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  • Desolation Dev Blog

    Hey there! I'm Caz and every now and then, the others and I post updates here regarding the progress of Pokemon Desolation!
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    Posty
    Hello there! Posty here. Today’s post will be on the shorter side of things but still quite important as we have an announcement and some progress to share. So let’s just get straight to the main point.
     
    The Patreon is Back!
     
    That’s right, after some internal discussions with the development team, we have decided to officially bring back the Patreon. We are extremely grateful for all the support you all have given us, and if you wish to support us on Patreon, then now you can! again. Some of you would have already known this as it's been back for about 3 weeks now, but nothing was mentioned completely publicly outside of the Reborn Server. With that said, there are a few things I would like to note.
     
    Firstly, when Caz officially comes back to active development, then the Patreon will most likely look to move back to him to host, that is if he wants to continue it on his end. Currently, Darius is kind enough to host it for us (Thanks Darius!), so this is a bridge we will cross once we get there. We ended up having to make a brand new one since the previous one is currently unpublished on the site. 
     
    Secondly, until Caz does come back, Crown Tier will not be available for purchase. This is just mainly due to the additional work we are taking on while he is away, and we will not be able to properly commit to the main perks of that tier until we are a full team again. We hope to bring this back in the future though so keep an eye out for that announcement!
     
     And finally, even though Darius will be hosting it, unless specified I will be the one mainly writing up the posts, similar to these development blogs, so if you want to see the sort of shenanigans we get up to, then check out our Patreon below! There will be exclusive content that is only shared there, in which will be cut from our development blogs, including this one! 
     
    🎉 Patreon 🎉
     
    Okay, announcement done! Now let's talk about progress.
     
    ~ Excerpts from Patreon ~ 
    The Canyon
     
     As mentioned in several development blogs, in EP7 you will be heading north of Fairbale towards the Chryseum Canyon. This is an area in which Caz was going to be taking on while I focused on Keneph Resort, but as you can imagine, these plans have changed. This has now become my main focus point for development while working on other things in the background (if you’ve seen the sidebar, then you could tell I’ve been losing it a bit). As something we as a team have been really excited about developing, the overall progress on it has been slower than I would have liked. 
     
    Why is this? A couple of reasons really, one being job hunting! As many of you are aware, I have been trying to secure full-time employment for a long time now, interviews here and there but no major breakthroughs. For those who don’t really know me outside of Deso, I do a lot of creative stuff as a whole, from Photography, Social Media and Digital Marketing, and getting into that industry is… hell. So a lot of my focus most days is on getting a bloody job. Another reason is as a creative, I work on a few other projects as well, so as you can imagine, trying to juggle and balance multiple projects, and my personal life, can be a bit much.
     
    …
     
    So… I wrote this for Patreon two weeks ago, and in those two weeks I finally managed to land a job! Hilarious how life works sometimes. Now I can stress less on that and get organised into a routine to get cracking more with Deso. And with that said, the next blog post will be a big update regarding the Canyon. That is a promise. 
     
     On the brighter side, the rest of the team has really been hard at work discussing and working on other elements of the game, some you have already seen in the previous development blogs. One of those things… is something that we have shared on our Patreon. A new Mega Evolution coming to EP7! We mentioned about a new Mega on a previous development blog, but didn't specify what it is... And that is something that will stay exclusive for Patreon eyes only for the time being. We may look to reveal this later publicly in a future development blog... as a treat. So keep an eye out!
     
    Although we can not publicly share this with you at this current time, we can instead share with you this! 
     
     
    The Music Corner
     
     As we have been doing with a lot of our blogs lately, we have another snippet of a track Darius has been whipping up for EP7, our soundtrack is only getting better and better, check this out!
     
     

    Kanzen_Temple_2.mp3  
    Working with Darius over the last few years has really helped elevate the sound design for Desolation to a whole new level. Like with EP6, EP7 will continue to add to our original soundtrack, we have a lot in the works in the music department, and it's been fun to be able to share little extracts with you all!
     
    Filing the Cabinet: Season 3?
     
     Another post, another official art reveal! Once again, thank you to aGoodCabinet for working on these.
     
     
    As normal, here are his links, so please do go check them out!
     
    Twitter
    Instagram
    Ko-fi
     
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    Cheers for sticking with us during this quite difficult period as a whole, things are starting to be a lot more smooth sailing now moving forward. And with the Patreon now up and running, expect monthly blogs to return! 
     
    I look forward to sharing more with you all next month!
     
    Posty
    Ruby Red
    Hi all! Surprised to see me here instead of The Postman™, huh? Well he’s slid this devblog over to me to talk about a certain something mentioned before. Besides that, Caz still isn’t around, but that’s alright. At least in the art department there isn’t anything to worry about since he almost always let me do whatever I thought looked nice LMAO
     
    But firstly, how’re you all doing? We’ve mentioned to the moon and back how we’ve been busy with this and that, but I recently graduated and got my Bachelors degree! As of posting this I still have a month left in my internship, but it’s pretty smooth sailing now lol. Besides life, I’ve actually been doing a ton of work for Deso on the side.
     
    And I mean, a ton.
     
    Unfortunately, most of which I can’t really show due to spoilers, but today, we’ll be talking about…
     
    Kanzen Temple
     
    Ya girl has started mapping. Be afraid.
     
    Jokes aside, in EP6 I was just starting to learn how to map properly. It was mostly indoor rooms and just some reskins of older tiles to get the hang of it. Kanzen Temple has been entirely my baby, as are a few other Large areas of EP7.
     
