Hello everybody! As of today, it's been six months since the demo's release. Wow. And all we had to do was literally nothing and let time pass. 

But you know what? I've been doing literally something. Literally. Because that word doesn't have meaning anymore! Yeah!

So where are we? Where are we going? Why is my life in shambles? Below, answers to two of these questions will be provided. 

Where Are We?

The past six months have been quite fruitful. I released the game on April 1st. Hardly anyone played it for like the first month and a half, which was great because the demo softlocked halfway through because Pokémon Essentials decided to insert some random code without telling me. However, that ended up being a blessing in disguise as I was able to implement a lot of bug fixes and quality upgrades in the meantime (Misty faces! Battle dialogue! Scrolling Mistys! Voiced intro! More Mistys!). To be truthful, the demo is only at around 80% of where I want it to be. If I have time, I'll upgrade some things before final release. But if you're reading this, you probably don't care about the demo. You care about...

Where Are We Going? 

When I released the demo, I scheduled 2-3 years of development time. And.... we're probably on track on schedule for that release? What? 

The goal is to have 50% of the game finished by the end of this year, including what's already done in the demo. I'll post another update in early January on progress. Then, I'll divvy the second half of the game over the following 26 months (tentatively complete in April 2027) and try to post updates every July and December following to keep you all up to date. The point is, we're making good time, unless everything breaks in the next three months and then you can all yell at me in the next update (or, you can yell at me now if you want!). But, I've gotten quite adept at Ruby, which should ensure some of the effects will get exponentially ridiculous going forward (and also that the game will work on android via joiplay yes i knowwwwww ive got to gut the battle dialogue system its butts)

here look at these screenshots

Here are also some other tech demo videos that work best with sound. But, Itch won't let me embed them here. Thanks, Itch! 

https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonRMXP/comments/1fn5w3w/the_power_of_sine_waves/

https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonRMXP/comments/1e91hk3/playing_with_some_new_grap...

That aside, thank you all again for your continued encouragement with this project. Honestly, I was near abandoning it the first month of release. However, the positive reception since then has encouraged me to finish it as it appears to be making so many people happy. There are many people I could thank for the success so far. Trust me, if you're posting about this game on the far reaches of the internet to your audience of twelve people, I'm looking at it (well maybe not everything you post there are some guys doing a playthrough and they're on part twelve and only halfway through but okay I'll watch more okay). But, I have been reading and trying to address all the input I see because I want this thing to be of great quality. In truth, I apologize for not commenting on more of what you all have posted. Often, I just get exhausted and don't have the mental stamina to respond to everything (and, replying "TAHNK YOU SO MUCH!!!!" to every single comment feels a bit overkill for outside readers, even if I genuinely mean it). But, I do sincerely appreciated all of you who have played, commented, watched a playthrough, are waiting for the final release, etc. It's been a wonderful encouragement.

Anyway, God bless, thank you for playing, and we'll talk again in three months,

Kwatar

*edit* By the way, for those interested, I made a post  honoring Rachael Lillis, the voice actress for Misty, in her untimely passing. I do want people to know I'm quite saddened by it and that I don't want to do anything to disrespect her memory. Humor is ultimately a tool and not inherently ethical or unethical. While my game is flippant, I want it to be nonetheless want to avoid disrespecting the innocent and the loss of human life is a tragedy. Anyway, thanks again for reading!