Greetings everyone, and thank you for following this game. it really is fuel to keep me going (developing), as trite as that may sound. Zanthos here, head developer for Zeta Wolf Chronicles, this passion project of mine that I started way back in 2018. I wanted to give this update in a more personalized form, as I view that a small delay could be possible in the future. 

It’s around that time of my life when I am seeking to purchase my first home. Everything about home buying is an incredibly daunting process, and much of my time lately has been devoted to this grueling endeavor. To be frank, a large chunk of time is required searching for homes in order to become a homebuyer. The sad and unfortunate part of this is that the favorite homes on your list could be gone at any moment. Even before getting into the homes to view them. Especially in this current housing market. After speaking with some realtors I discovered that many buyers are actually placing offers (and securing them) prior to even having the opportunity to tour the homes. Not advised on any account, yet, nonetheless, something that inevitably occurs. Oftentimes, to secure desired things in life, you have to be quick, and that’s just an accepted fact. This could include limited-time items on sale, special collectors preorders for games, early-bird periods, and many other examples. However, when it comes to buying a home for the first time, locking yourself into a 30 year loan, and having to live with your choice for many years, surely you can understand the hesitancy to pull the trigger. This coupled with the fact that the purchase must satisfy your spouse and family members both. Easily a recipe for stress and many nights with inadequate sleep.

Turns out, my spouse and I are throwing an offer at a home we really like. This just happened yesterday. We have no clue whether we will get the home or not, so we can really only pray at this point. I’m hoping the stars will align, but there is the possibility they will not. I’ve already moved on to contemplating plan b’s, c’s, and so on. The planning for contingencies and multiple options is always required in life, to save you from additional stress and heartache. Sure, you can go out on a limb, muster up the courage to ask out that girl you’ve been eying for a while.  Could she say yes? Certainly. Could she say no? Odds are likely not in your favor, despite having such a crush on her (the unfortunate truth). With dating, home buying, job-hunting, and many other aspects of life, it’s helpful to keep trying, to keep moving forward, in order to better align yourself for success. I really hope I get THIS house though. 

Dating (for guys) would actually be simpler if it was like searching for homes. In a lot of ways though, it is actually similar. You have homes that are taken or about to be taken (pending, contingent, or off the market), more people than you viewing the home, so on and so forth. Other people are also placing offers (asking out people) on people or properties they are interested in. Unfortunately, things are way more complex than that. That’s part of why this game exists in the first place. 

Back to the matter at hand, even if I don’t secure this particular home, my family and I hope to move into a home by this summer. With all of the time commitments that this involves, there is a possibility that the next update for this game will be delayed. It does pain me to keep everyone waiting longer than necessary, but hopefully, you’ll be ready for the eventual release. Where does that leave development as things stand currently? I’ll go into some in-depth details here.

The good news is that the voice recording for this next version is fully complete. You can expect around 2k words of additional voice work. There will be some integral changes to how voices are implemented, including partially voiced sentence introductions. This is a wordy way to basically say the speaking character will say a line or emote themselves, generally every other line. For now, this mainly applies to non-main characters, as I figured it would get grating for Rayen, considering his often verbose monologues. We have two talented actors joining our ranks, and the announcements will hopefully be posted up soon. I may decide to do this very soon, since much of this development is already complete, just not ready enough to release the build yet. With my own personal turmoils and commitments, I am sort of between a rock and a hard place here, so it’s hard for me to give definite dates. Eventually, I plan tome to publish snippets of the voicework up on Twitter as well, so please look forward to their performances. 

New Mechanics/Updates in Version 2.0

Scene Selection - This may be a feature exclusive to beta versions of the game. Basically, I cannot be certain that save compatibility will work between versions/updates so this will be helpful to jump to the section you left off. A large part of the GUI will include temporary placeholder artwork, but the functionality will be there.

Backlog - I’m pleased to report that the backlog is finally working. There may be some bugs present with it, but it’s functional for now. On a scene change (usually going from one background/area to the next) a backlog wipe occurs, which is intentional, but this fact may not always be readily apparent to the player. 

Expansion of Insight Points - You may be familiar with the point and click triggers that were present in the game previously. Additional events will be added, with reflection points joining in. Reflection points are basically a trigger you can select in which Rayen himself gives additional commentary on a particular encounter. Several new scenes in this upcoming version include moments where both occur simultaneously, and you have the option to select one of the other (or none at all). 

Animation Adjustments - The eye animations for each character were not ideal. Adjusting from 3 frames to 5 should make things smoother all around. There’s also been a small adjustment to breathing/idle stances. Unfortunately, having actual mouth flap animations is probably out of the question, as much as it’d be something I would like. It’s always been something that’s been difficult for me to implement and the results just never looked right to me. I believe I’d prefer full Live 2D if I ever wanted to do mouth/speech animation, but that’s a whole other bag of marbles. 

Tutorial Pop-ups - An expansion to the actual tutorial at game start (which will probably receive an overhaul eventually). Basically, a small pop-up that gives greater context to mechanics when they occur in the story. For example, the timed event with Siona was meant to add a sense of reality with the countdown, but I don’t believe it was fair to spring that on players without an introduction. Since subsequent events with timers are planned I believe it makes sense to add this prompt the first time. 

This comes with a horde of bug fixes, story expansion, and other small updates. The entire script from 1.0 will receive a proofreading re-check as well. 

About Save/Load Files - I’ve been tearing my head out over this one. While I’ve been working toward full implementation of save/load complete with the date/time and so on, I’ve had my share of difficulties making this work properly. Due to other limitations, the number of save slots will likely be restricted for now. 

New Character - Maikah

New Character - ???

As a bonus for completing this next version, you’ll get to meet the newest girl early. After a short period, she’ll be revealed on Twitter for everyone. Someone recently also mentioned difficulties with opening the game. I’ll be sure to also include a zip file for Windows users in the next build to hopefully squash these problems. 

There we have it, everyone. This has been my in-depth overview of development progress at the moment. I realize that things are quiet on social media at times, but worry not, it usually means I’m hard at work programming, writing the script, or busy with life events. With that said, be on the lookout for VA reveals and additional gameplay on Twitter! Until next time (let’s hope I have an official date for 2.0 release by then)!