    To give a small progress update on my side of map things, for example, I finished the Kanzen Temple map, as well as Astraciel Town, another area you will be exploring in EP7! and I’m currently working on another bigger area that’s around half done~ That’s not even to mention all the non-map stuff that’s being worked on! There’s so much stuff done now that I’m starting to run out of things to do. help 😭
    So don’t worry, progress is still being made! Dev blogs are kinda inconsistent lately due to the spoilery nature of everything right now, so we’re trying okie 🥺 As long as I’m alive on this planet, Deso will continue until the end >:)
     
    But moving on, let’s actually show you something lmao
     
     

    I hope the trees didn’t spook you! The layout in the Kanzen Temple area is fairly straightforward hehe.
     

    The main entrance of the Temple is what greets you at the top of the mountain. Pretty scenic, huh?
     

    A courtyard! Though it’s looking mad empty right now since we haven’t put NPC’s down yet ^^;
     

    An exit leading to further up. Kanzen Temple is a major tourist destination in Arcanius, so it’s a bit more than just a Temple now.
     

    And here’s one of the indoor areas. This isn’t the Temple, but one of the buildings surrounding the area. Currently devoid of any life besides one of our protagonists 😔
     
    I had a lot of fun working on this area! It’s a place with a Temple (woah shocker), so I tried to keep the vibes serene and breezy. I also kept the palette warm and comfortable with the soft pastels, so I hope you enjoy exploring the area! It was reference image hell while working on this tho, but what’s an artist without references and hell haha.
     
    Even though I’ve been doing a lot of mapping lately, I’m still at baby level lol. There’s still some minor adjustments I’ll make to the maps later on down the line, but you get the jist of it! Whenever EP7 comes out, I hope you enjoy all the new things I and the team have worked on! <3
     
    Since I’m feeling particularly Silly today, I’ll end my segment off with the silhouette of a new character you’ll meet in EP7~
     

     
    Filing the Cabinet: Season 2
     
    If you’ve read the past dev blog, you probably already know what this means.
     
    A while ago we commissioned some art of our custom megas for Desolation (because i’m not a fan of drawing pokémon. what am I doing here. anyway,) aGoodCabinet has nailed the Sugimori style for his pokémon art and we were familiar with him being in the fangame spaces, so it was a no brainer. He was open to it, too!
     
    So here’s more official art of one of our custom megas! 🐸
     
     
    Thanks to aGoodCabinet for taking on these commissions for us! Speaking of his comms, they’re still open, so feel free to check out his socials!
     
    Twitter
    Instagram
    Ko-fi
     
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    Now onto our final segment for today! We take a turn to go from Kanzen Temple alllll the way down to Keneph Beach, where our musician is taking a little break and breaking out the tunes for the area as well! He also has some words about it~
     
    Descend from the Mountain
     
    Hey Guys! Darius here, I had a lot of fun writing this theme! Keneph Beach is a super relaxing location in Deso where every player gets to see its transformation from the wastelands of the opening scenes to the new Resort! This theme took a lot of back and forth with the team before we got it sounding the way we like, and it takes a lot from Jazz harmony especially, surprisingly, gospel choir. 
     
    Hope you enjoy!
     

    Kenneph_Beach_Snippit.mp3  
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    That sure does sound like a lovely stroll down the beach, doesn’t it? Makes me want to go outside and touch some grass………………..…… moving on!
     
    Darius has been going crazy lately with all the themes he’s churning out for us! Looking forward to what you all think of the custom soundtracks he’s made for EP7! Since they’re… haha… music to my ears >:)
     
    Idk what to call this closing segment so it’ll be called this instead of anything good
     
    As said in our previous development blog, we mentioned our Patreon being down. We are looking into bringing it back soon enough, so keep an eye out for an announcement regarding that. It’s been a tricky situation, especially without the man himself… We’ve had occasional contact with him here and there so I hope… I hope!!!!!! he’ll come back to continue working on this with us eventually! I miss him :( But we have to make do with whatever situation we’ve been dealt.
     
    Thanks for sticking around with us so far!
     
    Ruby
     

     
     
    Posty

    Passion and Battles

    By Posty, in Records,

    Hey Guys! It's me, your friendly temporary lead postman delivering you the latest news regarding Desolation’s development. In this blog post… we’re back in business. (Insert “wooo” sound effect here) I’ll be going into a bit more details regarding what this means for us moving forward, alongside what we have been up to, a little teaser, and some more goodies! So let’s get cracking.
     
    Reigniting the Passion
     
     In the last development blog, I mentioned how we would be going on an “indefinite hiatus” until further notice as without Caz at the helm, development couldn’t continue in its current state. Since then, after a brief discussion with the man himself who at the time of writing this, is still absent from the team, we as a team will now be continuing development of the overall story until he returns. So what does this mean? When it comes down to developing Desolation, like with other story-heavy fangames, the lead dev will know the story like the back of their hand, whereas the team will have a good understanding of course, but not the full picture. This was one of the main reasons why we went on a hiatus as progressing with the game without a clear indication of the story would lead to something that wasn’t in line with the original vision. But after a brief conversation, myself and the rest of the Desolation Crew will be developing the story with our current knowledge. Don’t worry, we know how the main story will play out, and we are confident that we can deliver. With this in mind, even though we are “back”, development will be a bit on the slower side, so please bear with us! The creative heads are working in unison here at Deso HQ, putting our own thoughts and ideas into the game, so we look forward to sharing more details with you all soon enough!
     
     With that said, as mentioned in previous development blogs (a little reminder for those who forgot), you will begin your travels in EP7 exploring the mysteries of the Chryseum Canyon, located north of Fairbale Town, which is currently blocked off by some darn logs. You will encounter some familiar faces, as well as some new faces… Who are these faces? Is it Jarred making a return?? You’ll have to wait and find out! Chryseum Canyon has been something we as a team have been extremely excited to work on for a long time now, even way back during EP5 development. The different areas and landscapes you will be exploring throughout EP7 will be some of the most ambitious places we have worked on to date. Lots of time, effort and thought have and will be put into this area, and like Chef Quackington once said… “Quack. Quack!” (If you can somehow translate Psyduckian then congrats but he basically said “A storm is being cooked as we speak”).
     
