The day is almost here. With the release of v0.070 a couple of weeks ago and no reports of any major issues, I've been able to focus on the long list of little things that I have needed to do for the longest time. Many of these things are fairly small (and a few less trivial), but a lot of these things were internal to the game itself and not noticeable to the player. As a result, none of them were high priority items. I did gradually get some of these done over the course of past updates, but there were still so many left to do.

But guess what? I've knocked out nearly everything that still needed to be done. There are just a few little things that are left, including the rebranding of the game. That's right, the game will no longer be known as Battle Tower Royale. The reason for this rebranding is because the game is not a battle royale, yet the title suggests otherwise. To avoid more inevitable confusion down the road, I'm going to change the name of the game. This name has been decided, but I will reveal it once the final demo build is released.

The upcoming build doesn't change much from the playtesters' perspective, though there are various cosmetic and sprite enhancements throughout. There are much more substantial changes on the back end - I've gone in and refactored a lot of old code, including adding in a proper state machine for the player and an easy way to display faces on talking NPCs, which vastly reduces the number of sprites needed. This will make life far easier for me when I add new NPCs in the future.

I've also gone and pruned a substantial number of redundant sprites and objects. There were a lot of things created early in development that were later changed or made redundant, or sprites that could have easily been collapsed into a single sprite with different frames. This game's sprite tree is massive, and every bit I can reduce helps.

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But with that said, there are some new things to look forward to. When you load and save your game, you'll receive a screen recapping your progress as well as a sheet showing your character portrait. It looks like this:

What is the new level? You'll soon find out!

I'm also working on a special theme for the penultimate stage before the boss fight, which will be used throughout the different levels for the same stage. That stage is also covered in scrolling fog for visual flair. 

I'm also adding in a page in the character creation screen that will enable you to revisit the game's rules and mechanics. I also have a plan to add shortcuts to get to the inventory and spell book (I've heard some requests for this before so I may as well put it in), and possibly a separate page for your stats and resistances. I've got a few other ideas on what to do for the character creation menu, but nothing has been set in stone yet.

A lot of this won't take long, since the heavy sprite and coding work has already been done.

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It's been a long time since my first devlog post in April 2023, but this is it - the demo is basically finished. When the new title is finalized, I'll put out a new teaser as well as some updated screenshots with all of the new content. I won't say that everything will be ready by the end of the month, but if not by then then very shortly after!

And of course, continuing feedback on new builds as they are made has been extremely helpful in fine-tuning the mechanics and balance. Feedback is and continues to be extremely helpful, and I am very thankful to everybody who has downloaded and played the game so far. Thank you for your continued support, and I am genuinely for what the future holds for the game!