- 0.8.0 Demo Update - 13 September 2026
Summary Our large overworld graphical overhaul update is now here! We've redone the water, redone the overworld, added passive animals, more audio and improved the performance all over the place! We've also got a slew of bug fixes, improvements, engine upgrades and other changes.See the change log for the full list of changes.If you come across any issues, please log them here. For more dedicated support feel free to send us a Tweet or DM, message on the Discord Server, or email us. Change LogImprovementsRedid the water for the whole gameRedid Vegetation for the Wynoa (starting demo area)Added passive animalsAdded Passive Animals to Wynoa (starting demo area)Updated battle maps to reflect updated vegetationAdded custom Kickstarter rewardsAdded missing BGM & SFXAdded Performance Flags for Caves, Houses and Water shadersAdded success/fail jingle & VFX for Crafting screenRemoved the timer…
- September 2026 Progress Update - 5 September 2026
Can you believe Summer is just about over? The year goes by so fast. Let’s go over what we’ve been up to in the last month!Wynoa RedoYes it’s true – redoing the Wynoa region is done! And not only is it done – we also completed adding all of the Passive Animals for the region too! The entire starting region of the game has gotten a refresher! So check out some comparison images below and some more screenshots!GameMaker UpgradeIn addition to finishing redoing the region, Gataela is now sitting on Gamemaker 2026 LTS. We still haven’t decided if we will be parking ourselves here permanently or continuing through the monthly releases – but we upgrade once a year so regardless of what we choose that’s a 2027 problem.As for the upgrade itself it went quite smoothly with only two known immediate issues which were quickly resolved. We also did a round of testing for the upcoming demo update and…
- July 2026 Progress Update - 2 July 2026
Happy Summer! We hope everyone is staying safe a cool as the temps heat up. Here’s what we were up to over the past couple of months.Wynoa RedoAs we mentioned last update, there was a good chance that finishing the redo of Wynoa would be missed for July, and sure enough we have. That being said – we have redone a good chunk so we’ll show off some screenshots below. Hopefully if you’ve played the demo you’ll be able to spot these areas.Why it seems like the ocean floor is now visible! Do you spot any trash?Looks like a certain yard has gotten an upgrade – no white brick walls though.Well doesn’t this look fancy? Care for a cuppa tea?Where a house once stood now grows a tree.I could’ve sworn there was a bridge here?We’ve made some space for some animals! Wonder what will end up here?Would you say sleeping on rock is an upgrade from dirt?What’s Next?Now that we are halfway through the year…
- May 2026 Progress Update - 5 May 2026
Happy May! Spring has sprung and with that a very busy time will soon be upon us.Lakure Passive AnimalsPassive animals have now been added to Lakure! We’ve also made some rather big adjustments to one town in particular: Roatte.In our initial development of Roatte we wanted to have some pastures and animals. However we cut the animals from the game at the time because it was not in the budget. This led to the town having only crops instead. With our recent work to redo the vegetation the animals have come back and we’ve scrapped all of the crops. Some progress shots over the years are below:201620232026And here are the new animals that live in these pastures:Wynoa RedoWe also got started on redoing Wynoa. Unfortunately a lot of the time was spent counting cliffs and fixing them. Here are some WIP screenshots on the pains and processes of fixing cliffs (especially those that span across…
- March 2026 Progress Update - 3 March 2026
Happy March – may Spring be with us soon ❄️ Let’s go over what we’ve been up to the last two months! Debates As per usual – there isn’t too much we can really talk about as far as the specific content goes without there being huge spoilers. That being said, we did solve the last major (hopefully) plot hole! This plot hole was known to us during development, so we left space for it to be filled in the story. We’ll have to go back to ~3 cutscenes and fill in the space we left, but otherwise it slots in very nicely.As for the debates itself, now that some things have been organized and some holes solved we’ve started to re-research the topics of the debates. We did initial research when the game’s development began, but it’s been a little while since then so we’re refreshing the content.Unfortunately in this accursed AI timeline it’s been difficult to find new research done on the topics.…
- January 2026 Progress Update - 2 January 2026
Happy New Year! Time sure flies doesn’t it? We hope everyone had a good holiday season. Let’s talk about what we were up to during November & December, how 2025 went and what our plans are for 2026!November & December 2024As we outlined in our last update – we’re working on two key areas: Debates and “redoing” some older overworld locations. If you’re interested in what “redo” means here we recommend you read our last post to get the gist.There isn’t too much we can talk about the debate changes at this point but we sorted out a known “plot hole” – which is a good change.Otherwise we’ve been chugging along with redoing Lakure. We started by wiping out all of the vegetation for the whole region and started to fill in some areas. Here’s a comparison of before and now + some close ups.Some beaches have been upgraded.Did anyone ask for Sheep and Shepherds?Fields of flowers, different road d…
- November 2025 Progress Update - 1 November 2025
