Update log
Full Gastova: The Witches of Arkana update
The complete published notes, normalized for clean reading and source attribution.
Extracted changes
- Gameplay
- UI and audio
- Compatibility
- Balance
Hello Everyone!
It's been awhile since we had a development news here on steam. We apologize for the long wait! Let's discuss the state of the game, its future and how we shall go forward with completing the development of Gastova: The Witches of Arkana!
Current Development State of The Game
We need to be upfront with you guys: We had a lot of setbacks in the last few months that have not only delayed things further, but have also impacted the progress considerably. At one point, we truly believed the game was near ready until we came to the realization that it needed a lot more fixing before we could launch Endgame Patch.
That is not to say this is bad news for the game. We have managed to implement many things so far that we never thought we had the ability to, which gives us massive motivation to keep going. We will be showing gameplay footage today for the new menu overhauls and the finalized Grimoire system. Some things still need to have their descriptions and functions updated/tweaked but for the most part, we're comfortable with showing them in their current form!
We will break down the progress below!
New Menus and UI Implemented
Below is a video showcasing the new fixed UI in comparison to old UI. Some functionalities are still missing and we'd love some feedback from you guys regarding the added QoL!
Grimoire System
We have finished the new Grimoire System. There are a couple of adjustments we have yet to do that will no doubt happen during beta testing, and we will of course love to hear your feedbacks on these when we launch it with the Endgame patch.
Voice Over and Localization
We are super excited to say we have finalized all the recording and audio post processing required for voice over! And let us tell you guys, what a journey it was. We have over 1000+ lines of dialogues, and we can't thank the amazing talent that has worked with us enough! Of course, the voice over is optional, as we will make sure to include a voice option in settings for those who don't wish to play the game with this feature.
We are also looking into finalizing the localization for the remaining languages (Japanese and Spanish). There is a chance the localizations will not be present in endgame beta patch prior to the final release, but we will try our best to make it happen.
What are the plans for the future?
Our most immediate plans continues to be fixing any leftover UI problems and looking into other things that require our urgent attention. Let's go over them briefly:
Game Contents
We still have to work on some boss fights as well as enemies. Most of the bestiary is complete, counting roughly 192 enemies and several bosses. However we still need to playtest and find a way to balance certain things. We will rely on the endgame patch feedback as well when the time comes, so we'll be welcoming everyone's opinion!
Savefile Compatibility
Making sure the saves are compatible has been for sure one of the most limiting factors during this overhaul and fix.
One of the reasons we could not implement bestiary enemy defeat count, for example, is that the old savefiles would definitely break due to the lack of enough variables. We apologize that this feature will be missing because of that.
We will look into converting currencies and upgrade progress into
Source