Would you take a look at this hot diddly darn new spiffy lookin' dev blog we've got for Rejuvenation here! hellllll yeah. From now on, all the important news on the game's development will be posted here instead of in the V13 status thread we used previously. As some probably noticed, the V13 thread tended to get messy and would bury any significant updates in regards to the game as quickly as they got posted. So! After some consultation with Ame and Cass, we finally got our own Dev blog so these updates no longer will get buried and will remain easy to find!

However, at this point in time, there's no actual news we can share, so we're starting off the dev blog with a recap of all the things that have been posted since the V13 thread's gone up. I'm sure some of you probably have missed some of these, so here's our refresher course on the state of the game at this point in time!

The current situation:

Development has been... Slow. For several reasons. Here's the current state of matters.

• The first and foremost reason that Development hasn't been going as fast is that after V12 came out, we had to wait until November for SWSH to come out, so we could focus on getting Gen 8 implemented in Rejuvenation. This already put a delay on the next update by roughly half a year. We've been graciously getting help from several people with this, and I would like to thank @Marcello specifically for having been an absolutely great help to us for scripting several of the pain-in-the-neck abilities and moves! Godspeed you magnificent bastard. Couldn't have it done without you. 
  • This ties in to that because Gen 8 has been implemented, all the encounters and battles needed revisions to support Gen 8! However, this is taking a long time, and encompasses quite a bit of work. Azery and Alex are doing their best to get everything figured out, but it's taking time, part of the reason being that we needed to implement the mons first before we could actually change the teams/encounters, lol. It's a vicious cycle. BUT, all of the mons have been implemented! So now it's just a matter of going through and updating everything.
  • Spriting wise only a couple of the GMax sprites are left! I've personally been seeing to getting the backsprites done for them. Honestly, the biggest saving grace to the graphics side of the project was that we were able to use front sprites of many of the Pokemon from Smogon's Gen 8 project (thank you again for letting us use the sprites!), which saved us quite literally half the time and work. All the shinies are done too, which leaves only roughly.... 23 sprites left in total? For base game Gen 8, that is. I'm uh. Not counting Gen 8.5 rn. I don't want to think about it hhahaAAA.............. either way gen 8 on the graphics side is almost complete and i hope to finish the remainder of sprites sometime next week. Would be REAL nice to cross that thing off the to-do list.
• Jan has been struggling with his health for a while. This was already prior to the pandemic, but recently posted that he did, in fact, contract COVID-19 and fell sick. He's on the road of recovery, though! It's only very likely that until the worst has passed in the area he lives in (which unfortunately is NYC, the epicentre of the pandemic in the US), stuff will remain slow on his side unless he generally feels better and/or more motivated to work on things again. He's been working on revisiting and redoing old areas in the game for final polish, though most of this is unplanned, hence why there's been not much progress on the "updating old maps" bar, let alone the new content bar. We hope you all support Jan through this tough time! Keep him in your thoughts sometime. He's doing his best.
• Last but not least, well, compared to V12, V13 is just.... Absolutely huge. There is SO much content to it. I've said it several times before, but the reason that V12's dev cycle was so short and why it feels as if V13 is taking so much longer was because V12, in comparison, genuinely is just short. I can't go into details for reason you probably can all understand and respect, but it's a TON of content, and there's just a lot of work left for it! However, I can guarantee you that even though it's taking this long, it'll be worth the wait. We're not gonna give out an estimate as of when V13 will be done because there's just too many factors tying in that make it hard to keep up a consistent pace in progress, but we sincerely appreciate all the patience all of you have been showing despite it having been nearly a year since V12 released. We hope to keep your patience until the end of the dev cycle!

Now that you're up to date, it's time for all the teasers that've been posted! Everything will be put in spoilers because otherwise this post gets uh. Very long. But it's nice to have everything in one place now! Content that's exclusively new content to V13 (so not revisions to older areas) are labeled as V13 teasers, so don't open those if you don't want to get spoiled on the new stuff!

October 18th, 2019 - V13 teaser 1 (Jan) 

November 4th, 2019 - The reservoir (Route 4 revamp) (Jan)

December 3rd, 2019 - V13 teaser 2 (Jan)

December 10th, 2019 - V13 teaser 3 (Jan)

 December 10th, 2019 - Route 4 new theme (Jan)

December 23rd, 2019 - Protagonist VS portrait updates

December 25th, 2019 - V13 teaser 4 (Jan)

January 2nd, 2020 - Gen 8 spriting update 1 (Zumi)

January 5th, 2020 - Volta (Zumi)

January 25th, 2020 - Keta VS portrait update (Zumi)

January 26th, 2020 - Gen 8 spriting update 2 (Zumi)

February 1st, 2020 - Character art part 1 (Zumi)

February 9th, 2020 - New forest backgrounds (Jan)

February 28th, 2020 - Gen 8 spriting update 3 (Zumi)

March 19th, 2020 - Gen 8 spriting update 4 (Zumi)

April 1st, 2020 - Saki twitter (Zumi)

April 8th, 2020 - Zetta VS sprite update (Zumi)

April 14th, 2020 - Character art part 2 (Zumi)

April 17th, 2020 - Character art part 3 (Zumi)

April 26th, 2020 - Character art part 4 (Zumi)

April 27th, 2020 - General update on old content (Jan)

May 1st, 2020 - Rorim B VS portrait update (Zumi)

May 3rd, 2020 - Character wallpapers (Zumi)

...Aaaand that's about it for all the updates we've had! I know a bunch of these are extra content and not really super directly related to V13 development, but it's still stuff for you to enjoy while you wait for V13 to come out, no? hehe.

There's more to show in the future, but for now we're sticking to this recap. We'll show off more when the time is right! For now, I welcome you to this shiny new dev blog and hope you're looking forward to more updates!

I actually made this as a surprise for Jan a couple of days ago, but the idea to make a new logo has been floating around in the back of my mind for a while now. I finally got the inspiration I needed, and lo and behold! From now on, this new logo will be found on the game's title screens and anything else that might need it. I've also put it (along with the separate elements) in the official art thread in case you might need them for something!

It's not really much of a big update, I'm well aware, but I felt it appropriate to show off the new logo to kick off the new stuff on the dev blog. Outside of that there's not much to share... Except, well, I guess I'm six sprites away from completing all the Gen 8 sprites??? After that it's just shinies (though thankfully I don't have to do those myself) and we're completely done with the graphics side of the Gen 8 addition to the game! I'll very likely have them done by tomorrow or so, so I guess this is an early completion celebration as I'm not gonna make a new post for it?!?!? YEA

On the topic of Gen 8, Alex and Azery are currently blazing through the encounters and sprinkling gen 8 mons in everywhere, so we're starting to get into the swing of things again. Expect some of those status bars to go up in progress sometime soon as a result! There's still a lot left to do, but either way we're still making progress and progress is better than no progress, right? absolutely

That's all for now though! See y'all for the next update o7

I am back with more character art, this time with the characters from Gearen city, both from the past and the present! From Kugearen we have Melia's 3rd appearance, Venam's 2nd appearance, Kanon, Maria, Vitus and Anathea, while for West gearen we have Amanda and Erick.

