Hey there, fellow catz! A lot has happened in the past few months and I made some nice progress with ZpellCatz. Lets have a look. [h2]Pumpkin Prologue[/h2] In case you missed the announcement, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1679590/ZpellCatz_Pumpkin_Prologue/]ZpellCatz: Pumpkin Prologue[/url] will be [b]released next week (Oct 14, 17:00 CEST)[/b]. It's a free singleplayer campaign with a story set preceding the events of the main game. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//40273531/e8cc4e87fece652d608cd59928eecca362498141.jpg[/img] As you can imagine, creating a prologue with its own overworld, dungeons and story required most of the working time since June, but I'm super happy with the result. :-) [h2]Input System[/h2] I finished working on the input system that we already covered in our [url=https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1447700/view/3026961501625270450]last DevRecap[/url]. There is an article available here ( [url=https://www.indiedb.com/games/zpellcatz/features/how-to-control-a-cat]https://www.indiedb.com/games/zpellcatz/features/how-to-control-a-cat[/url] ) for further info. [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//40273531/40275815818f8822337f7f1950e642582b369a58.gif[/img] [h2]New Cover Art[/h2] A very talented freelancer created the new cover art for ZpellCatz. In my opinion he did a really great job here. What do you think? Check it out: [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//40273531/cb6e717a6154a5c989b9ed7b09aa0c476d28ff99.jpg[/img] [h2]Music & Sound Design[/h2] In order to be able to release the Pumpkin Prologue, ZpellCatz needed sound and music. - Composed songs: "Main Menu", "Overworld", "Village", "Temple Ruins", "Boss" - Lots of sound effects for combat, UI, etc [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//40273531/d553dc50834b45063668d4c835a0b21613a152fd.jpg[/img] [h2]Quality of Life Improvements[/h2] Some of my former gamedev colleagues tested the early builds of the Pumpkin Prologue and allowed me to watch silently (big thanks to Ingo, Alex, Robi & Daniel). This way, we found lots of hard-to-use features and design flaws. Here are some of the things that worked a lot better after small adjustments: - Bags now show what kind of item you just collected - Items in the inventory now follow the mouse to reduce confusion - Teleporters are now animated to indicate that they are no usual floor plate - Enemy stat balance (yes the first testers had to play in "developer hard"... :-D ) - Input polishing [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//40273531/2486641df7e284a8da8725d2d96a666f5586d50c.gif[/img] [img]https://clan.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/images//40273531/261596760ac9a5003030847791588aeca4d9817a.gif[/img] [h2]Backend Server[/h2] We now have a backend server that we can use for highscores, speedrunning times and of course to detect further design / balance issues. Be assured, that we don't collect any personal data. That's it for today. Thanks for reading. If you want to receive development update more regularly, feel free to [url=https://discord.gg/D6CkrUu]join our discord[/url]. Have a nice day!