Possible Return

Hello Everyone, It's been a while.

Hard to believe that it's been at least four years of me working off and on with Reazura: Gem Tides. At the very least now that time has gone on and I've managed to grow I'd want to answer a few questions.

Where have I been/What have I been doing?

I've been dealing with burnout and a whole host of issues regarding personal life details that I won't go into here. I've mostly been just working on Reazura when I could and when I had the drive, which thankfully bore fruit. Most of my original plans for the game has changed with additions and redesigns shaping the game as it goes.

Reazura has changed, a lot.

In my last post of the "Indefinite Hiatus" I had said I was trying to minimize spending on the game, but I found myself going against my own words and buying more assets to use and tweak. VisuStella is my primary source of plugins using to develop Reazura to the level I feel is adequate for my first game. There are other plugin developers I've acquired plugins from, but I cannot remember off the top of my head the names, but all are credited in the game.

I've also gone on record saying Reazura was my dream game, which whilst true to an extent; isn't my vision for this version of Reazura.  RPG Maker is a powerful game engine for RPG games, but is limited in a lot of areas for what I want to fully realize the vision of the game I've had for years. Through a lot of retrospection and hearing advice from prominent developers on YouTube and elsewhere, I've came to terms with the fact that this game isn't going to meet my perfect expectations and to instead simply make this game as a way to gain experience.

To talk of what was added beyond plugins I've also began to take free Art Palettes from Kokoro Reflections, art from other creators in the RPG Maker MZ forums (following the allowed licensing from the creator themselves: Don't be "That Guy", credit and follow the artists' requests), and also using sound bytes from other games to represent what I want for the game. These assets are being used following the license/credit agreements of the artists I had acquired them from. I've borrowed voice snippets from Hyrule Warriors, and as such those snippets are credited to the original VA's and my hope is to replace them at some point in the future but for now they make up for the lack of Voice Acting on my part. I've even got sprites from Aekashics Library through their Patreon.

In terms of removal I've completely removed two party characters and redone them. I didn't like how they meshed with the game world and the other party members. I've also removed the character Tristin and renamed them and reworked them into Sylus. Tristin was named after an at the time friend whom I've had a falling out with over a simple reply to a situation happening (YouTube drama that was blown out of proportion). Due to the blow up I've decided to remove any and all mentions of Tristin from the game including their voice files, and out of the respect for the man behind the voice I still thank him for his time.

I've also removed the original class system and split a few classes apart in favor of a more modular workspace for easier addition and removal of classes and class functions in the future.

Release Date?

There is no concrete release date as I'm still working on the game. I'm not a full time developer and instead develop this version of Reazura as a hobby. However this is where I'm going to at least say I may begin to release more Demo/Beta versions of the game to let the community test the game. My game Reazura has little community outside of some who I work with, and a game is only alive when there are people playing it. As such I'm willing to once again put out more of my Pre-Release builds or Early Access if you will.

I'm also going to still say this: THE GAME IS NOT FINISHED!!!!

There is zero reason to treat the game as a finished product, which has happened in the past. The game is also meant for General Audience viewing as there is swearing and themes of violence. I'm making this clear here, so if anyone complains that the product isn't finished  This is why.

Final Thoughts

I don't like being rude or brash with my words yet sometimes like now it's needed. The game isn't finished, and there's no telling when it will be done. It's my first game and as I learn new mechanics or new skills to use for the development of the game, I add what I can with the time I set aside to do so. The game will eventually be released for free as I've haven't changed my mind about that decision. I view game development as an art, and unless I feel like it's work that deserves to be sold everything I plan on releasing is free and will remain it. If people like the product they can donate if they wish, but I'll never ask for anyone's money. I'll only ever ask for a moment of your time to view Reazura and possibly share it around.

Here's to hoping things will get better, See you all on the other side.

James "DragonLuigi" Moore