A long overdue status update

You'd be forgiven if you thought progress had stopped completely on Shimmershoal. I haven't posted anything publicly for quite a long time now. The reasons for this are mainly personal, but it has to do with work, real life hurdles, and general burnout; common problems for the solo spare time indie dev!

Things have actually been quietly progressing in stealth mode, though, and while there's still a lot more to build to finish the project the overall scope and vision is solidified. In other words, most of the planning, prototyping, and systems-building is completed. Content time, baby!

Another major milestone is that day 1 of the game is fully complete and playable end to end. For context, the final game will be 3 days, so this represents approximately 1/3 of the game playable and fully polished. With day 1 in the bag, I have a framework and target for the level of quality I want for the entire project, which is very helpful for development planning.

I've already given this day 1 demo out to select testers, and the feedback has been very positive. It's very rewarding to see the response, and I feel fired up to get the rest of the game finished. I don't have a due date yet (this is basically impossible for a spare time project), but things are moving.

Thanks so much for all of you who have wishlisted the game on Steam, as well as followed the project or left comments on Itch. It really does make a huge impact on my motivation to work on the project, so please keep spreading the word to interested friends.

More to come, – Ian