First, the main updates!

I've begun work on the final main area of the game that hasn't been started yet! There are 9 main areas outside of the endgame area, and all 9 now exist within the project. That doesn't mean it's the last one I need to work on - in fact, 3 of them are about to undergo major overhauls due to them being left generally unfinished. I'm dividing and conquering because if I stay working on any one thing for too long, I go crazy and start to lose focus.

I have also pretty much redone the pause menu entirely - in fact, much of the GUI and menus have been completely redone in order to give the game a more polished look, and to try and keep its visual motifs a little more relevant to a modern day audience. 

Lastly, I am going to be completely overhauling the bosses that were shown in the demo. They will move a lot more convincingly, have more clever attack patterns, and in general will be a lot more fun. Since making these bosses, I have gained quite a lot of skill in creating AI and visual flair, so I hope these will be much more engaging (and a lot less buggy!) than what was shown off.

And now, some thoughts I've been having overall...

I'm going to be frank, things have been a little difficult as of late. I don't want to say I've been losing morale (I haven't, and big things are hopefully coming soon!) but I've been feeling a little overwhelmed with my workload and underwhelmed with my ability to get things done. The more I playtest and the more I watch others play, the more glaring bugs I've been finding and the more discontent I've become with some aspects of the game. This is most likely just me as an artist having a biased view of my work, but I've been having a real issue with motivation on some days, and on others I even feel a little scared to look at the project just because of how much I feel I need to do.

I've also felt a little frustrated with the game's mechanics, because I can't really decide whether theyre actually interesting and I've playtested the game too much, or if they're just not that much fun. Probably the biggest bane of my existence has been trying to get things to not seem like just an arbitrary list of actions to perform in my own eyes - It's hard to not be underwhelmed by something you're so intimately familiar with, even when most of the feedback I've gotten has been positive even in the face of some huge issues (like the continue screen being completely bugged for nearly an entire year, and for a different reason every single update!). And development has also gotten to a point where I can't really ask friends for feedback on most things, because the tech and programming is evolved to the point where the only person who can really understand what I'm doing is me. 

Another thing I've been feeling discomfort with is how warm the game's reception will be. A lot of the things I deliberately am developing Dungeon Gals to be (ex. deliberate, puzzle focused, rather slowly paced, methodical, having long areas, etc.) are things I tend to see 2d games criticized for. Dungeon Gals is not a quick, snappy fast-paced action adventure - there's no run button, and puts an emphasis on navigation and thorough exploration. It's meant to be a slow and steady by design, because I want there to be more games that encourage smelling the roses and figuring things out rather than just blasting ahead to the next challenge. I think I'm doing a very good job at that, but deep down I can't help but feel like by doing so I'm just fundamentally doing things wrong and that I need to start from scratch in order to make something that's of the times. Like hell I'm going to do that, though - this game is going to be as slow and steady as I want and I'm not gonna give up on that. I just wish the voices in the back of my head wouldn't tell me that's the wrong thing to do.

Why am I being so frank about this? I don't know, it just feels like I need to say what you typically don't see developers say. Making a game with a team of just me (and a good friend who always manages to save the day in the nasty parts of programming, god bless you mog) is difficult and nerve racking, and its an almost oppressive amount of work. I don't know how I've gotten as far as I have, and I wonder what my state of being is going to be like when I cross the finish line. Making a game is extremely hard work, and over the last two years I've really developed sympathy for game developers as a whole, especially ones made by small teams who don't have a lot of muscle to work with. I think I'm making a really good game, but there isn't a day I've worked on this project where I haven't felt a certain kind of dread, calling into question the worth of what I've been sinking my time into for the past couple of years. Nowadays, whenever I play a game, even if it's one I think isn't very good, I always end a play session by verbally thanking the development team with a (sometimes forced, admittedly) smile on my face, because I know they feel that fear and self doubt as well. Making games is hard work and I hope whoever reads this will come away appreciating that a little more.