Listening To The Community - QoL Improvements and Current State

"TLDR: Wait for Laurel's unified build that will include all the QoL+ Translation base ready for both campaigns (End of EarlyAccess) Or Wait 3-4 Months to get ONLY BASIC QoL in the (Old / Current) Steam Build only to be scrapped later on and replaced with the new build, adding another extra 3-4 months of delay to Laurel's Campaign."

Hello everyone, first of all I would like to thank everyone for the support, especially to the kind members of our community that support us daily and kindly answer/help users on the forums when we are unable to.

I would like to address something that is the main reason for my stress and I want to listen to the community to make sure I'm doing the right thing. I'm talking about the QoL Updates of Echoes Of The Living, let me explain:

When I started building Project Moon (Echoes Of The Living) I made a HUGE mistake, I never planned how the game would be translated or even if it would ever be translated. That big mistake led to a code that did not allow the use of traditional methods of translation and in order to release the Game in Spanish (My main language) I had to duplicate a build and rework the entire code. That's why there are two different builds of Echoes Of The Living and why the saves are not compatible between builds.

What does this mean? This means that every update has to be coded and tested twice before releasing the updates. This way of working ended up in massive issues (like the corruption of the save system that happened a few days prior to release and took me so many months to finally fix).

Since the code can't be copy pasted between builds, if I miss a single value or make a tiny mistake it can take days to find the issue and fix it.

That's why since the release of the latest big update (the one that finally fixed the save system and added all the extra content) I decided to rework and optimize even more the code, this time with translation in mind. So... yes, that means that there is a third and the universal final build now.

This is the build where I have been adding all the Quality Of Life Improvements mentioned in all the previous posts and where I'm developing Laurel's campaign.

Some of the QoL Improvements are:

• Map System with more info and icons.

• New and Reworked Animations.

• Fixed Frame Perfect Input Freeze Issues.

• Reworked how I-frames work.

• Improved Boss AI and movesets.

• Visual enhancements and reworks in the Caves Areas.

• 2780 new interactable/inspectionable areas (Liam's Campaign).

• New Difficulty+ Mode.

• More RNG events.

• Inventory improvements.

• Storage Box Improvements.

• Being able to skip the "tutorial" section.

• Examinable and interactable weapons from the inventory.

• And Many MANY more.

So here is the thing: In order to release these updates I need to redo everything I made two times, one for the old English build and one for the old Spanish build. Since the new build had all the code rewritten, it is not compatible with the current (Steam) builds, that means reworking all the code to make it work in the English build and then re rework the code to make it work in the Spanish build.

Since I'm the only Programmer / Level / Environment / Lighting designer this task would take several months of only focusing on porting the QoL Improvements to the old builds instead of developing Laurel's Campaign, delaying the new campaign between 3-4 months.

So here is the dilemma: Do you prefer to wait for Laurel Campaign + All the new QoL Improvements or do you want me to fully focus on these updates and delay Laurel's Campaign?.

To be honest I feel like no matter what I do... I'm doing the wrong thing. If I focus on finishing the game I feel like I'm turning my back to the community and not supporting my Early Access game. If I focus on releasing all the QoL Improvements then I'm forced to delay Laurel's campaign, extending development costs and slowly killing the "visibility" for the full release while increasing the chance of removing content in order to finish the game.

I just want to let everyone know how the development of Echoes Of The Living goes and that even if I feel overwhelmed and overloaded with work and stress, this project is a long time dream for Laura and I and we will always take care of it with the maximum love and dedication as we have always shown.

Please feel free to politely express your opinions and remember that Laura and I are always reading your comments, suggestions and feedback. The forums are always active in case you have more questions or you need any help.

Best regards,

Alvaro and Laura, MoonGlint Team.