Jan

Recently I took some time off work with the dev team! We decided to take a nice and relaxing vacation in the depths of Darchlight Woods... However, something turned this relaxing vacation into an adventure made up of discoveries! And let me tell you! What we found... Will shock you! !!Aevian Form Discovered!! ... ... ... Merry Christmas!!!

I announced in my prior post that Terajuma was getting some work done! In this process, a new area was added, with a new quest was added! In this quest you'll meet someone you've heard but have never seen! Oh, and those other two are here as well. Flora and Florin have time off and they're visiting Terajuma so that they can explore through a mysterious temple found deep within the dense jungle. For this journey, they brought friend with them! Introduce yourself, please! Full body art: Talon has appeared! Talon is a skilled adventurer, as well as a well-known cartographer. He travels through the region on his off time to draw maps of dangerous and unexplored areas. He is a good friend of Florin, but he and Flora don't seem to get along very well... Q/A no one asked for Q: Will I be able to do this quest on my completed v13 file? A: As per the twitter poll, all quests introduced in v13.5 will have a grace period. While it'll be a little weird for you to encounter these folks so late in the game, I feel like it's better to, you know... Not force people to replay the game to see a new and major sidequest. However, once v14 drops, they will expire at their appropriate times. So do them while you can. Q: Does Talon have an accent? A: Yes, he has an Australian accent. Q: What's Talon's favorite type of food? A: Savory Q: What is Talon's least favorite food? A: Not too keen on overly sweet and bitter foods. Q: Height? A: 5'11 Q: Why is Talon's hair and skin different in some patches? A: Talon has Vitiligo. Q: Where is Talon from? A: Australia. He is not from Aevium, but he currently resides in Grand Dream City. Q: Is Talon's ace Talonflame? A: No, and he doesn't like when people assume this! Q: Favorite Pokemon? A: Rufflet Q: Least favorite Pokemon A: Any Pokemon that are spiders or snakes.

13.5, while not a huge update in terms of main story, is a huge update that will focus on a lot of smaller things at once. Why am I taking the time to make a 13.5 update? Well... version 14 is going to be a huge undertaking and I want to be able to focus on it in its entirety. As a result of that, I want to make sure I tie up any loose ends and clean up everything I can. So what is being looked at in 13.5? Terajuma Grand Dream City A new questing system QOL updates (Quality of life) Gen 8 DLC* New Aevian forms *On the note of DLC... Obviously, I'm aware of the new forms being revealed in Legends: Arceus. We're going to have to wait for those games to come out before we even touch those. There's also the issue of stats not exactly being calculated the same in that game? So we'll have to do some tinkering with that. Terajuma and Grand Dream City There were changes to Terajuma this version, but they were very superficial. I actually wanted to do bigger changes there, but it was bloating the v13 cycle. Couple with burnout, a lot of stuff was shelved temporarily. Same with Grand Dream City. Both areas will be receiving some clean up and polish. Some small previews of Terajuma: New Questing System There's a new quest logging system! Whenever you accept a quest, it will be logged in a brand new menu. With this you can see which quests are currently active, ones that have been completed and ones that have expired. Additionally, you can check exactly what you need to do at any given time! So no more guessing! New Aevian Form(s)? Yes, there will be new Aevian forms, of course. In fact, on my Patreon, I already revealed a new one! There's not much to say about this one, so just take a look! >Meet >Best Friend Meet your new Best Friend! That's all I have to show for now! 13.5 progress has been going steadily. That being said, I don't expect 13.5 to drop this year, and that's probably for the best. A break is always nice. I'll try to be more frequent with updates. Perhaps every other week? We'll see.

So, this post has been a long time coming. This is something that plainly just needs to be said. Intense mode has become a problem. Let's rewind a bit. Back around... I wanna say v4-5? Intense mode as added as an extra challenge for players. It started out fine, but as the game went further and further, things became quite out of control. Things that are our faults, and things that is just there because of Pokemon's inherent gameplay flaws. Everyone wants something different out of Pokemon, and fundamentally, the way Pokemon is structured, every experience is different depending on the selection of mons available, yes? While this is a good thing, it does come with its own drawbacks. Balancing nightmares, being up and front. I can say with confidence that it is literally impossible to create a difficulty mode that makes everyone happy. I see why Game Freak let go of the idea of challenge modes (For the time being.) So what does this mean? What am I getting at here? I'm just going to say it plainly. From 13.5 on, Intense mode will be removed from the game. Now, I can see a couple of you heading towards the door, but I ask that you stick around and read the entire post before doing so. I understand Intense mode is a feature that is beloved by many. However, the side effects of this mode existing have completely gotten out of control. The gatekeeping, the "get good" attitude, the back and forth on who is right and who isn't... This isn't what I wanted this to be. Rejuvenation was supposed to be a fun project with fun characters, worlds, and experiences. It was not about creating some ultimate challenge, even if it veered down that path anyway. In the end, this has no longer become fun for me, and that's when this becomes a serious problem. If Jan stops having fun, Jan stops making the game. Rejuvenation is an incomplete game. I think even adding a different difficulty mode so early on was a bit of a hasty and foolish decision on my part. I want to focus on perfecting the base game before even thinking about trying create something like intense mode ever again. I don't want this to be the ultimate end of the mode, though. Yeah, I know I said I'm removing it. We officially will not be working on it any further. But those who are interested in keeping it alive are allowed to do so. We're handing this over to the community. When the game is complete, I would like to consider restoring it. But for now, I believe this is what is best for the game's overall health. And quite honestly, keeping tabs of both normal, easy, and intense mode altogether was just... too much. (Easy mode shall remain for accessibility, however.) That's really everything I have to say on this. It's a decision that was not easily made, but I believe it to be necessary going forward. I understand that this will bring frustration, but it's how things are standing as of now. Please, if you have any further comments and or questions, post them below. We will be reading and responding when necessary. Thanks. -Jan tl:dr -Intense mode warped the game's vision into something it was never intended to be -As a result, it is no longer being officially worked on. -Intense mode will be handed over to the community to work on as a mod if they so wish. -When the game is complete, we will consider the possibility of restoring it officially. -Easy mode will remain.