How goes it, my pupdogs?

It's been a SPICY-HOT minute since we've last spoken, hasn't it? Figured I'd keep you guys in the loop as to what's been in the works. First off, we've been hard at work on our sophomore title, Ephemeral Legend, a 2d action-adventure inspired by a franchise or two you may be familiar with.

Additionally, we've been working with the cool cats over at Chintzy Ink (the rock-solid creative team behind the gorgeously gruesome My Familiar) on another title in that same engine, Jester Knight! Here's a sneak peek at that, exclusively for you:



And finally, I've quietly been working on Ephemeral Tale in my spare time. Today's patch is for v.1.50.7, and has a multitude of changes in it (some big, some small). Some of you may be aware that I've been working on an update for Ephemeral Tale for some time now, but this isn't  that update-- that will actually be another, full-sized Major Update. This update had a lot of changes that I've moved up from the next Major Update to this patch, but also a TON of stuff that got added naturally during the beta process (this update is actually bigger than Major Update #7 and rivals some of our early Major Updates, as well!). However, with that said, I did want to get these changes out now for current players since I've asked you guys to wait for a LONG time at this point. After the changelog, stick around and we can talk about that major update and some other great stuff, yeah? :)

Ephemeral Tale 1.50.7 Changelog:

- Added a new encounter method for Gribbler
- Lowered the hiring cost of Mercenaries by ~25%
NOTE: I'll likely be lowering this further in a future update (or outright removing it if I can untangle the logic internally), but wanted a "quick" fix for current players
- Added a new armor, Mask of Nour
NOTE: This armor can be obtained from mimics.
- Added a new weapon, Reddick's Lance
NOTE: This weapon can be obtained from any "rare" type of enemy.
- Added abilities for Jackson, the doggo. Our best boy will now learn Bite at Level 1, Growl at Level 15, Fetch at Level 25 and Belly Rubs at Level 40.
- Buffed the Greedy Gauntlet
NOTE: Now lowers stats by 10% (was 20%), no longer lowers Max HP and MP. Increases base stats by +5 each. This is likely offset by the stat lowering, albeit less-so now.
- Clarke will now automatically unlock when initially entering the Realm of Shadows
NOTE: Due to a shocking amount of folks missing Clarke (and then being upset that they are good at the video game), I've decided to just have Clarke auto-unlock if you miss her at first. No more backtracking for her!
- Adjusted Power growth rates by 20-40% in order to reduce required Power to hit level cap
NOTE: This is actually a fairly in-depth change that's hard to summarize in a bullet point. The gist is that I wanted to make it easier to hit level cap (i.e., less grindy) as you could play through the game twice and still fall short. While this update was in beta, I tried a separate change that would have adjusted the Power required to hit cap by ~33%. For technical reasons, this adjusting of the Power curve didn't play well with existing saves. To ensure both future and legacy saves worked with this change, I instead opted to change the Power players received instead. This, however, is why such a wide range is listed in the above patch note (20% is very different from 40%, after all!). Due to how Power scaling works, normal mobs benefit more from this change than boss monsters. As such, normal mobs will be much closer to a 35-45% increase, where as bosses are closer to 20-25%.
- Upped base (pre-multiplier) Power rates of most Realm of Shadow exclusive enemies by 20%
- Increased Darune, Lord of the Sands' base Power rate by 45%
- As an aside, this seems like as good a time as any to publicly state base Power rates for enemies. Normal mobs (with a few exceptions) fall into the 5-10 Power range at Lv 1. Most rare mobs fall between 20-25 Power at Lv 1, and most bosses fall between 40-50 Power at Lv 1. There are some exceptions-- enemies exclusive to the Realm of Shadows tend to be on the higher end of that 5-10 range, and mini-bosses tend to be around 10-15 Power at Lv 1.
- Some small QoL updates to the character sprite select screen
- Small QoL change where you only need to open the door to the main dungeon once per side (Realm of Light/Realm of Shadow) instead of repeatedly
- Fixed a bug where colliders were improperly set in both variations of the tutorial cave
- Fixed(?) a bug where party members wouldn't properly scale to the players level
NOTE: This fix is ACTUALLY just me adding +1 to their level, as they were seeming to come in at 1 under the player level. This SHOULD resolve that safely!
- Fixed multiple instances of bugs where colliders were improperly set in the Realm of Shadows
- Fixed a bug where Tilley wouldn't properly heal the party when interacting with her in the Mute Mountains
- Fixed a bug where you could end up in the old tutorial zone
- Fixed a soft lock that could occur in the Magma Meadows when unlocking a shortcut
- Fixed a potential sequence break in the Oasis that could cause someone to get stuck until exiting and re-entering the dungeon
- Fixed a bug where Jackson and Curtis wouldn't properly level up w/ the player character as anticipated
- Removed "pixel smoothing" from being applied automatically, causing a smeary appearance to the game
- Fixed various other, small bugs
NOTE: I'd be more specific but a lot of these changes were not super well documented