     With the Canyon being the main focus of current development, what have some of the other members of the team been up to? Well moving onto this next section, Yumil has some details he wants to share with you all regarding some updates that have been made to the Battle Logger found in the Cellia Manor!
     
    Logging the Battles
     
     Dear Diary, Caz still hasn’t come back well after a year. Although I understand his circumstances, I find it hard to continue being invested in this project. Nevertheless, the team has resolved to make an earnest attempt at pulling it off ourselves, and I’m going to see it through.
     
     
    Today I’m going to talk about the Battle Simulator. 
     
    You may remember that computer in the Cellia Manor that let you refight some past trainers. This thing?
     

     
    I also don’t blame you if you forgot about it. It’s okay. I think it’s fair to say the thing as it is currently is a neat novelty that is quickly forgotten because, well, there’s not much of a point. Trainers were fought on a neutral field so it’s rarely a good recreation of their battle. Not every major story trainer was available. In fact, not even all of the Gym Leaders were in there! Well, Tristan has an excuse. Sort of. I think?
     
    Reeve’s not in there, Rosetta’s not in there either... Though, we think Caz had a reason about that, but since he’s not around to ask him again, I’m officially going to run with the idea Rosetta simply didn’t want her challengers to lab her before officially fighting her. I’m sorry that y’all live in a world where I get more involved with writing. 
     
    It's actually quite a bit of busywork for Posty to keep the Sim up to date. First is that it would ideally need to be updated every episode to include level-updated teams and all the new trainers. That’s annoying to do once, but doing it every episode for something that doesn’t currently have much of a point just eventually slides out of the priority list. The other reason is that it was also an eventing nightmare. Every iteration of the Battle Sim was a 500+ lines abomination of an RPGMaker event.
     
    Note the emphasis on the past tense.
     
    I took a hatchet to the whole thing and reworked the thing from the ground up to be far easier to work with, more interesting to use, and more rewarding.
     
    First up, the Battle Sim now automatically scales up the trainers to the current level cap. Bam, that’s a lot less teams for Posty to duplicate. (hi Posty here, thank god)
     

    Hi Rudolph, everyone say hello to an old friend now at the exact level cap
     
    Second, the Battle Sim now actually recreates a field fitting for the Trainer you’re fighting. The objective is to recreate the various boss fights of the game brought up to the current level.
     
    And lastly… the rewards.
     
    We’re gonna need to take a little detour for this. Some of you might know I wrote some code to make the NPCs able to comment on how your battle with them went. I, uh, I think this is technically advertised on the page for the game? Truth be told, I’m not super happy with how it got implemented in EP6. Felt very underbaked and surface level compared to all the things I wrote it to be able to do. I mean, I get it. This was all around beneath every other priority for EP6, which were something along the lines of, rework pre-EP5 content, make sure EP6 content is good, and, uh, make sure the migration to the new scripts hasn’t set the entire game on fire. Or frozen over the entire game. While still having Flash Fire as its ability. I’m getting side tracked. Still.
     
    One of the things that did take off quite a bit about the feature was the 6-0. The thing where you manage to beat a major trainer without having a single one of your Mons fainting, and while using no items from the bag. I didn’t exactly make the feature to be an unconventional challenge mode, but hey, might as well lean into it.
     
    We had plans in EP6 to have some rewards for managing to 6-0 the Gym Leaders, but we couldn’t figure out something good for it, so we just made a bunch of switches to keep track of your achievements and put it on the backburner.
     
    It's the good old dilemma of “We should probably give something neat enough to get some people interested in it, but it can’t be anything genuinely good either because it’d be missable content.”
     
    Enter This Guy
     

    What sweet deal do you have for us?
     
    This Guy’s taken up residence in the Cellia manor. His name is Luke and he’s going to be monitoring the data of the Battle Sim. For every trainer in there that you manage to 6-0, he will have a reward for you. And if you managed to 6-0 them back in the story? That’s okay. He knows. He’ll have your rewards waiting for you.
     

     
    The idea I want for those is to reward the players who put in the extra efforts with some cool shit early. We’ll probably make those rewards available in other places in the game later, but if you managed to 6-0 the final boss of EP5 back in the story, well, you deserve to go and do some crimes early. And if you didn’t, well, maybe your EP7 team can actually win more easily now? That’s cool by me.
     
    Well. There’s just a teeny tiny issue that I fucked up the way I register battle data in your saves and it basically compares the opponent’s fainted team against, uh, your current team… yeah

    Listen, this was the first thing I ever made for Ruby (The coding language, not our artist) and I didn’t know what a shallow copy was. Anyway, It’ll be fixed for fresh saves, and I’ve figured a workaround for EP6 saves.
     
    I hope this little thing will add some spice to the game. It’s an opportunity for us to give you more things without creeping up the scope of the game too much, to be a neat side-activity, and to encourage some of the challenges the community seems to enjoy.
     
    That’s all I got for you for today. I’ve got more things I hope to do, maybe I’ll get to talk about them again in another Dev Blog. I wanna try my hand at doing some bits of writing here and there, I hope y’all will like it if it comes to be.
     
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     I hope this is quite appealing for those who enjoy a bit of a challenge! Yumil has been working hard on adding some additional features to the game, despite being close to complete burnout with the project, so I do hope that you all look forward to and enjoy the content he is creating! I wanted to add a few things in regard to the Battle Sim. Firstly, when it comes down to certain trainers, I will be adjusting teams specifically for the Sim. What this means is like, do you really want to keep fighting Amelia on Forest Field? I don’t either. Some teams will be slightly altered compared to the story while others will be exactly as they were when you faced them. Secondly, the rewards. We don’t just plan on them being items that are either given a bit earlier, maybe you will receive some “trophies” that can be displayed? If we all learnt something from the Lockdown Days of playing Animal Crossing, we love having the ability to get optional decor for our islands.
     
