December 2022! (With a bit of luck, maybe even earlier!)
My dear friends, we are almost there! I have some important news, so please be sure to read the following as it will explains the current situation and future.
New Engine!
Some of you already know that the Last Rose was made in the Unity Engine. I have been using Unity for a long time now, and while it is a decent engine, there are a lot of workflow problems when it comes to 2D games. In summer 2021 I have decided to port the updated game to a new engine, that is more suited for developing 2D games like Last Rose.
Last month I have finished the last lines of code and remade the whole game in the Godot Engine. It is an amazing engine that is great for 2D games, and has workflow improvements that helped me speed up game development by a lot.
Since the game is remade in a new engine, I have decided to release the update as a separate game that will be FREE. This way, anyone that has purchased the base game will still have that original experience and can freely download the new version.
The current game will soon be retired as well, so think of it as a exclusive "Founder's Edition".
New brand and philosophy going forward!
The new version will be published under a different name, the new promotional material (trailer, screenshots, descriptions etc.) are almost done as well. In the coming days I will post a link to the new store page and all the promo material.
A new brand, a new beginning, a fresh start!
I have been working on the game for almost 5 years now, starting from scratch, knowing nothing and making a lot of mistakes. One of them was putting a price tag on the game. I want to be perfectly clear, I'm not interested in fancy yachts or fast cars, my only intention when it comes to selling the game was to make enough money to hire people to help me with development, to speed up the process. Soon I realized that it was just a pipe dream. However, it actually ended up a good scenario.
I asked myself, "Do you want to make this a job?", and the more I thought about it, the answer was a big NO! I started making Last Rose because I love video games and I love making them, and I think turning that into a job would ruin it.
That's why I have decided to make all my future games 100% FREE! I don't want to put a paywall and exclude content from people that would want to play it but can't afford it.
My dear followers!
What is there to say other than 'Thank you'! There are people here from day 1 that are still patiently waiting and I thank you for your patience and understanding. All of your criticism both positive and negative was really helpful form me to grow and become a better game developer.
I always want to be very transparent with what I do and plans for the future, so please if you have any questions or concerns about all of this, do not hesitate to leave a comment or question. As always I will gladly respond to all your questions!
Conclusion!
Stay tuned! I will post the new store page in a couple of days once it's ready! We are almost there!
The Final Lap
Hello!
This August marks the 3rd anniversary since Last Rose has been released. The past three years have been a race to finish the update as soon as possible. I'm happy to say that I'm finally closing in on the last lap.
I can confidently say that I'm no longer counting in years, but rather months to release.
Not only development of the game itself, but interesting plans are brewing behind the curtains regarding marketing/branding that I'm really excited to share with you as soon as possible.
This is the last update that will feature static content like pictures. Later this year I will show the game in it's full glory through videos and soon after finally a solid release date.
Until then, here are a two highlights of recent developments:
Content
Almost 90% of content has been completed with the most recent being a lot of new story cinematics. The amount is now almost doubled to 16 cinematics in total. All of the older ones have been refurbished with more scenes, better animations and music. Here are some screenshots from the newly added cinematics:
Music
There is currently more than 40 songs, the old ones have been redone and a lot more have been added. There are now multiple world and battle themes for each location of the game, and instead of loops the songs are now fully fledged musical compositions.
In the previous update I listed a couple of genres that inspire me to create music for Last Rose. I forgot to mention a couple of more: Metal/Rock and bright electronic tunes as well.
Here are a few segments from those new songs. Most of them are still work in progress for instrument balancing and volume leveling, but I think you can get the general idea to what I'm aiming for:
In short, the heavy duty development is more or less completed, now we enter the final phase which has a lot of cleaning, polishing, debugging and testing to be done.
I will post new gameplay videos in the last quarter of the year and a release date soon after.
To everyone that has been following this journey so far, I truly appreciate your patience.
Best regards, Phil
Spooky News
Hello!
It's been a while since the last progress update, time sure flies, but rest assured that I'm working as fast as possible to bring you a very special experience. Today I'm excited to share a glimpse of the remaining work until the finish line.
As some of you already know, the Last Rose you played has a bunch of dark elements, both gameplay and storywise. So I turned that spooky dial to 11.
Without further ado, let's proceed with the highlights.
Here's the overhauled combat screen that hints at a bunch of new and unique mechanics.
Darker atmosphere will be integrated in every fiber of the game. The world, characters, combat, music, you name it. For example in this scene, the new dynamic lighting and fireflies particles set the mood of a mysterious forest.
Here are redesigned menus. With all the new mechanics and gameplay possibilities, I have devised an interactive tutorial/hint system that will accompany you during your journey.
One of the most exciting things is the branching story and sidequests that will bring a lot of replay value. Every action, conversation and decision will have lasting impact and drive the story in different endings. Also, if you're not fond of Ada, there are multiple romance paths now ;)
A lot of new enemies and a lot of them are pretty scary.
And big.
I had a lot of time to sharpen my audio skills. There will be a lot of new upbeat music and then some outright terrifying ambient pieces. Here are some of my favorite genres that I draw inspiration from for the new songs:
That's it for now. If you're a bit concerted about this change of tone, don't worry, the humor and overall whimsical nature of some characters will be a fine contrast to dark horrors you will face.
