Good news, everyone!

(Listened to this cover of Hammer of Justice on loop while writing this, how it feels to have so much good shit to look back on from the last few weeks and is also straight fire: https://youtu.be/1tkohYmoKeg?si=TAJ_uwkLzJgZR_8D )

In just a few days time I will be finally getting a needed gallbladder removal! Do not be alarmed! It's one of the most common surgeries in modern medicine, is not a needed organ, has an extremely low risk of complications, and since mine has failed me (it is completely busted) this should provide immense relief for me.

it has failed me for the last time

we could have ruled the galaxy together

anyways I'm sharing this (subjectively) delightful news with you all for three reasons!

1. I've been plugging ahead dutifully with game dev with a failing organ for three years! Navigating [the horrors] and still finding a way to pursue my passion project is nothing to sneeze at. This will hopefully greatly improve my overall health and expedite the development of CBF. (recovery can take a little while, which is ok! I'll let you guys know as I get back in the saddle 💪)
2. I will be a lot less chronically online in the coming weeks to get lots of quality rest and ensure a smooth, speedy, and safe recovery. You can safely assume I'll be fusing with my chair and playing a lot of Animal Crossing if you don't hear from me as often as usual. (might put a lot of discord updates in our community server on villager antics 💖)
3. With [the horrors] of [modern day], the best possible support for me and my recovery is helping with food security and needed meds. Every cent from every Patron and every Ko-fi donation this coming month is going straight towards helping me eat right and heal up! If you want to pop on a dollar or two, it means more good chicken stock and veggies for me. It might seem small, but is the most support anyone can give me in these trying times.

I will go goblin mode when I can eat normally again, so help me. Millions of bowls of soup. Trillions.

Thank you for rooting for your favorite game dev skeleton! It's not just the promise of soup that's keeping me going strong. Thanks so much for rooting for me and following my game's development too!

With all that said! You may be thinking

"Alaric, you have been making this game with a failing organ. Alaric, why are you releasing a devlog 2 days before surgery?! ALARIC GO BACK TO BED"

And you must understand, that while doing self-care for 20+ hours a day, managing chronic illness is still about finding a healthy balance. I can't be in bed all day rotting my brains out without doing anything mentally stimulating. Squeezing in game dev when I feel up to it is more than a welcome reprieve and nice outlet for creativity and stress relief.

shit adds up

shit adds up real fast

we got a lot to look back on and a whole lot to show for this month

so!!

JULY DEVLOG - Art, Artfight (it's art all the way down), and on the continuing development of the torment nexus(tm) among other things

"Write what you know," they say.

"lol. lmao, even " I say.

"hold my torment nexus," I say

ARTFIGHT!!!!

• At the start of this month, many of my friends encouraged me to make an Artfight page so they could "attack" my characters. Artfight is an art trade event that runs for a solid month, with gameified elements. Drawing a character = attacking a character. You can learn more on the site!
• I of course was super happy to check it out and made an account for the first time! I wasn't expecting to do a whole lot of attacks (for obvious reasons) but!!!!
• For my profile I sketched a lineup of the 5 main party members from Catalyst: Blind Faith. I love these silly little guys very much and am thrilled to continue teasing designs for the full game!

I love them so much and this is very close to their final designs. There's a TON of concept art on their artfight pages! Feel free to share any thoughts in comments here or in our Community Discord!

CBF MAIN CHARACTERS (from left to right in the image above):

Father Richard Anscham | Ray | Ofelia Banks | Celegwen | Yech the Disgusted

• Got some welcome art practice in drawing a few characters for other artists!

Attack on Gebo, OC by Purplepirate

Attack on Leo & Ruby, OCs by Mewt

• I strongly encourage any comments on the pictures to be made on the Artfight website links! I am sharing these with the appropriate credits and permission! I still have one WIP attack but will finish it when I'm feeling well enough to. Unfortunate as the nature of the event is time-limited, but we all have to do the best we can!

• Received some absolutely spectacular attacks too!

Attack on Ray by Doobergoober

Attack on Celegwen (I'm not THAT old!) by Purplepirate

Attack on Ofelia (Starry-Freckled Ofelia) by mewt

Attack on Richard (Justice) by NotDax

Script Writing Progress!!! (For VENGEANCE)

A lot done under the hood that can't be done service with raw numbers, but suffice to say a lot of love and care is being put into making such serious, choice-based, and high-stakes content quality and feel great to play with any combination of choices!