That's another eight characters off the list! There's still, uh.... many to go. Counting everything not including V13 content, I still have another 46 characters to go (even though some of these are alternate outfits for characters, kinda like how Melia, Venam etc. got art for those as well), and that's EXCLUDING side characters that I may still want to draw in the future.

oh, and the rift mons. those are getting art now too. because i have no impulse control! so you'll be seeing art of those in the near future as well. god has cursed me for my hubris and my work is never finished. such is my life. BUT IT'S FIIIIIIIINE.

ANYWAYS, as per usual, all the character artwork along with a link to full resolution versions of the art and bonus icons can be found in the official art thread! I haven't made wallpapers for these characters yet, but I'll get around to doing that sometime this upcoming week. I'll make sure to post an update in the forum status bar when I've uploaded them, so keep an eye out there if you want to get your hands on those!

Until next update! o7

Greetings fellow earthlings i am HERE............. To bring more character art! This time around it's time to bring the characters from Chapter 10 and the start of Chapter 11, meaning it's time to put Alexandra, Flora (both in her regular and her bladestar attire), Florin, Aelita (2nd appearance), Erin, Rhodea, Huey and Lavender in the spotlight!

...Though, as the title suggests, you probably didn't think that's all there was to this post, huh? Well, you're right, as I have something else to show off as well -- The first batch of Rift Mon artwork has been finished!

I initially planned to do all of them at once, but I figured out that these are an excellent change of pace from drawing tons of characters (you start running out of poses at some point LOL), so I decided to draw the first four you encounter in the story! ...Unfortunately, my clown ass forgot to unmerge the rift background pattern from Carnivine in photoshop and I closed the document only to find out that I cannot unmerge it tonight. that???? feels so fucking bad. oh my god. i'm a FOOL. A TOTAL BUFFOON. AUGH.

but yeah anyways that's why there's no full transparent versions of the mons yet. i'll get to that later. for now enjoy stuff with backgrounds, i'll probably make a new background for all of the mons when i've fixed that hot garbage, good lord

Either way!!!! As per usual, all the art can be found back in the official art thread, along with a link to the full resolution art, bonus icons and wallpapers (I added the wallpapers for the previous batch of characters too by the way!! I didn't forget). Go ham, and see you next time!

o7

Lots of cool things coming in V13!

So it seems we're over the 50% mark. I still have a LOT of work to do, but I can see the light now. A glimmering light that's evaded me for so long...

Gen 8 is almost completely implemented. We need to update some team rosters for some new additions, as well as edit fields to work with new abilities and moves!

Zumi, as you can tell, has focused more on the character art, and lemme tell you... They work so well in game. Zumi's really carrying me right now. If you like the art you've

seen, please, please, PLEASE, tell her how much you love it. Because my goodness is it great.

As for me, I've taken a break from tweaking early content and decided it's time to focus on main story stuff, and oh boy... No one's ready.
Finally, so many answers will be given. I can't wait to show you guys what we've been keeping secret. 

But with even more answers, I know for sure that more questions will be raised. Maybe this cycle can never be broken. Who knows? We'll have to see.

No rift mons this time around as I didn't really feel like working on them, but hopefully the 9 new art pieces will make up for it. This time, it's the remaining characters from Chapter 11 and a couple of characters from the start of Chapter 12 -- Risa, Cassandra, Madelis (2nd outfit), Puppet Master, Damien, Cella (Old & Young), Vivian and Anju. Part of me feels like I could've probably waited with Damian, but considering you see him for the first time in GDC, it's fiiiiiiiiiiine. Here we go!

Not counting V13 content and the rift mons, I have roughly another 28 pieces of art to go for characters that are mandatory! I still plan to draw a couple of bonus characters (Think Goomink, Truck Guy, Piano Lady etc.) as well as Karen and Karinna at some point, but those are all for after I've done all the artwork that I currently have listed for myself. Either way, we're at LEAST 2/3 done when it comes to all the official art for characters!

WEW.

As per usual, all the artwork can be found back in the art thread, along with icons and wallpapers of the characters!

Also, on a final note, thank you all for the kind words you've been sending my way after Jan put up his update post! It's very, very much appreciated and motivated me to keep going with the artwork  I plan to do one batch at least once every two weeks to keep up the pace and have everything done on time so it can all be implemented into the game as Jan has shown off they will, so I hope you will keep supporting the development of the game and the artwork!!

o7

Click me now or suffer the consequences.

THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE DLC CONTENT

THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE DLC CONTENT

THIS DOES NOT INCLUDE DLC CONTENT

This means no G-Slowpoke line, Starter Gmaxes, and the Crown Tundra content, etc etc etc. 

If anything is missing, please let me know. I'll have the pack updated immediately. Have a nice day

This batch is out a lot earlier than I initially planned for, but considering I have a lot of work I need to do this upcoming week that isn't Rejuv related, I felt it'd be a good thing if I did this one in advance. And lo and behold - probably the largest batch of characters thus far! ...If you don't count the rift mons from one of the previous batches, that is. Whatever the case, let's take a look at the characters that received art. As a continuation of chapter 12, Mosely received art of both her regular timeline outfit and her bad future outfit. Next to that, we've got the Bad Future editions of Kenneth, Amber, Tesla and Valarie, along with Melanie, Melia in her Absolute God Mode(TM) outfit (for a lack of better terms. honestly i don't think Jan ever gave it a proper name), Souta and Rift Aelita! And speaking of rifts, as a bonus, I've added artwork of Rift Garbodor as well. Might as well, no?

Here they are!

Rift artwork:

man, did i tell you guys i love drawing spooky shit? because i do. it's so incredibly fun. y'all should try it sometimes if you're used to drawing mostly bright and colorful stuff. it's SUCH a nice change of pace

Also, as a general note, I've sorted the full resolution artwork per chapter now in the albums! Some characters that appear in new batches of art might be sorted in a different chapter than the batch of art they appeared in when looking at the full res art albums. This was i.e. the case for Amanda who got placed in Chapter 1, as is the case for Mosely as well -- her regular outfit is placed within Chapter 4's album. This is done to avoid spoiling people who might need the art for stuff like thumbnails (or just wanna see the art) for content they haven't reached yet in the game. Hope that clears up any confusion people might have with how the artwork is sorted.

regardless, as per usual, all the art can be found back in the official art thread, along with bonus icons! i haven't done the wallpapers yet this time around bc i'm a lazy bastard but i'll have them done by the time the next batch rolls around.

anyways, that's all for now! see y'all later o7

"Every version I get a lot of questions asking what contributes to what ending. Will this decision put me towards the good ending? Maybe the bad? The worst? I became sort of tired of these questions, but I understood that it's because nothing is really clear outside of obvious circumstances.

