan-club Discord channels, and we’ll be posting more of these throughout June. These posts cover many topics that our website’s ‘explore the galaxy’ section doesn’t, and (because of the time involved, frankly, in writing up new pages for the website) might not cover for some time yet. If you’re interested in the universe of Star Heretic, these lore spotlight updates are for you! Patreon support starts from as little as one United States dollar a month, and pledging today unlocks access to all our Patreon posts past and present. As always, every penny we make there goes directly towards funding Star Heretic’s development, so we’re very grateful to everyone who is supporting us there.

Anyway, I think that’s it for this one. Thanks for catching up with us, and until next time!