    Rebuilding the Homes
     
     Over in the artist department here at Deso HQ, our artists have been getting back into the groove of development. A lot of the content that has been produced/in the process of being worked on is sadly spoiler territory which we may cover in a future post, but for now there are a few things I can share with you all. Recently, Ruby looked at some of the houses that the local residents on Amaria and thought “hmm, makeover time.” and she did just that!
     
     Below are a few things she has been working on, revamping and bringing new life into areas such as Redcliff Town and Addenfall Town!
     

    No, this does not mean door animations are making a return. (I'm not sorry)
     

     
     

    Even a certain Gym Leader got a brand new home makeover!
     
     She has also been working on a new area coming to EP7… Kanzen Temple. This is something we revealed in one of our development blogs last year, having major links and ties to the history of Chryseum Canyon, but we aren’t ready yet to showcase this to you, but maybe sometime down the line? You’ll have to keep an eye on our blogs to find out!
     
    Setting the Mood
     
     Story and gameplay aside, our musician man of many talents, Darius, has been working on some new tracks for EP7! Having him join us during EP6 has really elevated major scenes throughout the game and helped grasp different types of atmospheres to fully immerse the player in the world of Desolation. We thought that we would treat you all to a little teaser of a new track that’ll be played somewhere during EP7, you hopefully will get a feel and understanding of the sort of tension that you may experience as you continue the story.
     
     

    EP7 Teaser Snippet Fade.mp3        Yeah that's all you're getting, lucky you! 
     
      You may be treated to more little snippets here and there, or even fully blown tracks, who knows? It depends on how generous I am feeling…
     
    Filing the Cabinet
     
     Before I conclude this post, I have one more thing to share with you all. We recently decided that we wanted to properly create some “official” artwork for our unique Megas and Forms, though our artists are not the biggest fans of drawing pocket monsters, so what do we do? Who do we call? No, not ghostbusters, god.
     
     We called upon a fellow artist who you might recognise in the community and commission their services, we’re talking about aGoodCabinet! Over the next few development blogs, I will adding a little spice by posting them one by one, in which they will be added to our Art Gallery down the line. For this post, meet our cute little meech but in their Mega form!
     
     
     Thanks again to aGoodCabinet for creating these for us! If you wish to see more of their work, please check them out below, his commissions are also currently open!
     
    Twitter
    Instagram
     
    Closing the Blog out
     
     Before I close this development blog out, there are a few things I wanted to note.
     
     Firstly, our Patreon page was nuked a couple months ago! We don’t know how this happened, might be due to inactivity, but for the time being it is down and we will currently not be putting it back up anytime soon. This is due to two main reasons, one being that it was run by Caz who is currently missing in action and the other is that, it was on pause for a while anyways due to lack of development, and until we are all back together, it will still be on pause until then. Apologies to those who may have been looking to support us through our Patreon, we will hopefully have it back up later on down the line. 
     
     Secondly, despite us returning to development, Development Blogs will currently not be returning to a monthly format, we will look to post content when we have content ready to post. A lot of stuff we have been working on and will be working on is extremely spoiler heavy, so even if you don’t hear from us for a little bit, we are back to actively working on the game. I look forward to sharing more with you all soon enough!
     
    Until next time folks!
     
    Posty
     
     
    Posty
    Hi folks! It’s been a good while since we have given you an update in the form of a development blog. I have dropped a few updates on our Twitter page which you can follow here and if you noticed the sidebar of the development blog here, I have given a few “smaller” updates there as well. But given how long it has been since we have given you a proper update in terms of development, it seems right to let you all know what has been going on. But before I go fully into depth…
     
    Today marks one year since we dropped our Episode 6 update, and we just wanted to once again thank you all for the love and support you have given us and Desolation as a whole. Seeing you all enjoy the game, create fan art and craft theories really does help keep our passion alive for the project, even if we haven’t been that active in recent months, we are still here and we are raring to go! 
     
    Now, many of you have properly been wondering.
     
    Why hasn’t there been any Desolation updates since July last year?
     
    As hopefully a good amount of you reading this are aware, we have been on an “unplanned hiatus” for a good while now. This was announced in my response to a bunch of questions asked on our Q&A thread, which you can find a link to those answers here (the thread is still open btw, please feel free to ask us questions still if you have any!). I didn’t go fully into detail regarding why we were on a hiatus at the time, but since it has been a good few more months since then, I feel it’s right to let you know what’s been going on with the Desolation team as of recent. 
     
    To put it bluntly, our lead developer, or as you would know him as Caz, has been absent from development for a good while now. Outside of personal reasons for him taking a step back, he has recently gone head first into the medical profession as a career path, and for those who understand the ungodly hours that people who embark in healthcare have to work, you can imagine that his time to work alongside us on Desolation has been… limited. With this being the case and after having discussions with him, I have temporarily taken over the reigns as the lead for Desolation for the time being. Even though that is the case, Due to time constraints and our time zones not being the most cooperative, we haven’t been able to fully discuss how we want to progress with the story for Episode 7, hence that overall development for the game has been at a standstill for a good half a year now. 
     
    I know for the fans out there, this is not the news you would want to hear from us after months of no updates. We on the team have been itching to get back developing the game for a good while now. However, without a clear indication of how we want to proceed with the story, we ultimately decided that announcing an indefinite hiatus from the project would be for the best.
     
    With that said…
     
    What’s next for Desolation?
     
    To start, I think it would be safe to say that expecting Episode 7 to release this year would be a miracle. As annoying as that is to announce, we have to be realistic given our current circumstances, even if we were able to progress with development again within the next month, we do not want to rush out a product that is unfinished and unrefined. With the landscape of fangames evolving each year and the quality of games being produced consistently improving, it would not sit right for us to just quickly rush out something for the sake of making sure we release by the end of the year. With that said, I will try my best to make sure we give you all updates when we can, you can find us on X Twitter or in the Reborn Evolved Discord! Also watch this space as I might drop little updates here and there on the Blog Sidebar.
     