For example, the true ending of the chapter involving Melanie. If you get the good option, you'll know. If you get the bad ending, you'll know. But what about other choices in the game? How will I know? It's a long game and I would like to know which choices matter, etc.

Well, from v13 and onward, you will know! Every quest that contributes to any ending will notify you. But what do I mean by "notify"?

 =============================== 

Quests that contribute to the good and true ending will display like this:

https://imgur.com/XhoXDzZ

Quests that don't necessarily contribute to any ending will display like this:

https://imgur.com/WQPPJYX

===============================

But this transparency isn't limited to quests. Any decision you make will clearly display which path it set you down.

Decisions that contribute to the good ending will display:

https://imgur.com/pzjphHj

Decisions that contribute to the bad ending will display:

https://imgur.com/APSyL8U

...And decisions that contribute to the worst ending will display:

https://imgur.com/hpCBLyz

This is all very WIP and the gears will disappear moments after they're displayed. I'll probably make custom graphics for each one, but for now, these are their placeholders.

=============================== 

Speaking of Quests... They've also gotten an overhaul with the use of Quest Cards!

These are just a few examples of the new Quest cards I'm working on. Really excited for them and gives each quest their own feel of importance. As shown above, each card will be personally stylized as well. Overall this is mostly a cosmetic change rather than a gameplay/mechanic change. Just one of those things I'm working on when I'm tired and requires not much effort from me."

Let me guys know what you think. Any suggestions? Anything else you want clarity on? This is a great time to ask as I'll be watching this thread closely for a while.

...63% hype... Even though most of that is inflated bc of Gen 8 stuff.... But still!!

Hey all! Here we are once again with another update. It's been a little bit longer between this batch and the previous one, but I've been busy with some stuff. Had a couple of deadlines I needed to meet 'n all! But I know that y'all aren't here to hear about my life outside of rejuv so let's get back on topic, shall we?

This batch we're featuring characters from Chapter 13, A.K.A. That One Version Without A Gym Badge But Not Really Because Apparently I Just Forgot Adam's Fight Is Part of V11 And Not V12(TM)! In this batch we have Melia (4th appearance), Reina, Ren (2nd Appearance), Ryland, Hazuki (Young), Nymiera (Casual), Anastasia, Nastasia and Adam (GDC)! This crosses another nine characters off the list. And also, thankfully this is the last time I'll have to draw Melia as far as I know, so dfjgkdfhnjsd five whole melias is plenty, thank you very much. Let's take a look at the art!

...I know a lot of you probably want to see Rift Gardevoir, but I'll be completely honest and say that I deadass forgot that I could've probably drawn her for this batch and only remembered at the time of actually writing this sentence. i am sorry.

For what it's worth, after the next batch (which will be the final batch of characters that's publicly released!), I'll probably make one last separate post with all of the remaining rift mons. After that, it's all V13 content on out! I know I'm not done yet, but I still want to thank you all for supporting me and motivating me to keep on going with these because lord knows how much work this has been so far ahHHHHHHHHHHHH

As per usual, all the art can be found back in the official art thread, along with bonus icons and wallpapers! I've also uploaded the wallpapers for the previous batch of characters, so you'll be able to get those now as well.

See y'all next time for the last character batch! o7

yeah i've actually been doing things that probably were a bit overdue anyways.

Today's update from me to you is about the VS sprites! There's already been a couple of sprites that received updates, namely Zetta & Keta which I have shown off prior to this post -- go check the recap post at the start of the dev blog, they're in there somewhere! -- but I spent yesterday and today fixing up some more! And ooh boy, some of these took a good bit of time to fix up (ariana, i'm looking at you. why did your face give me so much trouble ma'am.), so I hope you'll appreciate the improvements on some of these! Let's do a before and after showcase! The sprites on the left are the old ones, and the ones on the right are the new ones. 

Amanda

So this is, along with SEC, one of the sprites that has gone without an update for a long, long LONG ass time, and was in dire need of cleaning. Her hair and and cap have been sprited entirely anew, and looks much more accurate to her official art now.The shading also got a slight fixing, particularly on her hand and the pokeball she's holding.

Ren

Not much has changed in terms of the clothing, but the facial shape is different, along with the shading on the hair being a teeeeny tiny bit different. Honestly, looking at it now next to his old sprite I'm not 100% convinced it's exactly how I want it to look like quite yet? Ren looks kinda young in this sprite compared to the one he has at a later point in the game, so I might still do some further editing before V13 is out. It's headed in the right direction, at least!

Eli & Sharon

Eli looks even more clueless, and Sharon looks even more Tired Of This Shit(TM). This is one of the sprites that suffered from pointless detailing in the shading that made the sprite look messy and cluttered (Amanda, Valarie, Flora and Florin also being victims of this), so everything has been simplified a bit. Sharon also no longer has the earpiece, as it felt redundant to keep, and the pokeball shes holding has also been colored red.

SEC

I... Don't think this sprite ever got an update before LOL. I think the difference here is relatively clear; the color has been fixed, and the shading has been updated in several places. The black screen has also been made *slightly* bigger, and the pokeball icon has been redone entirely.

Madame X

Not a whole lot has changed on this sprite outside of that the shading has been improved, along with that the colors have been fixed slightly. The outline of the hand now also is darker, making the whole a bit more readable than it was before.

Valarie

Ah yes.... Miss hair clutter. I don't know why I thought it was a good idea to add so much detail in her hair back when I did the first edit of her existing sprite, but the messiness should be quite a bit less now! Her eye shape is now also slightly different, giving her a little bit more unique facial features instead of being almost entirely the same to Elesa's sprite in B/W. Other than that, there's been some color correction and reshading, so all in all the sprite looks a lot cleaner now!

Crawli

I think out of all the edits I've done this one is the least notable? But his face is slightly longer, the eyes are a bit different and his shoulders a bit wider.  At least he no longer looks like he's like 9 years old lmao

Flora

This is probably one of the more significant updates! As much as I like her old hair (despite it being huge in her vs sprite, what the fuck), it's not accurate to her official art, and therefore I had to change it. Next to that, her facial expression is quite different now, along with that she no longer has her hand resting against her face, but instead in a semi-relaxed pose on the right of her. I did this for the reason that I'd like to keep the amount of duplicate poses to an absolute minimum, and Flora used to share a base with Melia's 1st and 2nd VS sprite, which is something I no longer wanted.

Florin

Florin's sprite DEFINITELY needed some polish. His hair was a mess, and so was his hand! Sir!!!! ARE YOUR FINGERS OK????? i don't know why i thought it looked fine the way it did. i suppose as time goes on you get a better eye for these things.

Either way, he looks quite a bit better now! His hair looks closer to his official art now, and his hand no longer has broken fingers (i also switched it to be his left hand instead of his right). The colors of his shirt and vest now also match the official art better, along with that his shirt has a collar now. The face also has a better overall shape now and has his chin looking less like a V -- and to top it off, he looks more confident in his sprite now!