• Here's some raw numbers anyways lol. I'm very proud of effectively having pumped out 2 1/2 books worth of incredibly complex and meaningful content in the last several months. It has been an intense labor of love for the hardest content in the game. Every single second of added care has been well worth it.
• Bear in mind that this is a flowchart I whipped up in MS Paint for internal use, but ✨I am sharing the jank anyways because it gets the job done even here✨
• This flow chart does NOT show pacing, the length of the game, variables accounting for many more choices, the number of chapters, or anything beyond the basic choice structure and some word count estimates.
• It's still a nice way to see at a glance that script progress is coming along nicely!

I am intentionally not going to elaborate on most of these labels to keep this spoiler-free. Please feel free to speculate lol. Happy to share the big chonk taken out of the script writing!!

• For needed levity in the narration and a very experimental chapter, I screeched writing to a halt to storyboard. It's where the green checkmarks are paused.
• I'd normally have much more written than even this, but focusing on that storyboarding is to ensure there is high comprehension and that everything I am aiming to do lands as intended!!

WEIRD STORYBOARDING (moar arrtt)

No needless spoilers! I hotly debated teasing some visuals here but am abstaining since it's content from the full game and largely contains very sensitive material. More numbers to contextualize the progress tho!!

• For a chapter with the visuals hard carrying the context of this (very verbose) visual novel, it was mandatory to me to present editors with the needed visual context so that they have comprehension of the text that accompanies it.
• This is unusual for our workflow, where the text almost always carries the VAST majority of context, with other elements of the game supporting and uplifting the text-based narrative!
• Story-boarding the introduction of this strange change in visual framework was a task in and of itself, which is complete. It took a couple of days in and of itself to ensure baseline comprehension of the setup, with the help of several patient friends and our stunning QA lads.
• Of the 18 unique full-screen visuals for this bizarre chapter, 13 are done! Done-done, ready to be programmed into the full game.
• From those 18 unique visuals, a grand total of 52(!!!!) variants are made with small edits and adjustments. This may seem like an insane scope, but due to the change in artstyle it is very doable!
• 44(!!!!!!) of those variants are done!
• For those of you counting, that leaves me with 5 unique drawings and 8 variants before all of this very weird stuff is done, and I will proceed with script writing and the other art per usual.
• I spent a considerable amount of time and care with all sorts of research deep-dives for this chapter. When I return to writing my narrative devlog series I'll be touching on some of that content in more detail!

COMMUNITY!

You guys are the best. A couple really nice milestones from this month:

• We hit 2.3k followers on Bluesky!!!! The community there is wonderful and I'm always thrilled to find new artists, accessibility advocates, writers, indie game devs, and other cool people. Thank you all for helping foster such a nice community around CBF!!
• We hit the funny number: the ratio of people who have added the early development demo of Catalyst: Blind Faith on itch.io to the number of people who have downloaded the game is at a very nice 69%. (It's a beautiful thing and thank you all for making it possible)

That's the monster devlog for the month! I'm incredibly proud to have so much to share and look forward to more updates. It may come as a surprise to many of you that I put the same level of care and consideration into self-care as I do everything else with my game, but rest assured if there's a short break in updates on CBF, it is me investing in this game by investing in myself! I can't wait to tear into more art for our demo and be feeling like my best self.

We have a stunning community management team who is helping me out while I am going to be recovering, and I adore hearing from you all. I'll still be around, so feel free to check out:

Our community Discord! [Link]

My gigantic archive of 500+ posts on Bluesky [Link]

Our MANY posts here on Patreon [$1 tier unlocks all posts, with $3 I could get a really killer can of instant soup tho oml]

The 8+ hours of content in the early development demo of Catalyst: Blind Faith [link]

My ancient backlog of old art on Ko-Fi [link]

A truckload of playlists with music curated by fans of CBF, our Discord community, and yours truly [link]

Or hell why not dig into the 2.4 million word backlog for Catalyst Quest, the inspo for CBF? [Not for the faint of heart, but if you really want to sink your teeth into the iceberg of content I've made in the last few years!]

I'll be sure to keep you all posted on when I am feeling better, and any and all support you guys are giving right now truly means the world.

Thanks for keeping me and this project in your thoughts! I'll be fighting some demons for the next few weeks and can't wait to come out on the other side with more good stories.

Thanks for reading!