    Even though Desolation has not made any significant progress in recent months, it fortunately doesn’t mean that nothing has been done in terms of improvements to the game. We have been getting updates for our codebase and development tools which should improve gameplay as a whole and make development a lot more convenient for us. I can’t say much more on this, but the team working on the scripts have been amazing and are extremely helpful, truly the power team of Reborn, Rejuvenation and Desolation coming together to defeat our sworn nemesis: code!
     
    Also, I have been utilising this time recently in not doing much to give myself the most tedious job possible of organising the graphics folder for the game. This includes renaming sprites, deleting duplicates, and overall updates to make it easier for us to navigate the hellhole that is ~the Characters Folder~ if you know you know. This should also mean the download size for Episode 7 will be slightly less? By like a few MBs? Unless we go crazy and add a lot more? Which is very likely. Anyways this is not at all relevant to gameplay but thought I would share my pain with you all.
     
    On that note, I don’t think there is much more to say. Our next development update will hopefully be showcasing progress made on Episode 7. Any further updates regarding our current absence will be made either on our Twitter page, on the Sidebar of the main Development Blog or announced in the Reborn Evolved Discord. 
     
    Thank you all for being patient with us, rest assured that we as a team are still passionate about Desolation, and we will continue to work hard to bring new updates your way once we get back into the groove of development. I look forward to eventually showcasing the next chapter of our story. Until then, I wish you all a very positive and fulfilling 2024!
     
    Posty
    Posty
    ~ Excerpts from Patreon ~
     
     Hello there! It’s been a good while since our last Patreon post, and today’s post has been written by yours truly… no not Caz, this time it’s your local Postman here to deliver some of the latest updates and developments regarding Desolation. We have a good amount to cover so let’s get cracking.
     
    Life Update 2: Electric Boogaloo
     
     So for those who have been not keeping up to date with the recent developments behind the scenes… well there wasn’t any for a good period of time post-EP6. Some of this I have spoken about in our development blog post last month, which you can find here. But for those who didn’t see this, since the release of EP6 we have had a lot of personal priorities to attend to, which took the spotlight over actually working on the game.
     
     We may not be 100% fully back at this current point in time, we have slowly but surely made a lot of progress since that post, and getting back into the groove of things. You could say that some of us (especially me) suffered from burnout since release and that it took a lot longer to start sitting down and developing again. I spent a good three months straight before release managing testing, fixing bugs, updating a lot of stuff in the game, putting out multiple patches and overall making sure the game was not going to explode on us, that I didn’t expect it to burn me out more than it did. Now it’s July and it's safe to say that myself and the others have recovered and are active once again working on the game we’re passionate about. 
     
     TL;DR we back babyyy
     
     Now with that boring life stuff out of the way, let’s move into a bit of sunshine. also I mentioned it a few posts ago but if you wanna watch me stream sometime, here's my twitch https://www.twitch.tv/postyhd <3
     
    Catching the Wave at the Resort
     

     
     In the last update, I mentioned plans for Keneph Beach to get a little bit of a makeover. These plans are well under way, but of course you won’t get access to the area immediately. Keneph Resort’s construction is set to begin at the start of your Episode 7 adventure, but when that construction finishes? Well, you may have to give them a bit of a hand first before you can begin to relax in luxury at the many facilities and amenities it will have to offer…
     

     
     
     I won’t go into the details but you can probably gather enough information from these two screenshots alone the type of stuff you will be embarking on. You will be rewarded for your efforts, most likely in more ways than one, I assure you, it will be entirely worth your time. I will talk a bit more about some of the features you can expect later on down the line in regards to the Resort, maybe some things that are currently missing in the region of Ayrith will appear here? This is something I’m quite excited about working on, and like I spoke before, it’ll be my main focus for this episode. So expect more updates in the future! 
     
    For this next section, I’ll be handing over to Yumil to talk about some of the things he’s been getting up to this month.
     
    Coding Adventures w/ Yumil!
     
     
    Hi. Been a while since I’ve been here. Then again, my work for the past year was making the existing game not explode in the new engine instead of making new things, so that’s to be expected. Lemme tell you, it feels good to be back to making new things.
    The (Battle) Bus
     
     Anyways, you may know that a somewhat popular suggestion we’ve been given during the e6 life cycle was for a bus or some kind of easy transportation through the big cities of the game. Makes sense, Blackview still makes about as much sense as the Penrose Triangle.
     
     So a couple days ago, Ruby brought up the idea again and asked if we could make it a PokéGear feature like the Jinx Scent, where we could choose from a list of places to go and just get there. Assuming it was possible, at least.
     
     I run the idea in my head a couple times, and I realize that- If you can choose from a map rather than from a list, then this is just Fly with a different skin. So I spend an evening trying to figure out how Fly works, how it handles different maps and how fly points are made, and after another evening of work, I get this.
     

     
     
     And it works for all of the big cities!  Based on which city you’re currently in, the PokéGear will pull up the map of the relevant city and the list of places you can go to and let you decide.
     
     There’s still quite a bit of work to do on the feature - we gotta decide how we’re gonna handle giving it, I need to make sure it stays off during sections you really shouldn’t have access to it (hi, Blackview raid), and we’ll have to make custom maps for each of the cities, so we’ll have to see what we can come up with - but I’ve got good hopes we’ll be able to deliver something cool for E7.
     
    (We also Probably won’t actually call it the Battle Bus. Y’know.)
    The Quest Log
     
     The Quest Log has been overall very well received and I’m glad that you guys like the idea. That being said, it was made when I was still discovering coding on ruby, before we moved to the new engine, and as a result it’s rough around several edges. 
     
