Kalia and 2024

First of all, happy late New Year's everyone! Let's hope 2024 is a better year for all of us (or failing that, let us all have the strength to handle it)!

With a new year, comes new resolutions, and it wouldn't be any different for the Kalia Project. In this devlog, I would like to go through some of my plans for the project this year. Let's get to it!

STATE OF THE DEMO AND ALPHA VERSION

Last December I released the long awaited chapter 3 update for the KatFS demo, however it is not yet in the state I would like it to be. Due to a hardware malfunction, the soundtrack for the chapter couldn't get composed, and so chapter 3 had to reuse existing tracks, which is not what I had in mind. Some non-critical but annoying issues were also discovered at the last moment, too late to get fixed in time (such as already defeated enemies respawning when reloading a save or checkpoint). 

I hope to get these issues fixed, as well as some additional improvements to the demo, done in the first few months of 2024. Once the demo is at a state I'm satisfied with, it will no longer get any more updates. KatFS development will transition to an alpha stage, where new developments will be made with the full picture in mind, not just the next demo patch.

TEAM-BUILDING

Since the inception of the project, I've always considered Kalia to be a multi-person endeavor. While it could be possible to see the project through as a mostly solo dev, it would take far longer than I would like for it to reach its desired state that way. Fortunately I'm lucky enough to have a group of skilled friends eager to create and very supportive of the project. 

However, friendship and team projects are not the same thing (even if I believe one can benefit the other if approached correctly). Fortunately, an opportunity has presented itself within the group for us to practice working as a team on a side-project, we're calling it a "private game jam" if you will. Our intentions are to go fast and hard on it, finishing with a game that we can at least play internally, but in the even this project is even more successful, it may even get a public release, who knows?

GOING META

I've been hammering away at KatFS development for over 2 years now, and with that comes a lot of experience, but also a lot of tech debt. One of my major goals for 2024 is to step away from direct development for a moment and focus heavily on the meta side of things. Revise old systems, make some necessary foundational changes, write a complete script for the entire planned game... This is slated to be done as part of the transition from prototype to alpha.

Beyond that, another goal is for the developer to touch grass this year. Okay, not literally, I mean go out to developer conventions more, get to know and mingle with other devs and have a chance to promote the game more directly! From what I've seen, people do become interested in the project when it's shown to them, so I want to go out and do it more. The world must know of Kalia!

Oh and on that topic...

I woke up today to a mention by Brazilian games website and podcast Controles Voadores on their "Action RPGs to Keep an Eye Out For In 2024"! (contents are in Brazilian Portuguese). I would like to thank the Controles Voadores crew for not only following the project so closely, but believing in it and shouting it out alongside so many other amazing Brazilian indie game projects! Vocês são demais! :D