Please note that Ephemeral Tale was never "pixel perfect" upon creation due to a failure on my part to properly plan ahead from the start of the project-- you will see "mixels" and other weird visual oddities somewhat frequently due to this that may impact the presentation for you.

WHEW! That ended up being more than I intended, but here we are! So, with that out of the way, let's catch up, shall we?

As some of you may know, I had to stop working on Ephemeral Tale for a while due taking on a day job to pay my bills (indie dev is a thankless endeavor, after all), but around 2 years ago I was able to transition to being a full time developer. This was accomplished by primarily being a developer for other people (as an aside, if you're looking for someone to consult on a project of your own, feel free to reach out to us!). This, along with moving my free time to the next project is why things slowed down so much for Ephemeral Tale. With that said, there are some skeletons in the closet that I still want to deal with before I move on from the game on a more permanent basis.

Let me introduce you to our 8th (and at least for now, final!) Major Update: Ephemeral Tale DX.

Whaaaaaat? DX?

 That's crazy, huh? Yup! For those not in the know, Ephemeral Tale was built in a heavily customized version of RPG Maker, meant to make the game feel as snappy and non-RPG Maker as possible. In some ways we succeeded, and in others we failed. There have always been little things that have irked me about the game, however, so as I've honed my development skills, it eventually became time to right the wrongs of the game.

We've been working on a conclusive, deluxe edition (hence DX) for quite some time (over a year now!) and can't wait to bring it to you in the next few months. But that still begs the question, "So what makes it so Deluxe?" Let's talk about that!

Ephemeral Tale DX will improve on the OG game in a number of ways, including (but not limited to):

A new game engine – We've spent time porting Ephemeral Tale to a newer iteration of the engine, with a new backend for graphics rendering. What does this mean to you, the player? Better performance. Less crashes. Native Linux & Mac versions of Ephemeral Tale DX. We've also reworked our content protection methods, so the game should be much more friendly to low-end systems than before!

Improved presentation – We've done a polishing pass on everything from the presentation of combat to the menus to make things more legible, less confusing and more intuitive. Additionally, we've gone through and added some new abilities and behaviors to enemies throughout Ephemeral Tale to make each fight just a little bit more hectic.

New content – Oh yes, you read that right! The Oasis overhaul we mentioned over a year ago? It was always meant to be part of this. That new dungeon we showed off? Yup, it's here. New quests? Gear? Enemies, bosses, secrets? You can bet your tuchus on it.

Skill Tree overhaul – The old skill tree was a major sore point of Ephemeral Tale for both players and myself alike. The core issue was modifying it; it was extremely fragile and dangerous. As part of our porting efforts, we did a massive polishing pass for both the presentation for players AND ease of use for developers. The skill tree has been given a completely brand new coat of paint, and I can't wait for you to try it out!

Xbox Release – Whaaaaat?! You're still on about that?! You betcha! When I promised to bring Ephemeral Tale to Xbox gamers, I meant it! I've always intended to keep my promise– now I'm making good on it.

Ephemeral Tale DX will release as a FREE content update for Steam (& Itch.io) players in (hopefully) Q2 2024-- then finally, it will release for the same great price point of $14.99 on Xbox later this year.

I'm so excited to finally be able to share this with you all, and can't thank you enough for all of your support and patience with me over the multiple years I've worked on this project. You guys are the best community I could ask for. I sincerely thank you for everything you've done for me. <3 Your feedback has shaped this game in ways you could never imagine and I'm so happy to have been able to share this creative journey with you, through Ephemeral Tale and further beyond!

With love,
– Ryan

I hope to see you all join us for Ephemeral Tale DX and one day, Ephemeral Legend! Until then, come chat with us on Discord!

Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/jpStbUf