Content Push -- DQ2 Progress Report for October 2022

October marks the beginning of a concerted content push for the game.

Content Push -- DQ2 Progress Report for October 2022
Sisyphus rolling a cheeseburger up a mountain, generated by Dall-E 2

Howdy Defender's Quest fans!

Build version 0.0.37 is up on Steam for our early backers.

October marks the beginning of a concerted content push for the game. For one, we now have story material into the game clear through to mission #34 (that's out of 56 missions total). Additionally, our artists are hard at work on sprite and battle background art, which we've already started to integrate (though it doesn't show up just yet in the current build).

Those two facts in and of themselves are pretty huge and I really look forward to the day we'll finally be able to reveal everything. But until then, we must remain patient. Suffice it to say I think things are looking really good and should represent a significant face-lift compared to Defender's Quest 1 :)

Thanks for your patience regarding the late posting of this progress report – it's been a kind of insane month, and we had a brief family medical scare on top of it (everything's stable and fine now so no need to worry) that threw some things off.

Additionally, I've recently left my day job at Naavik for a new day job that I will talk about a bit more in the future (hint: it has to do with Georgism, for those of you who follow me in my other life). My new day job pays about the same and has about the same hourly commitment, so don't expect any DQ2 disruptions; the new day job subsidizes my night and weekends work shepherding this project along just about as well as the old day job. I remain super grateful to my former bosses at Naavik for the genuinely fulfilling opportunity to repeatedly tell investors why they should probably not invest in crypto games. Looking back over everything that's transpired since last November, those who followed my advice would have avoided disaster.

Here's some concrete progress updates for this month besides what we talked about above:

  • Some more UI tweaks (but still a lot more to do)
  • Updated internal economy tool that lets us rebalance levels & items faster
  • Updating the layout and balance of Phase 1 maps (not finished yet)
  • Added portraits for Warren (Long Shot)
  • Recalibrated overworld to match new level pacing

Our immediate goal is to ingest as much of the incoming art as possible and get it working in-engine. The exact reveal date has yet to be determined, but this stuff is obviously a necessary precondition to being able to do that.

Wish us luck!