     Some of y’all from Alpha and Beta may have experienced the annoying bug of a quest becoming bugged for you and only you in release because we fixed a typo in the title of some quests, but because the title is how we identify quests, the game didn’t find the corrected quest name into the quest log in your save file. Yeah. Probably should have foreseen that no matter how careful Caz was, a typo would sneak in there at some point. Ah well, I’ve finally grabbed the opportunity to smooth those problems out.
     
    The main big bit that’ll actually impact y’all is this: 
     
     As you may know, some quests in Deso just… expire, after a while. The people you gotta interact with to complete the quests leave for plot reasons and there’s no more opportunity to complete the quest. Bummer, I know, but sometimes the plot just can’t really allow some quest to linger on forever.
     
     So after seeing enough people note that, I decided I’d take a note from one of my favourite game of all times, Xenoblade Chronicles, and add a timer icon next to quests that can expire!
     

     
     And while I was at it, I figured, wait, if I know how to add icons inside the text now, why do we even still bother with this annoying [DONE] thing we do to signal a quest is completed then?
     

     
    Nice.
     
     There’s some more behind the scene stuff that won’t really impact people but are worth mentioning. Did you know quests were still relying on the old PBS File + Compiler method from Essentials ? I even had a custom compiler for them ! Anyway, I finally got around to yeet it and just have the quests be written in plain ruby text. 
     
     Did you know that Quests were actually kinda really bad at figuring out how many lines of a text a single objective should take up and this forced Caz to try to fit as many of them as possible on a single line to limit display issues? Well, not anymore, I finally found a better way to do it.
     
     Anyway, that’s it for me. Now if y’all excuse me, Ghost Trick has finally been re-released on modern consoles and holy shit they made my favourite game from the Nintendo DS look SO GOOD. Y’all better start playing it if you don’t want me to send Amelia to mug you in your sleep real quick.
     
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     
     As you folks can see, Yumil has a lot of spicy coding updates coming in EP7! And we have a lot more planned as well. Moving into this next segment, I’ll pass the baton to Ruby!
     
    A Sea of Colourful Mushrooms
     
     Hi! It’s me Ruby, your local pen on surface rubber. Unfortunately I haven’t been whisked away by my villain faves yet (*sigh* someday…) so I’m still here. Honestlyyyyyyy though I’ve worked on A Lot of stuff at the moment, most of it I can’t really show 😔
     
    So let’s do the boring stuff first then the slightly funner stuff.
    NPC’s!
     
     I'm updating them. It’s painful. I’m in pain. Send help.

     Anyway I'd been wanting to do this since the last episode but ran out of time :| The NPC sprites (especially the overworlds,,,) needed a bit of a polish to fit the proper game style and I’m going through them for this episode to make them fit. Here’s a few small examples:
     



     
    Now onto cooler things…
    Astraciel!
     
     Part of E7 will have us venturing into the Astraciel areas. It’s such a mystical sounding name, isn’t it? The little icon on the map gave a smol glimpse into what you could possibly be out for, but here’s a current WIP of actual tiles! To say I was inspired by Ballonlea in SwSh is a teeeeeny understatement haha. Mushrooms are pretty fun to sprite. Y’know, I took references from actual mushrooms. I wonder if anyone can name ‘em.
     

     
     Areas in the game sure have been purpler since I joined LMAO. Instead of Ruby maybe I should’ve gone by Ameth- wait no.
     
     Annyywayyys that’s it from me B)
    Closing Thoughts
     
     Motivation for developing the game is back, and we’re once again getting the ball rolling with EP7. We appreciate and thank you all for the support, for sticking around and ultimately being patient with us. We will have a lot more new and exciting pieces of content to share in the upcoming months, so stay tuned! Also for those who aren’t aware, the Desolation Wiki is now a public project! If you wish to give us a hand in updating that, then check out the Wiki >>here<< and just well, have a crack and write up some stuff! Feel free to ask us any questions if you have any.
     
     Until next time folks!
     
    Posty
    Posty
    Hi everyone, This update is a little bit later than what you have all come to expect from us by now with our monthly posts, and I do apologise for that. This won't be a long post, just a little bit of information and transparency from our part alongside what's mentioned in the title of this post... I'll get to that in a bit. 
     
    So I'll turn this first section into a little Q&A.
     
    So what's been going on behind the scenes?
     
    To be completely honest, not much at all. We haven't had much to talk about over the course of the last month as we have been pretty caught up in our own personal lives. This is not the place to go into detail, but a combination of college work, seeking employment, and other matters have taken priority over developing Desolation and maybe too much dota, new update dropped, might stream again soon if people want to watch a british guy try to climb the ranks.., consider this a bit of an "unplanned" hiatus. 
     
    What does this mean for the development of Desolation moving forward?
     
    No need to fret! Like I mentioned in a previous post, we are still passionate about Desolation, therefore development will continue. Commitments are beginning to clear up, so we'll be able to get back into the groove of development soon enough. Motivation as a whole for the team hasn't been at it's highest point, the combination of life responsibilities and the sheer length it took to get EP6 out to the public space has taken a bit more of a toll than some of us expected. 
     
    Will we see more updates again soon?
     
    It will be highly unlikely that we'll have a development update for June, if you see one then fantastic! But I wouldn't expect it. Development will be fully resuming over the next few weeks, if we have stuff we're able to show then we will post about it!
     
    That's really as much as I would like to get into regarding this, we will bounce back and get cracking on with EP7 soon enough. I will be more active again around the Reborn server and on the forums here so, feel free to ask questions if you have any, we still have the Q&A thread linked >>here<< if you all have any further questions regarding development as a whole. With that outta the way, let's move onto the main topic of this blog post.
     
    The Revival of the Desolation Wiki
     
    As some of you may already be aware, we have a Wiki! During EP6's development, I opened up a Wiki project where we had a bunch of you sign up through an application form to give us a helping hand. To those who helped us out then and are still updating parts of the Wiki now, we see you and appreciate the time and effort you've put in!
     
    So why am I telling you all this?
     
