Hello!
Estheria doesn’t currently have a proper orcish race. Apologies!
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Hello!
Thanks for the response! I’ll definitely look at adding a facial hair option, possibly beginning in patch 0.2. Apologies for the oversight on that!
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Hello, everyone!
Update 0.2 is now live on the Demo build. The following patch-notes are below:
- Name selection update: Selecting a custom first name will now allow you to pick from a pre-built or custom last name.
- Name selection update: Names are now divided into masculine and effeminate categories.
- Detail update: An additional visual description section has been added to the Shadow Elves.
- Customization: Facial hair styles added.
- Customization: Textures and Hair-Styles have officially separated. You may now pick your texture independently of your hair style. (Beware, certain styles may only be available to a particular hair texture!)
- Customization: Removal of certain hair-styles to condense list.
- Customization: Removal of certain skin-tones to condense list.
Thanks for all your feedback! Update 0.3 - The Stats Update (Pt 1.) will be released next week.
~Zach
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that was such a good fucking character creator. felt like i was reading a story but i know im only just putting in my stats and what not my god. good shit you got here.
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Hey, everyone!
So I’m wayyyyyy ahead of schedule but…
Update ZERO.3 (0.3) - The Compendium (Stats) Update is now LIVE!
- The Compendium update is here! The Compendium is my take on the Stats page, and is now active in first iteration. At this time, only the Hero Information section is active, and will update as you make your choices throughout the Character Creator Demo.
- Multiple internal variables were updated for consistency purposes and to prevent bugs.
While only the first section is live; it is living and breathing. Everything updates per normal, it gives a glimpse on your character appearance (I’m mixed on how I implemented display of scars/tattoos but will gladly take feedback), and its other sections give a sneak-peek for what’s in store in the long run.
I’ve been keeping the engines firing on all cylinders since the demo release, and will gladly continue to do so. I’m grateful and appreciative of every single one of you, and the feedback provided thus far.
I will provide the next official update on the project on Thursday afternoon with my weekly progress report.
Until then!
~Zach
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Good afternoon, everyone!
Stopping in with a quick teaser for Update 0.4 ahead of Thursday’s weekly progress report on development.
Have a fantastic rest of the day!
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Hello.
Read this demo like 10hrs ago. It’s nice. Really love the way the Character Creation was. It is very unique. Really looking forward to the next release.
Thanks and Good luck.
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Uniting the Realm - Weekly Progress Report (03/16/2023)
Hello, Heroes!
Welcome to my Uniting the Realm series of weekly progress reports, posted on Thursday afternoons (EST).
In these reports, I will provide sneak peeks on upcoming content, layout plans, and a recap of the prior week’s work. Expect the latest and greatest in major content layouts for the future in my monthly series known as State of the Realm, posted each month on the 1st.
Alright, let’s dive in!
Upcoming Content
I am estimating the release of Update 0.4 - the Compendium V2 to launch by next Monday. Several pieces of lore are falling into place, and will serve as the highlight of the update. Expected features include:
- Addition of the Kingdom Lore section. Read up on small lore snippets for each of the Three Wards of Harmony, and the Eleven Kingdoms of Harmony. (These are implemented in a largely unedited, rough draft manner with minor tweaks and quality passes.)
- Addition of information regarding Amyldia, Keeper of the Rift. This will change the placeholder text in the ‘Known Characters’ section by providing Amyldia as a choice.
- Implementation of the Stat Descriptions section. This will break down the meaning and impact of each stat in-game, and their broader effect on gameplay.
- Modifications to human skin selection to prevent lore-breaking choices such as green skin-color (thank you @Leinco for pointing this one out! Totally missed it!)
- Slight textual updates.
- Variable preparations for Update 1 (under the hood).
- Preparations for implementation of the first iteration of Combat and the Class System (Update 1).
- Multiple textual ‘image’ imports for the purpose of quality and display (as shown above in the Maldium teaser).
- Additional fixes.
I would like to bring to your attention the immense amount of detail and additions added in Update 0.4. The update will likely nearly double the word count of the Character Creator Demo with just the additions of Stat Descriptions and Kingdom Lore alone. Further, I understand that the wait for Update 1 will be a little while. As such, I wanted to provide a sneak peek into my universe and felt that introducing the Eleven Kingdoms of Harmony was the best way to do so.
While I cannot guarantee anything. Update 0.4 is planned to be the last update prior to Update 1 - The Shadow Elves. I have begun the planning and implementation stages for the Shadow Elves, and anticipate the Update to be of significant size.
