Goodbye 2022, don't let the door hit you on the way out! You were terrible for me in particular.

It's been 84 days since my last devlog (thank you itch.io for keeping track of how long), and I'm not quite any farther than where I was in the last one. I've managed to stabilize some personal things on my end, so things aren't quite as dire (although any donation to keep the dream alive is always appreciated). And with all that said, I've been slowly picking away at different things in SSP!

First and foremost, I had to go back and rebalance it. Whatever I was doing got too complex that one character added late wasn't hitting quite like everyone else and I couldn't figure out what I did wrong so I decided I needed to simplify the equations I was using. Everything so far hits harder (even you!) but things feel more streamlined in the back end. I still have to tweak the bosses since I do those independently from the enemies, but I'm looking forward to my complete play through of what I've got so far.

Balancing is just in particular really hard for me. You can tell me x + y = z and I'll be like great! But for the life of me I can't seem to apply it to enemy and player stats and understand it. Please don't try to walk me through it--I just can't do it in my head and visualize a result I understand. I had to have some weakness if I could write and draw, after all! I'd also really like to add some pizazz to the motions during battle, but like balancing, I just can't see what I really want. That all can be done at the end though especially if I can get someone to help me, but otherwise, it's serviceable and gets the job done. I may not be as flashy as other people, but as long as it works!

Other than that, for a long time I was toying with the idea of adding a Quest Log but I was resistant because it wasn't like SSP has many side quests (and those that are there are maybe like 5??), but then I was playing Chained Echoes and realized how simply that quest log was and it was like a light-bulb going "omg, I can make a simple one?". So, simple quest log it is! Just to help people who might put the game down, don't remember where they're at, or just want guidance.

The simplicity! The helpfulness! The maybe grammatically wrong! (I can fix it if it is.)

Anyway, that's what I've managed to do! I'm hoping to start off this new year as a better me and hopefully more driven to finish! I do have other projects I have been working on (mostly writing stuff), so hopefully I can strike a better balancing act and get some further headway.

Thank you again for sticking with me! Here's to 2023 and hopefully it's not a trashfire!