    Well, the Wiki is... slightly outdated now, and needs to be updated to include EP6 content! And that's where you all come in. Instead of having this be a private project with a bunch of volunteers, we will be opening it to the public for you all to work together and edit!
     
    If you wish to make edits, feel free! This is just an announcement to say... Hey! The Desolation Wiki exists, and we need your help to keep it updated. But a few things to note, so please read this before you consider helping out.
     
    I will be monitoring the Wiki alongside a few others.  
    If we catch you doing anything such as posting false information on the Wiki, arguing about who does what, and other little thing, then we will look into the matter. I'm all for jokes and messing around but please keep it civilised, remember this is a public project, I wish for everyone who wishes to help out to do so!
     
    There is now a dedicated Wiki channel in the Reborn Server!  
    Instead of making a brand spanking new server, I have created a Desolation Wiki Channel in our section on the Reborn Evo Server! Please feel free to chat there and help each other when it comes to fact checking and other things related to Desolation while writing up pages!
     
    Feel free to contact us if you have any questions  
    If you have any questions regarding the Wiki, feel free to contact me and I'll answer them when I can! You can reach me either here on the forums, or on Discord, I'll be around in the Reborn server so just drop me a DM if you have something you wish to ask.
     
    Link? Here. >>Desolation Wiki<<
     
     
    I look forward to working with some of you in updating our Wiki! And a huge thank you in advance to those you decide to spend some time in doing so!
     
    Closing Thoughts
     
    Once again, I wish to express my gratitude and appreciation for you all sticking around and playing Desolation. The support is what helps us keep going, and even though development is quite slow right now, we will be back to showcase some of the stuff we have been working soon enough! I eagerly await to seeing your reactions to when we talk about them.
     
    Until next time!
     
    Posty
    Caz

    Canyons and Comfort

    By Caz, in Records,

    ~ Excerpts from Patreon ~
     
    Hey everyone! After a lengthy time away from the new development scene, the team has released the last patch for E6 and is now truly back at it with E7 kicking off!
     
    So... let's take a look, shall we?
     
    But before we do that, just a little note. The obtainable list - yeah, Posty forgot to post it, so here it is.
     
    Cruising through the Canyon...

    Firstly, I want to spend some time chatting about Chryseum Canyon, the next area that we are working on.
     
    Chryseum Canyon has a lengthy history, as it has historically linked the Kanzen Temple on the west of Arcanius to Astraciel Town further north. It also links more modern settlements such as Fairbale and the Visinite Range to the northern parts of Arcanius. The history of the canyon is well storied... but despite that, there are still missing pieces of the puzzle, and a large mystery that only a small, unfortunate handful are privy to...
     
    We will spend much of the first chunk of the episode in Chryseum Canyon, solving its mysteries. During this time we will meet many familiar faces... and also some new ones.
     
    Furthermore, Chryseum Canyon will not only be a reveal for new characters but also new Megas. Usually, we have only given custom mega-evolutions to key characters and events, but we now want to extend this, and enrich the world with new powerful mon's that aren't necessarily tied to anyone else. On our patreon, we reveal the first Mega Evolution we have planned for Chryseum Canyon - so head over there if you're interested!
     
    So... with myself and Crim working on the Canyon, what else is cooking you might ask?
     
    Well, let's ask Posty.
     
    A Renovated Paradise... Coming Soon!
     
    Hello there folks, I’m back again to deliver some new content to your emails about a little project I’m going to be working on for EP7! With EP6 now behind us, the team and I are extremely excited to finally work on some newer content we have planned for the next installment of Desolation. Before I talk about what I will be working on and if you have missed it, I posted a Development Blog a few days prior to leaving for Japan regarding EP6 and more which you can find here!
     
    So let’s talk… content. After all the work we’ve put into early game updates for EP6, EP7, and other installments will primarily focus on fresh new content. Obviously, we may go back to edit some stuff slightly, but as Caz mentioned it’ll only hopefully be minor stuff. So what do I have planned? Well as the title of this section indicates, a little area is going to have a bit of a makeover as you continue to progress through the game. Which area am I talking about? Well, if some of you backtracked to where we began our journey in Ayrith, you might have encountered a few construction workers researching the land for some new developments.
     

     
    For EP7, Keneph Beach will be transformed and soon home to the Keneph Resort! A place where the people of Ayrith can come to relax, spend time near the sea, and take in the rich atmosphere that the infamous beach of Amaria has to offer. You will encounter old and new faces here, either taking a break from their everyday lives, or perhaps even visiting for a different reason...
     
    As of writing this post, I am still in the midst of drawing up ideas for facilities and sidequest content that will be included here. But if you wish to know a few things I have planned already, well, I can’t share too much, but let’s just say that some things currently missing in Desolation when compared to the other games in the Rebornverse will be included here... so maybe it’ll benefit your team if you begin to invest into the Resort? Alongside this, we don’t just plan for this to be a place of relaxation, after all… trainers are also going to be gathering here, so maybe you would get the chance to battle some of them! We’ll have to wait and see.
     
    While Caz and the others work on content for the main story, this will essentially be my baby for EP7 (I will still be working on main story content as well!). I’ve had plans for this area for a long time now, I even debated with the team about adding it in for EP6, but we decided to hold off on the idea until now. There will be more updates to come as I look to develop over the upcoming months, and I look forward to seeing what you all think about this!
     
    I’ll pass it back to Caz now, take care!
     
    Wrapping up

    In conclusion, there isn't too much to share for this month. E6 has had its last patch, and E7 is now in active development... but we plan on keeping our cards close to our chest, at least for a short while. Just know that this episode will have many, many surprises. I am extremely excited to share it with you. Thank you for all of your support these last few months - let's get things cranking on the next chapter of Desolation.
     