Adam

Probably the edit I'm the most proud of out of these! The old one honestly looked kinda weird and I 100% understand the comments that I got at the time of V11's release that Adam looked weird (mostly because of his hair), so I made it a point to make him look Less Weird(TM) in his official art. And as I said before, I was going to fix Adam's sprite to match his art better, so here we are! Adam 2.0! His eyes are now peeking from behind his sunglasses (which are smaller now), along with that his facial shape is thinner and his hand is in a slightly different pose. His ponytail now also shows up on screen and his bangs are a bit shorter so they no longer rest on his shoulders. I feel like his sprite emanates a lot more personality in the second version, so I feel like this is a significantly positive change in appearance!

 Moving on, the protagonist sprites also got a couple of touch-ups.

Ariana

Almost nothing beside her hair color being slightly lighter, her skin color now matches her official art and her facial shape has changed. However, can I complain about her face for a second? For SOME reason, her face gave me absolute hell to get right. THE EYES, MAN. HOW DO I GET THEM TO LOOK RIGHT. THE ANGLE IS SO WEIRD AND YOU HAVE SO LIMITED SPACE TO WORK WITH. HFJDGDFGNDFBGDHJF I AM DYING, SQUIRTLE

ahem.

i am ok. i think.

either way, Ariana, like Ren, is subject to change in the future because I am still not fully settled on if I'm satisfied with this or not. I'll sleep a night on this one and see again later. maybe i'm just tired and that's why it turned out weird. idk

Axel

Axel had a bit of a messily shaded vs portrait, so I've gone and fixed the shading on his hair, face and vest. He also has a grin on his face now to match the official art better!! The hair has one less color used now, giving it an overall more clean look. His vest is now also distinctly grey, as for some reason the vest in the previous version was the same color as his shirt??? which isn't actually the case in his art?? oh well. in his alt outfit, the edge of the lil jacket he has over his shirt now looks a bit cleaner. overall, it's not that big of an update, but an update nonetheless!

And last but not least...

Aevis

okay. so i can hear you thinking "WAIT. BUT THAT'S A LOT MORE DIFFERENT." and i respond to that with yes! it is! his hair is different!

Aevis has been under prospect for a while in regards to a slight design change, due to feedback from a good amount of people that his hairstyle felt very plain compared to all the other protagonists. Jan and I did a bit of brainstorming (along with collecting some feedback from Jan's patreon server members), and eventually settled on this new hairstyle for him! His battlesprite and backsprites will be updated to match the change accordingly. Nothing else about him has changed though -- it's just the hair. He'll keep his good ol' green clothes as we saw no reason to change that from what it was before.

-----

Honestly, normally I don't even write these long winded posts for sprites, but I felt like some people might like to know the thought process behind some of these changes I make to sprites, so I wanted to have a more elaborate post for a change when it comes to graphical updates. I'll also very likely be doing a pass on a couple of battle sprites as well, but I won't be making a separate post for those.

For now, thank you for reading! Let me know what you guys think of the changes! 

Until next time! (which will probably be a character art post or smth. yeehaw)

o7

"But Zumi, why is this a thing now all of a sudden?", I hear you think, to which I say; Well, dear reader, this popularity poll is to determine who is getting the next bonus wallpaper. For V11 we had Angie and for V12 we had Ryland -- though both of them were internal choices (and with internal i mean my own choices HAHA), so I felt it'd be cool to have the audience vote for the next character that receives a special illustration! Even though I'm already doing a crazy amount of work for V13 (I'm working on the next batch of characters already), I don't mind going the extra mile and throw in another fully rendered illustration for people to enjoy along with V13's release when that time comes around.

Any votes that do not adhere to the rules displayed upon opening the form will not be counted and deemed as invalid. You need a Google account to vote, and you have only one shot at voting. Don't waste the opportunity!

The poll will run until the end of the month, July 31st. The votes will close and the results will be announced shortly after!

Good luck, and may the most popular character win! o7

VOTE HERE!

So I know I said in my previous character update post that I'd do one more character art batch, a rift mon and then *maybe* a bonus batch for some of the sidequest characters, but... well, let's just explain it like this:

the angel on my left shoulder said "keep the work split up in several batches and spread it over time so you don't get burnt out!"

the devil on my right shoulder said "DO EVERYTHING AS FAST AS POSSIBLE IN ONE BIG BATCH SO YOU CAN GET TO V13 STUFF FASTER"

so of course i kicked the angel straight out of the window and did the thing the little devil told me to do.

and i didn't get burnt out either! so i see that as a victory. heaven can suck it. im walking backwards into hell facing god flipping the bird at him

ANYWAYS, my ramblings aside... This is the final batch of character art that will be publicly released prior to V13. It includes all of the remaining characters from Chapter 14, several characters from the more significant sidequests, as well as all of the remaining rift mons. In this final batch we have Aelita (3rd), Lorna, Alice, Allen, Sakitron, Amandabot, Ryland (Posessed), Kieran, [REDACTED], Isha, Delpha, Karen, Karrina, Spector, Ana, Dylan, Volta, Jolene and Goomink for the characters, and for the rift mons we have Chandelure (which got a slight redesign!), Ferrothorn, Gardevoir, Hippowdon and Dufaux! Let's take a look below!

CHARACTERS

RIFT MONS

*EXHALES*

i can't fucking believe that i did all of these in one go. oh my good fucking god. and now i'm done. that's 109 character and mon drawings done in a little less than half a year.

am i dead? maybe. was it worth it? absolutely.

Anyways, as always, all of the art can be found back in the official art thread, along with bonus icons, wallpapers and links to the full resolution versions of all the individual works! I've also uploaded versions of the rift mons without the rift background (since i finally got off my ass and decided to free carnivine from being stuck to a background lsdhfjdsfk) so you can use those for whatever purposes too.
 

So yeah! That about wraps it up for me with the frequent updates on the dev blog for now. I'm done hogging the place for the time being and won't be posting unless I've got some other graphics update that's significant enough that it's worth making a post about. Unfortunately for those who are interested in the art side of things, I'm pretty certain that all the work from this point on out for me is V13 related, and therefore I very likely can't show it off until V13 itself is actually out, so for now I'll be handing the dev blog back to Jan and quit flooding the place with my nonsense lasjdkgagdsjfask

Thank you all so much for the support and kind words you guys have given throughout the past couple of months while I was working on these! I'm honestly so incredibly happy I was able to bring all of the characters and rift mons to life in their artwork. It was a ton of work, but I had an absolute blast working on it, and I'll definitely be making more the more versions come out.

Until next time!

Zumi, heading out o7

Last week I uploaded a small preview of v13 to my Patreon! This is a very rough draft of an early part of the main story.

Of course, there will be slight spoilers. Continue at your own discretion!

Not much else to say other than: If you have any comments, feedback, and or suggestions(relevant ones to this video), feel free!