Weekly Recap
Over the last week, I’ve made extensive progress on development. This includes the following:
- Creation of the Kingdom Lore section, and implementation of the lore for the first four kingdoms (comprising the First Ward).
- Multiple major variable updates and changes.
- Extensive planning and development surrounding Update 1: The Shadow Elves.
- Creation of the first major character present in Update 1.
- Scoping and planning of the Class System.
- Variable development surrounding the Combat System.
- Switching to the ArcWeave platform for branch-planning.
- New variable tracking system implemented for cohesive development.
- Upgrading to the Campfire platform for character creation and fleshing out.
- Design style updates.
- Internal timeline update.
- Lastly, the planning of the first playable class to be introduced in Update 1.
As evident, I’ve been quite busy. Nonetheless, I’ve no plans on slowing down, and will keep the gears firing on all cylinders.
Sneak Peek (The Arcane)
While I recently provided the teaser for Maldium - the Kingdom of the Crown, I felt it was prudent to provide a teaser for the other major player in A Realm Divided. Introducing… Veltar - the Kingdom of the Arcane.
Have a fantastic week, and I’ll see you for the next weekly progress report!
~Zach
16 Likes
I noticed that gendered name categories were recently added. “effeminate” feels like the wrong word.
i find “effeminate” used almost exclusively to describe men who violate gender expectations, and usually it’s derogatory. that’s obviously the intention at all, so my recommendation would be to use the word “feminine” for that category, as Phrenex suggested. they’re not equivalent words.
i know this is a very specific and kinda harsh feedback, but it feels important, at the very least to the enjoyment of the first impression. I hope this is helpful 
Good luck with future development!
definitions from wiktionary dot org and Merriam-Webster dot com
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/effeminate
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/feminine#English
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Hello!
No need to apologize! All feedback is welcome, and yours has already been heard.
I completely forgot to place it into the notes. I have already changed the naming to feminine following both feedback and that it was a screwup on my behalf.
To any who see this and may have taken offense or whom I have hurt. I deeply apologize. It was not my intent, and I have made absolute efforts that it is corrected for Update 0.4.
If there is anything I have additionally missed or misplaced of an offense manner. Please let me know. My goal above all is to be both inclusive and diverse, and I will remain and continue to be open to all forms of feedback - whether they remain positive or negative.
Kind regards,
~Zach
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Hey, everyone!
Small update regarding 0.4. Hoping to still publish it tonight, but quite a bit has went into it under the hood! As such, it may take another day or two to get it out. Nonetheless, I’m hoping I might have the time to finish changes and proceed with the release as planned. I’ll post an update once it’s live!
Thanks,
~Zach
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Hello, everyone!
Separate from my plan for releasing Update 0.4, I wanted to run more of a feedback poll of sorts. The decision is to an extent already made, but given the nature of how I plan to style updates - I wanted to know how the community felt regarding it.
With my update system, I plan on incrementally pushing systems and updating gameplay as time goes on. In the beginning, things will be more simplistic. Eventually, this will overlay and upgrade over time. Certain stats will come into place, key choices open up, ect.
Rather than running this simply as an interactive choice story, I’m developing it more as a video-game in the nature of becoming an RPG.
The downside to this method is that saves on the demo will break depending on updates. I cannot guarantee the long-term longevity of variables in certain situations, and choices in prior areas from updates may be created/updated and introduced as new. Ultimately, the demo will be renamed with Update 1 to the Alpha.
Development will follow the typical process of Alpha —> Beta —> Demo —> Release. Once I reach beta, the goal is to minimize save-breaks (though balancing will occur which may alter this slightly). As such, I wanted to know how the community felt about their saves breaking as development progressed.
Thanks once again everyone, and I’ll be seeing you all soon with the publishing of Update 0.4.
~Zach.
- I’m completely okay with it and understand that development may break my saves at certain points.
- I’m not too thrilled about it, truthfully.
0 voters
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Saves break everytime you update the game, regardless of what you change. It’s the way the save system works. You can only use a save on the same build it was created on.
(Note so I don’t get yelled at. I’m going of how it was for Dashingdon, and I assume its the same for Moody.ink)
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That’s actually really good to know. I’m still getting used to Choice Games in general and such, so I haven’t witnessed it happen personally.
I mainly wanted to garner feedback and set expectations. I am now curious if Moody.ink does that though… totally might bork the development branch on purpose to test… lol.
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This is not true at all, whether on Dashingdon or Moody. Saves only break if you add essential choices to earlier parts of the game that later parts of the game will rely on.
