Hey everyone,

I'm really sorry about not keeping you all updated in regards to NIRAVASI-related development this past week. Life's been pretty busy for me and will likely continue to be like that until the middle of January 2022. If you're wondering why that is, allow me to elaborate .

Currently, I am spending the holidays in another country and will be here until January 8th. I still have access to my work laptop, yes, but I will also be taking the time celebrating both Christmas and the New Year. Because of that, development of NIRAVASI has sadly stagnated a little. Don't worry though, as a number of new developments have been made since then.

Aruvi District Complete

Yeah, you read that right. The 5th Level is finally been complete, meaning the game's now around 75% finished. What's more, the Aruvi District was by far the biggest level in the game, meaning with its completion, the last two levels should be fairly quicker to develop (Don't quote me on that, though. The last two levels are still pretty ambitious in their own right). However, I won't be releasing the Demo Build for the Aruvi District just yet. There's still a few more changes I want to make (which I will talk about down below).

TEKMO Training Video

So it's been a while since I last talked about the TEKMO Employee Training video that I was working on to help promote the game. Now the first-half of that video has been complete for a little while and it was really more about dedicating time into finishing the development for the second half of that video. But as work on the Aruvi District continued, I wanted to ensure a satisfactory release for that level, so I put the Analog Horror video on hold until the Aruvi District was complete. Now that it is, I've decided that now would be the best time to continue production of the video.

Bug Fixes + Gameplay Improvements

Like all major Demo build releases for the game, I like to demonstrate to my audience that I continually monitor both feedback and bug reports as a means of showing everyone what their involvement in the project can accomplish. With the upcoming release of the Aruvi District, this process is no-different.

When playtesting NIRVASI, I noticed some slight interruptions in the game's framerate, but didn't think much of it at the time. However, when seeing other players with lower-end hardware attempt to go through these levels, it lead to situations where the lag made the game borderline unplayable (this was most prevalent within the hallways of Lotulanda). I can now hopefully say that thanks to some rigorous bug-fixing, I've solved the issue responsible for this. Out of bounds (where the player can't see), both the SARA and CALI units were positioned in such a way that when a certain event triggers, they would immediately teleport to a designated spot. This is a fairly common trick to use in RPG Maker, but in doing so, I forgot to remove the light sources associated with those events. Because of this, the game kept trying to render light-source interactions that occurred out-of-bounds, leading to an increase in the visual traffic. To fix this issue, I've gone through every location in the game that involves either CALI or SARA, and systematically changed how their lighting is generated on a map.

And it's not just bug-fixes that have been made. Several improvements in the clarity/visuals of the game have also been added. One such notable example is the use of flashing icons within the Stepwell of Dhara Hanirr. I often noticed during playtesting that players who worked through that level often had a tough time figuring out the objective of the level. To combat this issue, I made it so that if a Main Lever in a particular Wing was pulled, all the murals of that sector would begin to flash, indicating that the puzzle of that area had successfully been completed. There's a lot more changes I've made in the backend as well, but we'll keep those hidden until a later date. For now, just take heart in knowing that your feedback continues to lead to the development of a better game.

Release Date

Now this is an issue I've been debating on for quite a while, but one I feel is important to address to everyone that's following the project. So as it stands, I do not confidently believe that I will be able to meet the deadline that I had planned for the final game's release (February 2022). The game is not nearly at the stage where I still feel it's viable for a Full-Scale Release, and I fear that attempting to rush/crunch the game's development to meet that proposed deadline will lead to disaster. For context, here is the work that still needs to be done for the game.

• Complete the final two levels of the game (The Perfection Complex and The Palace of Nira Ishan).
• Finish developing both the Normal and True endings for the game.
• Completing the ambitious post-game experience, "The Path to Enlightenment".
• Complete promotional/marketing material for the game's release.
• Contact Publishers/Journalists/Consumers in regards to pitching release copies of NIRAVASI.
• Stamping out major bugs/flaws with the game to ensure a stable release (Certain Bug Fixes will likely come AFTER the game's release. For instance, V1.1, etc.).
• Ensuring everyone following the game's development knows when the game will be released.
• Finalise the Steam Page for the Game

In consideration of all these factors, I believe a more viable release date for NIRAVASI will come either at the end of March 2022, or at the beginning/end of April 2022. I apologise if this news is disheartening for those looking forward to the original date set, but I feel that as a developer, it's more important that I ship a game that'll give you all a great experience, rather than one complete with a shoddy ending and anti-climactic endgame experience.

And that's really all I have to say. I'll definitely have more information to talk about when the new year comes, but I don't believe I'll be releasing any new Devlogs for the project until then. If you want to keep up to date with the development of the game through other means, you're always more than welcome to check out both my Twitter and NIRAVASI's GameJolt page for new updates. With that said, I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Kind regards,
Angus (Sangos)