Hi, dungeon-crawling fans! The new video devlog is here! Sorry for the delay! [previewyoutube=pR3XH1xK6Oo;full][/previewyoutube] In this update, I would also like to draw your attention to a promising little Kickstarter project that is launching its campaign shortly: Sorceress: [url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wabba/sorceress]https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wabba/sorceress[/url] As always you can find the video transcript below. Best wishes, Michael --------------------- Hi, dungeon-crawling fans! It's finally time for a new update on Monomyth. This one took a little longer because I wanted to make sure that the latest patch was in a proper state before moving on. Before we look at Beta Patch 4 however, I would like to draw your attention to a little project that is launching its Kickstarter very soon. Sorceress is an immersive, magic-focused, first-person action game that strongly draws inspiration from classic titles like Dark Messiah of Might and Magic. I had this game on my radar for a while now and I thought you might be interested in it as well. So if you like first-person melee combat, emergent gameplay, and nicely stylized environments you can find the link to the Kickstarter page in the description. With the latest patch, we are finally entering Beta 4, one of the last development stages of the project. This patch contains the last bit of main content that will be available in the first public version of the game. It also knits together the different areas in a cohesive main quest and gives the players a hub to return to during their adventures in the underground. So let’s take a detailed look at the content added in this patch. We already talked about the main hub in the last update. The inner fortress of Lysandria serves as sort of a base camp for the player but it also contains a few quests on its own. To have a little more space for these quests I attached a few separate areas to the hub, which are themselves again connected with other parts of the underground. This provides different entry points and makes the world even more interconnected. During the last update, I also mentioned a few mini-dungeons I made while testing a new set of modular geometry assets. I expanded one of these mini-dungeons into a new tutorial area. This tutorial area is now done and fully integrated into the game. Additionally, I integrated the other mini dungeons. I polished these up and scattered them throughout the game’s world. The mini-dungeons are very traditional in terms of design. That means a lot of swing blades, moving spikes, fire traps, and puzzles. They were a lot of fun to make and they are probably the areas that are closest to King’s Field in terms of level mechanics. As I already mentioned, the main quest is now also done. There is no separation in chapters since you can tackle the quest in a very freeform way, but to give you a rough overview it consists of about four major parts. Some of these parts are integrated with the general progression throughout the world, whereas others rely on you exploring different parts of the underground on your own. A fifth and final part of the main quest will be added during an early access phase together with the very last area. These will be more separate from the rest of the game. So, how are we going to continue from here on out? Beta Patch 4 is now done and it will be on Steam’s beta branch shortly. I am still playtesting the whole game, which is already going hand in hand with what’s to follow. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//33913785/6c1c89b5342aacc6814a1def5d62dad791b0f908.png[/img] For the next few updates, I will concentrate on polishing and reworking different aspects of the game. The polishing phase can be roughly separated into mechanics and visuals. First and foremost I will concentrate on combat as well as enemy mechanics. My goal is to generally make the game feel more smooth in its moment-to-moment interactions. This also overlaps with combat animations, as well as sound and visual effects. I am also planning to rework a few of the art assets. I will try to give some of the areas a more distinct visual identity and further improve performance. With all major areas integrated, the game urgently requires some rebalancing. The item progression has to be adapted, especially that of equipment. This of course also overlaps with encounter design, because ultimately, the usefulness of equipment is linked to the damage output of enemies. Correspondingly, your damage output is linked to defense values and the health of enemies. All of the involved numbers should ideally grow in a nice curve, so the rebalancing process will probably require another big table and a lot of careful planning. That and testing, testing, and more testing. Speaking of which, once the game is properly cleaned up, we will finally start the Open Backer Beta. At that point, Kickstarter backers will finallybe able to retrieve their key and test the game. During that beta phase, there will probably be several smaller patches, but I will try my best to keep your save files intact. I will inform you in time on how to retrieve your keys. After the Open Backer Beta, the game will enter an Early Access phase. As I mentioned before, during this phase backer content as well as the last part of the main quest will be added. So it’s still a good amount of work, but we are steadily progressing towards release. I am confident that we will soon be able to talk about the concluding steps in this project and likewise, you will hold the game’s key in your hands in a not-too-distant future. Until then I will keep you updated and see you soon!