    Caz
     
    PS - the Q&A thread is open, and now that we are back at active development, we are happy to answer your questions!
    Posty

    A Brief Post-EP6 Update

    By Posty, in Records,

    Hey folks! It's been a bit over 3 weeks (where in the heck did the time go these past few weeks...) now since we release Episode 6, so I thought I would take a bit of time to provide you all with an update regarding some post-EP6 thoughts, a few minor announcements and what you can expect from us moving forward. So let's just jump into this.
     
     
    EP6 Post Mortem
     
    With Episode 6 publicly released and various patches later, it's a good time now for us as the team to sit back and overall reflect on everything as a whole. From the development cycle to months of testing, Episode 6 has been a long time coming, and we appreciate the patience you all have given us with this update. Yes it has been over 2 years since we came back from a hiatus and released Episode 5, to tell you the truth we thought we would have released this Episode back in the Summer!! boy we were wrong... so very very wrong. Even though the Episode took longer than we expected, the end product is something we all are extremely proud of, Desolation has been vastly revamped in all areas, from graphical updates, to getting an entire new codebase (which we share with Reborn and Rejuvenation!). Our team doubled in size during that time, bringing in already known developers to some fresh new blood to the scene, they all deserve a lot of praise for the amount of time, work and effort they put into this Episode!
     
    Besides the lengthy delay in releasing the Episode, we have been watching all the reactions coming in from the update and it's been great to see all the positive comments regarding the game, from videos, to reactions in the Reborn Evo discord server, to the amount of Fanart popping up lately, we truly do hope that you all have enjoyed this Episode, and we do look forward to joining you in the future instalments of Desolation!
     
    The support you all have given us is what keeps us going, and while the passion for development is still there inside us, Desolation will continue.
     
    With that in mind, moving into the next section of this blog post.
     
    What's Next?
     
    "When's EP7!?"
     
    . . . Sometime in the future!
     
    After the long, vigorous development cycle of Episode 6, the entire Dev Team will be taking a small break from working on the Game. Don't worry, we won't be gone for too long, but after spending over 2 months testing, then all the time after making sure the game continued to run smoothly throughout release, patching the game as we went, we all need some time to take a step back and well, mentally reset!
     
    A few of us will be taking this time to focus on our personal commitments, school, being an actual doctor, not suffering from the depths of coding. While myself will be taking a break to explore the lands of Japan! Something I have definitely been looking forward to for quite sometime now. With that in mind, Development will look to resume roughly around the End of March. We will still be around to answer questions (haha foreshadowing) regarding the game, however when it comes to Troubleshooting, expect some delays in getting some help, apologies for that in advance! We have been working really hard on making sure everything was ready and good to go for this release, staying up some nights making sure that the game was functional once we moved into the next stage of testing. It's been a very long few months, and we all just, need to take some time off, hopefully you all can understand that.
     
    To tie in with this post, the hopefully final patch for Episode 6, 6.0.6, is now live (now 6.0.7) and you can view the patch notes via our downloads page here!
     
    Once we begin development for Episode 7, we will officially be no longer pushing out updates for Episode 6 unless some game breaking bug somehow pops up.
     
    Closing Thoughts
     
    To close off this blog post, I just got a few minor things to announce!
     
    Firstly, our lovely artist @RubyRed has dropped some Desolation artwork which you, yes you! can purchase! Interested in a canvas print of Reeve? or maybe a metal print of the Act Art? or what about some stickers of some Desolation Emotes!
     
    If any of you are interested in supporting her and dripping out your rooms with some Official Desolation™️ Merch... Warning, contains Spoilers! (yes she draws a lot of Mahito from Jujutsu Kaisen, you can buy that as well if you want)
     
    Check out her Redbubble right here!
     
    Secondly, I mentioned about asking us some questions... well we have decided to bring back the Desolation Dev Q&A thread!
     
    You can find it linked here! It'll be in the Manor section of the Desolation Club!
     
    Feel free to ask us any question relating to the Development of Desolation... just please don't ask us question about where you can find "y items" or where "x Pokemon" is available, this is just about development, if you wish to ask questions about in-game stuff, please go to the Discussions section of the club. We will close this again if this occurs.
     
    Well, that just about wraps up this update post. Once again on behalf of myself and the rest of the team, thank you for all the support you've given us throughout the development of Episode 6, and I hope that you enjoy/continue to enjoy Episode 6 and future instalments to come! 
     
    Until next time!
     
    Posty
     
    Caz
    Cover art by @Ruby Red
     
    Hey everyone - after two and a half years of development, its finally time to begin the next chapter of Desolation.
     
    Development has been a long and difficult process full of laughs and challenges. We rebuilt much of the game from the ground up, and rewrote much of the early game to better capture the world that I wish to create. There are many, many new features in this Episode, many of which have been captured in the game's dev blog.
     
    This episode captures many of the themes I have thought about over the last few years of development, and in reflection of the content I've written, and in lieu of how the characters reflect on themselves, I have aptly named this episode "Reflections".
     
    I know that for many of you, this has been a long, long wait! I hope that you enjoy the game as much as we enjoyed making it. Without all of your support, we would not be here! I am so grateful to how supportive this community is, and we can't wait to finally deliver this game to you. From myself and the rest of the team, thank you so much.
     
    For now, we leave Episode 6: Reflections in your hands!
     
    Due to the extreme amount of changes and additions, old save files that have not completed E5 data will no longer work correctly. For E5 saves to work correctly, they must be complete and be saved inside the Cellia Manor main bedroom. To begin EP6, please interact with the Bed in the main bedroom.
     
    When you're ready, swing by our downloads page to start the next step of your journey!
     
    Downloads
     
    This is not the end for Desolation - it is a new beginning, where we tell the next major chapter of this story. Let’s keep it up guys!

    Also, please report any bugs you find HERE!
     
    Thanks guys. We finally made it after two and a half long years. This one is for you x
     
    Caz
     

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    Come try out hit fangame Pokemon Desolation! Us Devs are going through it

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