Hey everyone,

It's been a while since I last made a Devlog for NIRAVASI, but for those of you that have been keeping up to tabs with my other posts, life's just been really busy for me. I've been moving into a brand new home., which has resulted in a lot of heavy-lifting. Thankfully, I'm happy to announce that most of the work has now been completed! Not only do I have a new place to sleep, but I also have crazy fast internet connection to better improve my download speeds! Huzzah!

However, I should mention that I will still be making the commute between this new home and my current place of work. This is mainly because the SOVERAM LTD business is registered here and it's just easier to keep it that way, rather than go through the hassle of changing it. But enough about my personal life; let's talk about life in NIRAVASI.

Lotulanda Rising

So as I mentioned before, work on Lotulanda is now in full-swing. After a few weeks of taking a step back and analysing the feedback on Ishani Bazaar, it's now time to move on and begin work on NIRAVASI's 4th Level, Lotulanda, the Grand Library. It's important to note that Lotulanda size-wise will be smaller than Ishani Bazaar, but also include a number of unique locations to visit here. For example, there will be giant fossils, planetariums and maybe even a cafe or two. But of course, the biggest feature will be the SARA unit, the antagonistic force of Lotulanda. I'm still figuring out the kinks of its design and will even need to see how it works in-game, but I can happily say that I think I've figured out a system for it that'll work wonders.

Yet before any of this work can be done, we first must bare witness to another one of those "vista" moments that NIRAVASI is known for. In the first level, it was a silhouette of the Stepwell of Dhara Hanirr. In the second level, it was the city of Niravasi from a distance. And in the third level, it was a view of the city itself. For Lotulanda, you'll get a lovely look at the great library from the outside, which is heavily inspired by the Lotus Temple within New Delhi. My hope with this is that I'll be able to bring this place to life and show just how beautiful it really was to the people of Niravasi, so long ago. In the image above, you can see a very rough wireframe of the sprite I'll be using as a backdrop for the player to see as they make their way to the Grand Library. It definitely takes quite a while to create pieces like this, but my hope is that moments like these will make the journey through the city that much more memorable for the players.

Bazaar Trip

It's been a couple of weeks since players got their hands on the Ishani Bazaar Demo and I can happily say that it's been an absolute success amongst players. Horrible Crash Bugs aside, all of the players (that I know of) that gave Ishani Bazaar a test had nothing, but positive comments to give. I was really happy to see all the hard work I put into this level pay off and it gives me enough confidence to give a level of this scale another shot (here's looking at you, Level 5).

However, there were a few things that I noticed through playtesting. The first is that players had difficulty identifying where to go after discovering that the entrance to Lotulanda was locked behind a gate. From the start of the level to that point, players had a good idea on where they needed to go. Once they reached that moment, however, that's where things got a little confusing. That was actually intentional by design, as I wanted players to figure out for themselves where they needed to go by identifying the clues in the surrounding environment. However, I do agree that it's maybe a little too harsh with how little information there is to go on at this point, so I've gone ahead and added a few more hinters to help guide players on where they MAY need to go (I don't want to hand players the solution on a plate, after all).

The other, which is a bit more of a complicated issue, is in regards to Flashlight usage. I've noticed that many players tend to keep their Flashlights on during cutscenes and there were many moments that they'd be lost in the darkness when it ran out. It is nice to see them figure out that use of SV Terminals is important, but I feel like maybe the amount of Charge you have is a little too harsh at the moment. I've gone ahead and increased the amount of Charge the Flashlight has, but if that still doesn't help, I may need to look into giving it a bit of an overhaul.

Full Access

When releasing both of the NIRAVASI Demos, there was initially a bit of a hiccup when it came to releasing the Paid Full Versions of the current build of the game. To avoid any issues regarding monetary transactions and ensuring that everything I was doing was perfectly legal, I carefully read through the Terms & Conditions on each of the different sites that the game will be hosted on. However, as I am a self-managed business, there may be a few hiccups in this process.

Things seems to be going well enough now, however. I've had a few donations from those that wanted to pledge to the game's Kickstarter project, as well as some really kind shout outs on Social Media. I'm always keeping on eye on the game's development to everyone outside, so if you're talking smack about either Mura or my game, I'll know. ;]

That's it for this week's Devlog for NIRAVASI. It's been a crazy couple of weeks, but my hope is that most of the hard work in my personal life is over and will now mainly just be sorting out stuff like taxes and completion forms. Work on the game will now continue uninterrupted and I hope to have that lovely looking framework of Lotulanda's vista image completed either by this weekend, or the next. Until then, feel free to follow me on my Social Media pages to keep up to tabs with the game's development.

Kind regards,
Angus (Sangos)