Still a lot to do, but I'm definitely making progress...

Also there's a slight audio blip at 1:35. Sorry :[. 

Edit:

These tiles were created by Ekat! These came out so well and pls thank her for her hard work!

A full image of them are on her twitter. Please go check them out!! 

There's a bit of a catch though.

The plan was to give 1st place the illustration, and that stays that way! Aelita will be receiving a full illustration to go along with V13's release. However, the idea had surfaced while the polls were open to give 2nd and 3rd place artwork as well, which I really liked. Therefore, Erin will also be receiving a full illustration that will be released after V13 comes out, during V14's development. But then there's Melia.... And as much as I might probably disappoint some people with this, Melia has been featured in a lot of artwork already. After some discussion with the rest of the dev team, we've decided that the illustration will be given to Venam instead, who placed 4th! That way we can keep things fresh, and give a character that hasn't had as big of a chance in the art spotlight a full illustration instead. This illustration will also be released during V14's development, though it's possible it'll release alongside V14 instead if there's too little time to work on a second full piece. Hope you guys are looking forward to the art regardless!

Now, back to the poll results... I did have to purge a couple of submissions or deem some invalid due to them being repeat votes of the same thing in the same submission (or reborn characters... im looking at the ppl who voted adrienn despite me having said the cameo characters dONT COUNT), so not *all* of the votes are listed -- especially for the things/people that only got one vote -- but here's a couple of the funnier ones we've seen between the answers/votes!

• "PIRATE VALARIE AND HER BABIES (me)"
• "that edgy guy with the latios i forgot his name" (Damien)
• "YE, ye, Ye", three votes in the same submission
• "Geara's left shoe 1, 2 and 3"
• "Ninja Nim"
• "Pupper Master"
• "i don't even remember what the characters are named at this point, sry for wasting your time have a nice day"
• "Kanye west"

So, how do you guys feel about the results? Were they as expected, or are a couple of placement surprising to you? Feel free to discuss it!

Also, there's a wallpapers of the artwork made for this without the text able to be found here! I'll also be linking it in the official art thread under wallpapers.

Thank you all for voting in the poll! This was a blast. Maybe we'll host another one of these in a couple of years once we're a couple versions further!

Until next time y'all o7

Just another general update! I've been working hard on the game, but I've also been feeling pretty demotivated and burned out lately. Mainly due to me being home all the time and not being able to get out as much. You'd think I'd get a lot more done with the massive amount of time I've had, yeah? Hahaha, no. In fact, I've been slower because of all of this.(More of this rant below!!!)

Depression.png

Because of that I've taken a week off. Like... actually. An entire week. I've done nothing. Man did it feel awesome. (Afterwards, during the break I was bored as hell.)
Imagine that. Taking genuine breaks HELPS your motivation and mood. ???? Sounds fake, but okay... Anyway.

I've switched my focus to working primarily on v13 story content. I feel like if I have that out of the way, releasing v13 will feel... Idk. Possible?

*Cough*

Well, it's the end of August. That means we're all going back to school... Huh? You're done with school? Y-You graduated? Well... Courtesy of me, I've re-enrolled you! Who's ready for a new semester of dreams and nightmares?? You are!I 

---REJUV MK UPDATE---

As well as working on main content mostly, @andracass helped us create our own MK build! Starting V13, Rejuv will have MK support. There are still a few things that need to be ironed out, but things are looking really promising!

As for Mac support... We have something for that too! Mac users won't be left out B).

---Puzzle time Baybeee---

One thing I've been trying to do in past areas is add more puzzles. Most of these puzzles aren't difficult. They're just there to add some sort of interactivity in places that have gameplay luls. I've created some things that I'm proud of, but coming up with puzzles in RPGMaker seems impossible to me sometimes. I'm the first one to admit that I'm not excellent at making them, but I would like to be! If you guys have any puzzle concepts to share, I'd be happy to hear them! 

I beg you.

---When is V13 dropping?---

Short answer: Still trying for this year.

Long Answer: My goal is to have it out by the end of the year, but that's still only 3 months from now. I've seen people get annoyed with me because of the long wait, but I assure you no one is more annoyed than I. Like I said in the beginning of this post. I've been burned out and unmotivated all year. I'm not going to sit here and lie about my productivity. I said I've been working hard on the game, it's true. But that wasn't the case for the majority of the year. 

There were days where I would do one event and just feel done. I've felt guilty about it, but I've also just felt numb to the fact that I pretty much just vegetated this year. Everytime I felt like things were getting better, things would knock me down another peg. It's been a cycle since February. Aghjgfsghskjlghsdgjds;jgsdh;

I've read articles about how this isn't a problem exclusive to me. Working productivity for tons of people have been almost 0 this year. With circumstances I don't have to repeat because we all know-- It's just difficult. I just try to tell myself that next year will be better. Whether that's a blatant lie or not doesn't matter. It's there for a sense of purpose.

If I can sum up this year for me in one image, it'd be:

and that's all it is.

That being said, we've gotten progress up to 71%!! Even though most of that is bloated because of a lot of smaller things getting done... It still looks nice and is a motivating factor for me! Still have a lot of sidequests to do and I have to finish the main story (Which is over 50% done now!). 

Alright that's enough rambling. I'm done. I promise. Rejuv v13 hopefully drops this year. If not, early 2021. Definitely not any later than that. Then onto v14...

Ha.

HAhahahaha.

I can't wait for v14.

I've put them in a spoiler tag in case some of you want to stay blind, but @Zumi's done such an amazing job with this! 

Dunno how many more we'll do for V13 because, as you can imagine-- These take a lot of time to create. Here are just a few of the unique backgrounds we'll have! (Please note that the bases have not been updated yet! So they may clash with the background for now.)

As for V13 progress in general... Still working on the final segments for the story. But it's a lot of work and I don't want to rush! So, thank you guys for being patient with me <3.

Look no further! This is the thread for you!

Like last time, I'd like to open suggestions for possible Crest ideas! There are a few rules, though.

• Crest ideas with just base stat buffs will not be considered. Get creative!
• Pokemon that are considered good can be suggested, but only if it offers a different style of play.
• Avoid Pokemon that already have a Crest in game.
• No Crest that allows for Ash-Greninja or anything similar :]
   

That's it! I look forward to your suggestions. This thread will close when we've gotten enough suggestions we like. A warning will be given out before that is done.

Edit: Gen 8 Pokemon are included in this! Give me your Gen 8 ideas!

So while V13 obviously got a lot of graphical and gameplay improvements and new stuff added, both in terms of sprites, maps and game performance, there's also some stuff that'll be fresh off the grill in the music department! In fact, V13 will bring quite a number of new songs to the table that were custom made for the game. I myself am also once again providing a good number! ...Though, I can't go and let people listen to all of the tracks that have been made so far right away, now can I?

Nonono, that won't do. I'll let you listen to this snippet instead. One small bit at a time!