Hello everyone! Welcome to the end of Fall as Winter is sure to hit soon!As we mentioned last time, as we move into working on things like *~*debates*~* we won't have too much to share until we're done sorting some things out (and even then there won't be too many images) so these updates will be a little small!Passive AnimalsOur original goal was to add the Passive Animals to Olvia and Vescha over the next quarter - but we actually got it done ahead of schedule! Both of the new regions now have an abundance of birds, butterflies and other (non-violent) creatures waddling around. Here's a short video showing it off!Debate ChangesOne thing we can talk about and show with the debates is a small fundamental change that people will (probably) appreciate.First let’s throw back to the original debate battles! Way back when we planned for the debates to have three metrics to determine if you w…
- September 2025 Progress Update - 1 September 2025
Goodbye Summer Hello Fall 🍂 Here’s what we’ve been up to over the past couple of months!Levelling up the Turn-Based BattlesOur big focus for the past couple of months was to integrate the new SFX and do an audit of all the sprites and animations we’ve added for this battle system in the past year or so, and fix any issues. It was a huge undertaking – we reviewed thousands of sprites and made hundreds of adjustments – but it’s done! We did find a few “bugs” here and there – such as missing shadows, palette swaps, etc. – so there will have to be some adjustments that have to be done in the future, but most of this is solid now and won’t need to be changed again.But now that all that work is done let’s show off some of the new enemies, skills and their corresponding animations and SFX!Kickstarter RewardsThe in-game Kickstarter rewards are now wrapped up! We’ll keep the location of each ba…
- July 2025 Progress Update - 1 July 2025
Hellooooo Summer! We hope everyone’s doing well and toughing out the heat alright. Here’s what we were up to over the past couple of months.Water 🌊The water has been upgraded!!!!!This was our big project over the past two months as we needed to upgrade the water across all of the existing levels including making the new shader! This was a big undertaking so let’s go over some of the reasons why this needed to be done.The first and most obvious reason will be that it was for appearance and it’s true – that was a big motivator! Take a look at how the overworld has developed over the years.In 2016 we were still using Cocos2dx as the game engine and although it was not the best implementation for the water – the water had a smooth gradient, some underwater transparency, some noise coloration and the colors were more vibrant. Part of the reason why this was possible was because we weren’t u…
- May 2025 Progress Update - 3 May 2025
We hope everyone is enjoying spring! Here’s what we’ve been up to over the past two months. Ziacia We finished adding all of the NPCs to Ziacia! Not only does this complete the city itself, but it also wraps up adding NPCs to all of the cities, towns, and other structures around the game! We will likely have more NPCs to add as we add side quests and other fun goodies, but for now it’s done! Here’s a few of them: Kershuffle As a quick recap – we made a mini-game for Gataela during Pirate Jam 16 named Kershuffle! In April Gamemaker posted a feature of the games made during Pirate Jam and we were included! We added some words about the development so please check it out! Other Misc Things We don’t really have anything visual to show yet but some other work done include: Began creating and adding SFX for the remaining TTBattle Skills Finished designing all of the in-game Kickstarter backer…
- March 2025 Progress Update - 6 March 2025
Happy March! Before the time turns back let’s go over what we did last month! Myranova We wrapped up adding NPCs to Myranova – one of the last huge cities. Here’s a few of the NPCs and areas. Monthly BiMonthly Updates? Now if you’ve been reading these for a while you have noticed that updates are getting shorter and shorter- and this is a good thing. Honestly. We’re reaching the point in development where a lot of stuff is just… gluing everything together. There’s not a whole lot visually going on, and on the other side of the spectrum it’s stuff like “wrote a debate which we cannot share because spoilers”. So what does that mean for the updates? Well… we’ve decided to have less of them. These updates are a way for us to communicate the status of development, but we also want them to be meaningful and not just a report of things we’ve done. However at the same time we want to share the…
- February 2025 Progress Update - 4 February 2025
Wow January just flew right on by! Let’s go over what we were up to and where we’re going! Minigame Prototype This past month we focused on adding NPCs and animals to Myranova, and although we aren’t just ready to show that off just yet – in the process of that work we talked about adding a minigame. See Myranova is a big tourist area and in big tourist areas there’s always people looking to scam play some games with visitors. One thing we wanted to add was little carnival games you could play to get scammed make some money. Originally we wanted to add a custom minigame, but that requires a lot of work and- oh. It seems a game jam is right around the corner. Well let’s see what the theme is maybe it’ll give us ideas- Oh. Well. We have a minigame now. Oops. We’ll be working on polishing up the mechanics for the game over the next year here and there, but we welcome everyone to try it out…
- Kickstarter Rewards Now Available! - 18 January 2025
Hello everyone! As we've been mentioning for the past few updates, we've now launched a shop with leftover Kickstarter rewards, and others - including some keychains we only sold at Otakuthon in 2019. If there's anything you're interested in, please note we have a special discount from Jan 18 to 24. Use code LAUNCH at checkout to get 10% off orders $10CAD or more. Thanks for your support! 🙇
- January 2025 Progress Update - 2 January 2025
