HELLO EVERYBODY!! *coughs up a cloud of dust* please ignore that.

WOAH!!!! It's been almost a year???!?!?! ALREADY???

Well I'm sorry about the wait, I'll talk about the game in a bit, just give me a second...

What's that behind your ear? Is that... PREVIEW #2??

THAT'S RIGHT!! IT'S FINALLY OUT!!

After years of promising this moment I can confidently post this preview with only a little less doubt on whether or not the game will release within the next three years!!

Im ready to talk about absolutely everything I can remember I've done for the past... yup, that's ten whole months. Okay.

The format this time around is...

• NEW NAME + PREVIEW VIDEO developer commentary???
• Development Developments
• Personal update and goodbyes...

LET'S BEGIN!!!

NEW NAME + PREVIEW VIDEO... commentary??

"ACT 0" is now... "STARKNIGHT: CHANNEL ZERO"!!

or just Channel Zero, if you want...

Act 0 was always meant to be a very literal project name for the game that comes before "StarKnight", my other much bigger project I've been planning and developing since I was fifteen years old; that game used to use the act structure as a fomat, after much growing up I realized I didn't really know what that meant, then I learned what it meant and decided that making the act structure explicit was a bit stupid for my purposes... maybe... I'm still deliberating on it a little okay.

Anyway, the name was always supposed to change at some point, I just didn't know when and to what, now seems like a good moment and that was a cool name, I thought.

You'll learn why the "channel" part is relevant soon enough... Let's move on to the preview video!!! Which you should watch... In case you haven't yet...

I really wanted to make an impact with the first ever part of the game, I decided to integrate about 50 to 60 percent of all the mechanics, which are the main ones, within the intro.

Originally, it wasn't like this, it was about maybe 6 minutes total of semi-unskippable cutscenes, which I don't necessarily have anything against for games that use that time well, it's just that for me, a very small game developer making their first ever serious project, a good and accurate first impression is very, very important.

Besides, who doesn't love a strong opening? 

I wasn't very aware that starting with the game setup made expectations insanely low, but it kinda works to my benefit. By starting the lowest, there's nowhere to go but up, or something like that... I don't try to stay for too long on that screen, but I still let the dialogue be readable and processable.

The classic elevator... some of us know it, I used to hate it.

I kinda needed a reason for Sean to not just up and leave at any given moment, many years ago that was kind of the point, then I realized there wasn't much point to a game that you could end/"win" at any moment, it just had no stakes!! who the hell wants that?!? But yes, the elevator's purpose is to fall, why is there an uncomfortably tall elevator in the first place? well, you'll have to find out! (eventually...).

The conversation between Sean and Cheryl here used to really bug me, I got around to doing this thing called "getting better", which actually helped me with a ton of stuff, one of them was writing, which is why I like this exchange now.

The elevator falls... and a mysterious figure appears!! woah!!

Yeah, I don't want to share any details about this guy yet, I'll give you one word of advice though, get used to his face and stupid smile.

This is the second to last thing I am going to talk about, the "Signal Search" mechanic.

The one shown in the preview is kind of an early prototype of an idea I had a long, long time ago... That I finally got around to making recently!!

A lot of things about it will change, and by the time you see it in the game it will be completely different, but it will serve the same basic function... to communicate.

I think I've shown snippets of the battle system here and there before, but this is it's first official debut!!

Every single little intricacy about this system and UI took a long time to figure out, both from a technical and design standpoint, it's still a liiiiittle unfinished but the differences won't be too major by the time it's all figured out.

The song at the end of the video has existed for some time now, it was one of the first compositions I made for the game that I was really happy about, I'm glad a little bit of it is out there now...

DEVELOPMENT DEVELOPMENTS.

It's crazy to say this but, about 80% of the technical aspects and systems that need to be in the game are all done, I don't think I had to do much but focus on the creative aspect of it all from ten months ago to now.

Some things do definetely need some polish, the dialogue editing system-feature-thing turned out to be an absolute mess to work with in the end, which is a shame... I'll probably circle back to making a standalone program for dialogue editing at some point, considering how important that really is for me.

Besides all that, a good chunk of time has been spent programming specific cutscenes, making the "Abilities" shown in the preview, coming up with solutions for balancing, experimenting and generally thinking of things that can make the videogame more game than video.

I definitely don't think this post is the best one to describe and give general development updates, because... they're all kind of... right there...

If anything, expect more details when it comes to technical stuff by the next update post, whenever that comes...

Personal update.

Things have felt really, really hard recently.

I'm not about to get all sad on you, but I want everyone to understand why development is so slow... I want to see this game get finished more than anyone in this world... and it feels like that task gets more and more difficult as time goes on.

On one hand, I've been really happy going to university! getting to meet people interested in what I do and working with them feels incredibly rewarding, but it's also incredibly hard to focus on anything but university as of late...

This past year I have been taking advantage of every single little moment I'm not excessively stressed out to work on the game and get things done, the last thing I want to happen is for me to lose passion and hope for this universe I created, and to work on a low stress enviroment, to me, is the most important measure to prevent that from happening.

What's been keeping me going as of late is the same thing as always, art.

To see what other people make and get to put out there is one of the biggest joys I get in life-- and to experience said works? Man, it's just an immesurable and incredible feeling, it's why I do what I do, I wouldn't want to be doing anything else.

I've been dealing with a lot of pressure, from a lot of different places, but overall, my life has felt more fulfilling, thanks to all the things I love most, those who have just come into my life and those who have always been there to support me.

Thanks for taking the time to read, will be working hard, as always, see you in the next one.

Thank you <3