Strictly speaking, saves don’t even “break” in the way people think they do. Saves from earlier builds always “work” in the technical sense, as in, you can always load them just fine and the game isn’t going to automatically bug out if you try. All that happens is that if a change is made to an earlier part of the game, and you load a save from after that change is supposed to happen, you don’t get the chance to implement whatever change occurred. If that change determines vital information, unexpected behavior occurs, and this can break the game.
(incidentally, another common misconception is that saves break if you add new variables to your startup file. This is also not true—loading a save from an earlier build will still allow your game to recognize variables that were added later on, it just won’t take into account any changes you might have tried to make to that variable in earlier chapters.)
As for the question itself…speaking broadly, I personally think it would be helpful if more authors tried to be mindful about what kinds of changes they anticipate making in the future and planned around this to minimize save-breaking. Too many times I see authors implement a choice and assume it will never come up again, and then later go “oh no, that was important”, so they add in a variable to track the decision and force you to replay the game from the beginning if you want that decision recognized.
This kind of thing can be avoided by just considering whether or not you think the outcome of a choice will have consequences from the start.
Your situation sounds different—it sounds to me like you just have a more iterative workflow in general, where you plan to build on the game’s overall complexity as development progresses and add in more systems as it goes along. You’re right that this will almost certainly break saves, but it’s also a more justifiable reason to break saves, IMO. In general, I’m more willing to put up with it if it feels like the earlier parts of the game are undergoing meaningful changes that would have been difficult to include from the start, which sounds closer to how you’re planning to do it.
Either way, at the end of the day, if that’s how you work best, I think that’s how you probably should work, regardless of what people like me think.
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I appreciate the extensive reply.
You’ve prettymuch hit the nail on the head. My workflow is indeed highly iterative. To avoid an overflow of complexity from the gate, I’ve styled major systems around key updates. While they may appear in more minor versions early on, entire dedicated sections of development will hash them out.
An example of this is the Sanity personality stat. Sanity is implemented in early stages merely to get the variables in place, create some testing sanity choices to ensure flow, and then proceed with development. Later on (my roadmap will update to reflect this), I plan on releasing the Definition of Insanity Update which will introduce a wildly major update to the game and key conversations. Lower sanity may introduce incredibly alternate situations at key moments, and alter fundamental relationships in the game.
Ultimately, every single choice I’ve placed in development is designed around this fundamental philosophy of iterative development. Leveraging experience in game development as a whole, my goal is to build an interactive fiction RPG rather than a choice story, and so the extensive systems required will take time and iterative tweaking so I can get them right. As I’m all too painfully aware of, the best ideas on paper don’t always hit the ground running in execution.
I appreciate your insight, and knowledge on the save system in DashingDon. It’s much appreciated, and you have my thanks!
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I stand corrected. At least someone knows more about the saves than me 
What do I know? I’m just a simple girl obsessed with foxes.
I’ve just always used saves in one session and never used them again after an update as I tend to create a new run. I clearly am not the authority on saving. Thank you for pointing out my stupidity so poor Zach doesn’t get trapped in a save nightmare.
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Not sure if this is just self-deprecating humor or if you think I was trying to denigrate you with my response, but just for the record—I wasn’t. There are a lot of common misconceptions about the save system, and unfortunately one effect of that is that a lot of people learn information that isn’t quite true. That isn’t really your fault.
But yes, I do try to correct the record where I can, because I see a lot of instances where authors will think that an update breaks earlier saves, but replaying from the beginning isn’t actually necessary. I guess I can come across as blunt in the process, but it’s not my intent to shame you or anything.
In any event, it does sound like the iterative systems of this game will be breaking saves along the way, but again, I’m willing to give it a fair shot even so. Good luck to Zach with this process—this seems like an interesting project so far.
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Don’t worry it was just self-deprecating humour. I really need to stop that. You keep correcting!
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I greatly appreciate the compliment.
You’ve both been quite helpful. It’s certainly a process, but one that I’m in for the long haul. Estheria pretty much remains my sole life’s work, and A Realm Divided has existed as a core idea since 2018.
In this case, was merely a matter of finding the right medium to whirl it to life. Beyond delighted to have finally done so.
As a status update on 0.4: I’m hammering out the Third Ward details now. Once that’s done, Amyldia will receive her own dedicated section. Some variables/code needs to be reworked a bit for it, but it shouldn’t take too long. Lastly, a few small updates and we’ll be good to go. I’ve got some time to kill for the next few hours, so it’s very possible 0.4 drops tonight if I’m productive enough.
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