Happy New Year! We hope everyone had a good holiday season! Let’s talk about what we were up to in December, go over 2024 and talk about our plans for 2025! December 2024 December was a very busy month! To give a brief idea, we added a good chunk of Kickstarter backer rewards, added a lot of NPCs and passive animals, and fixed a bug here and there. Here’s some of the NPCs we added: 2024 in Review Well, this year was quite a strange one. If you remember the plan – we were going to focus on adding content and putting everything together and- to some degree- we did succeed! BUT we were heavily impacted by layoffs. Other than just personally being out of a job – we could not pay other members of the team for remaining work – putting a standstill on certain parts of the project (ex. SFX). Another impact was that we could not spend more than a set number of hours per week on the project or we…
- December 2024 Progress Update - 2 December 2024
Happy December! The snow is starting and so has the holiday season so let’s go over what we’ve been up to over the past two months! Demo Update In case you missed it, we put out a small demo patch last month fixing a crash and providing a small performance update. A number of other non-critical bugs were logged (thank you!) and those have since been fixed on our end. NPCs & Animals We’ve been working on adding NPCs and Animals to some of the newer maps. Let’s look at a couple locations! Storefront Shenanigans We mentioned before that we were working on setting up a shop for older merch we’ve made… and it’s here! Except… well… have you heard of Canada Post strikes? They started when we were hoping to launch the shop. So the shop is ready but we can’t ship anything yet and we’re certain no one is interested in paying 50CAD for shipping. So instead please take some time to peruse the photo…
- 0.7.3 Demo Update - 4 November 2024
Summary This is a small update to fix a crash some users have reported. If you come across any issues, please log them here. For more dedicated support feel free to send us a Tweet or DM, message on the Discord Server, or email us. Change Log Improvements Ignore transparent tiles while perform tile-checking for VFX/SFX Fixed Fixed a crash during cutscenes when a character moves backwards
- October 2024 Progress Update - 8 October 2024
Hello Chilly October! Here’s what we were up to in the last month! Making Olvia Come Alive Our main focus for the month was adding NPCs to the world and we decided to start with Olvia! Olvia is the first city with the new animals added to them – so there was a little bit of trial and error to get them working for the first time and well integrated – but we think it worked out! Let’s go over some highlights of some of the NPCs you can meet here! View Image Let’s start with the obvious – there’s a dog on the loose and his name is Buddy and oh boy will he never be caught. It seems it’s a Wednesday. View Image Wow look at all those birds! It sure would be a shame if someone ran through them! Huh… that’s strange… Oh look! Birds! Nothing suspicious here at all. Not at all. Huh? Did you hear something? Yes, You Can Pet Them A small little feature we added was for- you guessed it- to pet the do…
- September 2024 Progress Update - 7 September 2024
Happy September! Here’s what we were up to in the last month! Demo Update In case you missed it, we released a demo update at the end of last month providing some bug fixes and a new performance toggle. Thanks to all the demo players who logged bug reports! VFX Completion We wrapped up the rest of the VFX work this past month. There might be some adjustments that need to be made, but this means that most of the visual effects for the turn-based battles are complete! The next steps for the turn-based battles will be creating the skills, adding the SFX, hooking things up, and (eventually) balancing! For now, here’s some of the last ones we put in: Our favourite “absolutely not a Turkey” is showing off their feathers and Fluffing them Up to Raise their Critical charm points. Our friendly Lynx is just giving you a small Body Slam out of love and affection. Probably. Did you know Badgers wil…
- 0.7.2 Demo Update - 29 August 2024
Summary This is a small update to fix a couple issues some users have reported. Of particular interest is the new performance toggle for the "Walking through long grass" effect. If you happen to have a laptop with an integrated graphics card we recommend turning the effect off if you are noticing frame rates dropping. If you come across any issues, please log them here. For more dedicated support feel free to send us a Tweet or DM, message on the Discord Server, or email us. Change Log Improvements Added a performance toggle for the “Walking through long grass” effect in the Options Menu Can now use the interact key on enemies Added fade transitions to menu screens Added weapon-specific battle animations for party members Fixed Adjusted VFX/SFX grass definitions so that paths partially covered by grass will have their SFX/VFX triggered Fixed the movement key being “stuck” in a direction…
- August 2024 Progress Update - 3 August 2024
Happy August! We hope everyone is handling the heat wave well. Here’s what we were up to the last month~ Cutscene Completion (For Now) We are happy to announce that (for now) all of the Main Story Quest (MSQ) cutscenes have been added to the game! This is a big hurdle we’ve now passed so let’s go over what this generally means and next steps for cutscene work! The MSQ is the main content that anyone needs to play through to get from the start of the game to the end – and for cutscenes that means they’re mandatory. Having them all added means that you could theoretically play the narrative from beginning to end – a big accomplishment! For a lot of games this means that the beginning of the end is coming. Although we would love that, we aren’t quite there yet. BUT! It’s very nice to have happen and a big step in that direction. So why aren’t we there yet? A few reasons. MSQ in Gataela are…
