Saying Hi! (and first updates)

I recently realized I should start posting at least here to let people stay tuned into project and news.

There were lots of changes lately in terms of all aspects, let's go one by one. Firstly - feedback handling! I've been to an event lately and got a tonne of useful feedback. As always, receiving feedback for 5 years straight taught me a lot about using feedback. Generally using everything and listening to every bit of advice testers give you does not work. Ignoring feedback is even worse. Sometimes you should point out the main "problem" they are talking about and not always follow their solution, but rather come up with your own or maybe fixing a problem somewhere else. In combination of event stuff, insights and new contacts I've got on event, there were a lot of UX subtle changes (color coding, phase icons, button animations), that should lead to much smoother player experience and I'm excited for new tests.

Second thing - some updated graphics. I really want to keep everything tidy and in one style (which is my art style). But one thing was always bugging me - character portraits. I just couldn't make them right and be pleasant to look at. For a whole half a year I thought about using ai generation for the portraits only and finally gave up. So, welcome the new faces of Mycelium! I'd like to refrain from it OR find a suitable artist to work with for my future project, but for now, for Mycelium, I saw it as the only option. A lot of things lead to this decision - not having enough money, not having ready contacts to work with me, not wanting to give up most of my other visuals for a rework and so on. Another generated image is icon logo, which is important for being an emblem of a game and it generally should look "good" in a common sense of style. Don't be afraid of using some generated images, especially if you're telling about it in advance AND you're a small indie dev and not a giant AAA studio.

Another point to make is general enhancements, as always, I've been testing and trying out stuff myself, finding more and more uncovered situations and things to make better. Or even sometimes small assets, that I see rarely and they were drawn too long ago. For now, I'm very confident in covering almost everything inside of my content-heavy game, all possible combinations of effects, situations, items and actions. This should create a fun interactivity in form of teasing curiosity and discovering new things!

And finally, release plans. So, the game is actually ready at the point of 99% and that last percent + understanding of marketing is crucial and can eat a lot of time. There will be a steam page soon and I plan to release the game at the start of Q4 2024 (but maybe even earlier...). Stay tuned, leave your feedback and enjoy the new changes in the demo!