Any guesses as of what this'll be used for?  You will receive a proper answer in due time... Once V13 is out. Until then you will just have to wait. And maybe you'll get a couple more previews in the future, who knows!

For now, though....

:^) .

Quote

Big announcement here today. Good news and bad (Depending on how you view this!)

I took a big look at my list of things to do for the rest of V13.

Taking everything into account: My pacing, the team's pace, the large amount of work that still needs to get done, other ??? things... It was starting to look like a 2021 Spring/Summer release.

Quite frankly... That's way too long of a wait.

 

After discussing it with the team, we've come to the conclusion that the workload we have for this version is just too much. It's unhealthy. I will be the first one to admit that I probably took on way too much. The troubles this year threw at me
were unprecedented.  It's gotten to the point where I've been extremely stressed out just by thinking about the game, which in turn, slows me down even further. That, topped on with school and irl responsibilities. It's been a rough year, for sure.

Not to mention the things we need to test for with Route 4 and other various new things coming to V13. It's... It's a lot. I didn't mean for it to be this much, but that's just how it played out in the end, I suppose.

 

As a result, I've decided to cut content.... Temporarily!

Going forward, I will be releasing V13 in two parts. Base V13, and then a few months later will have V13.5. This way I can focus on important things and try to complete it without the daunting task that will be sidequests.

That also means that if I dedicate a mini version to just side quests and the like, I can spend more time on them and make them how I want to. No cutting corners!

So, what will both packs look like? This is what I have:

----

 

V13 will have:
-Main Story content
-First layer of Route 4.
-Ana's Quest + Other minor quests
-Gen 8 (Not including DLC)
-A compensation gift from the Dev Team! (This is a super secret surprise)

 

V13.5 will have:
-Crown Tundra/Isle of Armor DLC.
-Expanded Route 4.
-7+ major quests dealing with main characters.

----

 

I've mentioned before that I really don't want any side quests during V14's cycle, and I stand by that. I want to give the time these quests deserve because I feel like these are gonna be some of people's favorites so far. Quality over anything and everything.
...I'm also scared that if I continue at this rate, I'll lose steam again. Last time it took nearly 5 months to get back to speed. Next time might be longer. I want to finish this game eventually lol.

It's a little disappointing, I'm sure. But I believe this to be the best course of action.
Think of it as Rejuv DLC, lol. Except it's free. As for that compensation gift? I won't tell you what it is... But I think you're going to be happy with it. That's all I'm going to say on that.

That's all I have to say for this week. I know this can be disappointing to some, but it'll be better this way, I promise. 

...

...

...

Hope all is well!

- Jan

So, unsurprisingly, last time I posted an audio preview people were trying really hard to guess where the song would play -- And a lot of people guessed for older, already existing areas. While I won't spoil which location specifically, I can at least tell you guys that these audio previews are NOT for old areas, but for new content in V13! So yeah, these are all songs that will play in areas you haven't seen before. Maybe it'll be fun to try thinking of what locations you'll be visiting that could have these songs playing in the background, hm? I won't be giving away any hints though, so have fun speculating on your own or in the comments!!

For now, I dip.

Until the next preview! o7

https://www.strawpoll.me/42266468

There is no wrong answer, except the wrong one. It's up to you !

Poll Ends Wednesday, December 16th. I love you 

yes im okay. yes i wont be taking any questions. See you Wednesday!

Pt 2: This World Is Yours Too.

Pt 3: Music From The Depths of Hell

There's still much to be done, but we're still way over half way. No 2020 release, but Soon(tm).

v13 is a special version, that's for sure. It's one of the longer episodes the game has put out. Actually, i'd say it's the longest? Either way, the main story this time is taking a LOT more effort than usual and I wanna make sure everything is absolutely perfect.

That being said, what -exactly- is causing v13 to be the behemoth it is? Well, let's dive into that!

Some of you have already guessed, but the crew is splitting up for a Super Secret Mission(tm). What's the mission, you ask?

I just said it was Super Secret, keep up. 

V13 is separated into 6 segments. Each being tackled by 3 different groups. So far the two groups we've seen are:
 

[Melia, Ren, Venam]

and 

[Erin, Kanon, Alexandra, and Damien]

The third group is

[Player, Aelita]

Each group is on the hunt ̶f̸o̸r̵ ̵t̵h̶e̶ ▇▇▇▇▇▇ , as we know, but how are each of their parts composed?

Well, each segment approximately the length of half a version. So by that scale, let's add them up!

Main Story 1 and 2 = 1 version

Erin + Melia's segment = 1 version

Player + Aelita's segment = 1 version

Epilogue = 1/2 version

v13's main story is roughly a little more than 3 versions worth of content... So even though it feels like you're waiting one year for one version, you're actually waiting for about 3, lol. 

Not to mention the new additions/changes to the early game and gen 8. Let's make this about 5 versions packed into one big bundle with a Christmas miracle bow at the top~

---

If you're interested in the flow of the actual episode-- I have created this special little chart for your eyes to wander over.

That being said, I'm SUPER SUPER SUPER excited for this version. My Dev team and I have worked hard and we're so excited to show you what we've got hidden. Cause after all... We've only shown the surface of the exciting things we've got in store for you all :).

Hope you had a Merry Christmas, and I hope y'all have a wonderful New Year!

For context -- not too long ago I mentioned to Jan that if I had free time I'd like to try and redesign some of the outfits for the Team Xen members, for the heck of it! The designs were thought up on the fly and the generic grunt uniforms were a bit too similar to the original sprites they were edited from, so I wanted to see if I could redo the designs to be more thematically cohesive, while remaining recognizable compared to their old outfits. A few days ago I decided to finally start on them...

...Only for me to get the urge to actually go through with them and add them in the game.

Sooooooooooooo here's the conversation that followed.

Now, as you probably know from Rejuv at this point, is that some of the characters have special animation sheets for the overworld, making it harder to get everything done in one go due to having to edit both the default overworld sprites *and* the animation sprites, as well as having to take care of some of the new overworld sprite sheets that are necessary for V13 content. So long story short, OW sprites were the biggest concern -- and therefore the Xen redux would probably have to be added in V13.5.

HOWEVER, since there's a lot of people who will likely start a new file for V13 and would want to play the side stuff in V13.5, I wanted to push for a V13 insert so people would get to see the designs on their fresh playthrough and get the biggest brunt of the work out of the way ASAP, which is the VS/Battle sprites + the official art.

And I'm more than happy to tell you that I got the go ahead to show them off + managed to finish them today -- So here are your redone team Xen members, all neatly tucked into a spoiler so the page isn't long as hell by default!

(By the way, as a disclaimer: Please note that the sprites might not be the final product that will end up in the game and are subject to changes/improvements!! The official art is final tho :])

To wrap everything up into a neat little bow, here's the sketches I made of the grunt designs + a bonus height chart for the admins I made while drawing!

Hope y'all are excited to see the designs in the game when V13 comes out! As per usual with these character art posts, the art has been added to the Official Art Thread, as well as icons. No wallpaper updates yet -- that's something that'll have to wait until after V13 is out.

Anyways, that's it for me for real this time -- You probably won't see me post stuff on the blog until after V13 at this point. Just a little while longer y'all, we're getting there!

Until then! o7

What's going on with Rejuvenation right now? It's been almost 2 years!!

   - We are currently doing internal testing as of right now! There's still one segment of the game that needs a bit of work from me,

but after so long, v13's main story and early-mid game are being tested and things are going smoothly!! Lots of things to patch up,

but smoothly nonetheless! We may... actually release something soon(tm)??? Soon.

Will there be Game-z support? 

   -Yes! Thanks to @andracass (Who is a new member on the team, btw!), Rejuvenation will have official MK support. Which means

less lag and better performance! We will still be supporting the regular game.exe, though. Just in case your PC won't be able to

handle the power that is MK. Unfortunate for you, though. 

Okay, well there's Game-z support. Cool. But what about my MAC? She's dying without content!

   - I am happy to say that there will be a MAC version on release. No more stupid Wine emulators .

Also it'll run at incredible speeds! No lag! Zoom! Fast! Keep going! Oops we crashed.

Except it shouldn't crash. Anyway.

What Crests were chosen from the suggestion thread? My Giratina Crest that gave an omni boost was so good...

   -I've gotten this question quite a bit and that will remain Top Secret. However, like I said in the thread, if your crest suggestion wasn't implemented, that doesn't mean it wont be.

Adding in hundreds of crests in one release is overwhelming for the devs and the player. We'll be trickling in new crests with each new version. So please be patient :).

Will my old save files work with the new update? Pls help.

   -Yes, however there have been a substantial amount of changes/tweaks to the world itself. Some places will not be safe to load up in! I will make a list beforehand. A whole entire post dedicated to this. If I see "LOADED UP IN XXXXX AND GAME CRASH PLS HELP" I will come to your house and delete your save and quite possibly your entire life. Don't say I won't.

Can I join the Beta Test? Please...?

   -Unfortunately, no. We no longer have public beta testing periods anymore. Due to problems with leaks and such in the past, all Betas from here on out will be entirely closed.

Soon.

But, it's still going to take a little time. Now, as I've noticed in both the dev blog comments & the V13 discussion thread, there are a lot of questions about testing, so I'm compiling the most frequently asked questions in this post so you have all the answers you'll (probably) be needing in one place, and won't have 230498203498 people asking the same question over and over again, yaaaaaaaaaaay

*cough*

anyways.

"Ssssssso what does testing of the game really mean?"

The word really should speak for itself already, but testing of the game is catching any game breaking bugs, such as moves and items not working properly, tile & passability errors, AI errors, sound errors etc. All kinds of errors and bugs that really shouldn't be there, and therefore should be fixed before the release of the game. We don't want to release a game publicly that barely functions and keeps breaking at every turn because that's really not the kind of experience we want to give you, which is why this stage is necessary before we can bring out the update publicly. Yes, I know that some people have been saying like "ohhh i don't mind, i'll just avoid the bug and note what not to do!" but I'll be 100% honest here -- the second people start running into problems and can't fix it on their own we're going to get swarmed with complaints and the same bug reports over and over, and for the sanity of all of the people on the dev team, we're not going to do that.

"How many stages of testing are there?"

In total, three - Internal, Alpha and Beta. We've moved from internal to alpha a little less than two weeks ago, which is a testing phase held with a closed, small group of people trusted by the dev team who go through the new content to sift out the biggest, baddest bugs. After we've progressed far enough into testing in the alpha phase, we'll be moving to the beta phase, which is held with a larger group of people. At this stage we should be at a point where people will start finding smaller problems that might've gone unnoticed during alpha due to a smaller number of people testing things back then, but all the big issues should hopefully be taken care of!

There was a little confusion about the naming of these testing stages this week, due to what we currently call alpha having been referred to as a second round of internal testing in the past, and people thought another round of testing has been shoved in between. However, all that's changed is the naming of these testing phases -- the actual structure of testing remains similar to previous dev cycles and fundamentally hasn't changed.

"But, but but but- if testing has been going on for almost two weeks, why is the progress bar still at 0%?!"

No need to worry -- the bar just doesn't get updated often. We've made progress! Just don't expect that bar to be an accurate representation of our progress at any point in time, lmao

"How long does testing usually take?"

I really cannot give you a time estimate for this, because it entirely depends on the amount of content an update brings with it. V13 is -- like stated in previous posts -- a massive content update, both in terms of new content and older content that has been revised. There's a lot of ground to cover for the testers and it simply will take some time for most people to get through everything, both during alpha and beta testing. There's no saying how long testing will take in total, but hopefully stuff will go smoother once all the worst bugs have been taken care of.

if you want to know how bad it has gotten at times, ask azery. he's had a minor meltdown at least three times at this point i think. please send him your strength and energy

"So when does V13 come out then?"

Again, no release date because we don't know when we're done with testing, but...

I'm sure you'll notice when we're getting close. :)

Hold onto your horses a little longer, yall o7

Hey, uh… Is this the right place? I’m s’pposed to deliver this to P̸͡L̸AY̴͢E̢͘R̷̸… They told me they were staying over at this place for the time bein’.

...Oh, they’re not here right now? Well that’s a lil’ unfortunate. Do you mind holdin’ onto it until they receive it, then? That’d be real great, thanks.

It’s uh... Kind of a suspicious package if you ask me, bro. What’s up with it lookin’ like a present and that creepy lookin’ mask… button… thing... holdin’ together that ribbon? Not that it’s really any of my business, but y’know… Kinda has that uncanny feelin’ about it. Dunno. Don’t really trust it. But anyways, I was given a note alongside the package with a message on it that I had to pass on to P̸͡L̸AY̴͢E̢͘R̷̸. It reeeeeaaadds….

“Open and you will find a clue to the path forward. A trial awaits for you to solve on the way to your goal, but speaking the answer out loud will turn your words into dust.”

I… really don’t have a damn clue about what any of that means. My first guess is that it means you have to keep things to yourself, but why? ‘S not like it’s actually physically possible to have your words turn into dust, is it? ….right?????

Well, either way— this cryptic stuff is none of my damn business, so I’ll uh… Just go and take my leave, yeah?

See ya around, dude.

Oh, it’s you again. Did P̸͡L̸AY̴͢E̢͘R̷̸ receive the previous package? Because I have ‘nother one for them. But, just between you ‘n me… I trust this one even less than the previous one. It looks the same, but i'unno dude. Swear I heard buzzin’ coming from inside the box while carryin’ it up here. I don’t know what was in that last package, I don’t wanna know what was in it, and to be honest? I’d really rather not know what’s in this one either.

Oh, and before I forget ‘n leave, they left me the same note as last time. Y’know... About words and answers turnin’ into dust or somethin’.

...Huh? So you figured out what that note meant, and you really weren’t actually able to speak whatever answer they’re talkin’ about out loud or you’d just fall quiet for some reason? That’s… Really freakin’ weird. I dunno what they put in these boxes, but you won’t catch me peekin’ in them out of curiosity, even if the first one had me tempted, to tell you the truth. Not anymore, nonono.

Either way, I have more stuff to deliver. Hope there’s nothin’ too crazy in there, dude. See ya around, ok?

Later.

Someone in testing wasn't able to run the game and I freaked out.

So this is an explainer for MKXP and why we're using it.

There will also be a linux version!

Hope I'm not interrupting anything.

So, a while back, Jan mentioned that v13 would run entirely on MKXP.  There were some people who were concerned about this because of the hardware requirements for the reborn/deso brand MKXP. In response, I said this:

This comment didn't age very well. We may have some issues.

I haven't posted over here before (hi rejuvians) but y'all who know me from the reborn side are probably used to my big-ass deep dives into technical problems.

This is going to be a little bit different (and more serious) than all of those since this involves a problem that I made and can't easily fix. You can skip ahead to "should I worry about this?" if you just want to get to solutions. They exist- they're just not convenient.

What's MKXP?

MKXP is an open-source implementation of the RPG Maker XP (RMXP) engine. Its original purpose was preservation; RMXP originally came out in 2004 (likely making it older than some of y'all reading this) and technological progression since then has risked old RMXP projects being lost to the sands of time. In ensuring that old RMXP projects would still be functional in the modern era, it implements a lot more recent tech than the original program used. This means that we get much better performance out of the engine. This is a pretty big deal since RMXP itself has a tendency to grind to a halt under the weight of everything the crazy-ass local devs 'round these parts throw at it. The RMXP engine still sucks, but MKXP makes it substantially less noticable.

It also means that we can support mac and linux! 

Why isn't rejuv using RMXP still?

If you've checked out reborn/deso, you've seen that there are two exes- "game.exe" and "game-z.exe", which use RMXP and MKXP respectively. Rejuv will only have one- "game.exe"- and it uses MKXP. This decision was made because it means we can use Ruby 3.0 instead of RMXP's version, which is 1.8.1. 

Ruby 3 is much faster. v13 won't even be tapping into its full potential since, well, we don't have time for it. The problem, then, is that we can't run two versions of ruby at the same time. Going from ruby 1.8 -> ruby 3.0 is a one-way street- I wanted to pop out some performance comparisons to show how much faster it was, but since it was saved with a different ruby version, my v13 file doesn't work with v12. 

If we were still working with the MKXP of yesteryear, this would be a much bigger concern; thankfully, though, we are not. The reborn/deso version has higher hardware requirements- specifically, it requires OpenGL 3.3. v13's version will only need OpenGL 2.0! CPUs have been shipping with OpenGL 2.0 since 2006, so this would make this hardware requirements effectively identical to that of RMXP. Anyone who could run the old engine would be able to run the new one. Thus, we decided that we may as well move engines and get the performance boost.

...but this post exists, so you know that's not the end of this.

So why does this post exist?

Windows.

The fact that you have a CPU that is OpenGL capable does not mean that windows is going to support it. If your CPU isn't supported by, say, windows 10, it means that this entire time you're probably running microsoft's basic bitch display driver, which comes with OpenGL 1.4. That happens to be what RMXP runs on, but it's not good enough for MKXP.

That's a problem.

Finding out that release day has arrived only for you to be unable to play the game you've been waiting to play fucking sucks. This post exists so (hopefully) none of you have to deal with that.

Should I be worried about this?

If you are able to run reborn/deso MKXP, you are fine.

If you use Windows 7, you should be fine.

If you have a dedicated GPU, you should be fine.

The rest of you: step into my office.

Uh-oh, am I in trouble?

Probably.

The good news is that there is something you can do to get the game to load. There's a DLL that you can drop in your game folder that will be enough to get the game to open.

Bad news is that it runs like shit. If you want to at least be able to play the new content (which is very good, IMO), this will allow you to do so.

There are a handful of troubleshooting steps you can try to make your CPU/GPU play nicely with windows. You do not have to do any of this now. If you'd rather wait and see if the new engine works for you, frankly, I'd welcome that. I can't test these myself- I'm going through all of this in advance so no one is caught off guard. We've unfortunately only had one case during testing where someone was unable to run the game, despite testing taking an eternity (hey did you know that we have a bug that basically deletes your party and I still haven't found all the cases of it?) so I can't say for sure if any of this works.

It also specifically points the angry mob at me.

Solution 1: Fuck around with windows

This link has a number of troubleshooting steps you can take to try and trick windows into recognizing that you can run OpenGL 2.0. These may or may not work for you, but it sounds like they are worth a try.

Solution 2: Slap linux on a USB

This link will take you to a page that explains how to install ubuntu on a USB. You'll want a decent flash drive for this. It's kind of a pain in the ass to grab an entirely different OS just to run a game, but this option has the best chance of success.

I made a linux version exclusively so this has a chance to work.

Solution 3: Slap windows on a USB

Don't do this. I'm not posting links because they all look sketchy, but you can avoid downgrading operating systems by running windows itself off a flash drive. Just google it. Or don't.

Solution 4: Slap your current PC in the trash

This solution isn't a serious one, but technology has really come a long way in the past 10 years. Even modern budget computers are pretty competent.

Solution 5: Cry

I don't know. At least it might help you feel better?

This is frankly something that I, personally, feel pretty awful about. There's technically a non-zero chance that this is something that I can have fixed for v13.5, but that's pretty unlikely; there's so much shit left to do.

Anyway! Back your regularly scheduled, y'know,

Listen, it’s the same kind of package for P̸͡L̸AY̴͢E̢͘R̷̸ but please please please just take the damn package off of me, I don’t wanna be holdin’ onto this for any longer! There’s something SHAKIN’ in there dude! I felt it! It’s creeping the shit outta me and I really don’t get paid enough by SPU to be dealing with haunted or possessed shit!

Ya know the drill by now, no speakin’ the answer out loud and everythin’, yadda yadda yadda!

I dunno if it’s your friend ordering these boxes or someone’s sendin’ some fucked up shit to them as a joke, but I hope for both of your sakes that this stuff doesn’t end up blowin’ up in your faces. I don’t wanna be the person who unknowingly delivered a dangerous package to a pair of unwittin’ victims!

Anyways, I feel like if I stay around this thing for much longer I’m gonna end up cursed or suffer from some other horrible shit, so I’m outta here.

Don’t do anythin’ reckless with that damn box that puts yerselves in danger, ya hear me? I dunno if we’ll be seein’ each other again soon, but you better take care during whatever’s gonna happen next, dude! Don’t go dyin’ from some weird box on me now!

Hey! It's been two years? How are you? How are the kids? No kids? Okay. Well.... Anyway. It's time.

I'm not going to make a huge post about how much of a hell year 2020 was... like, in general, because I'm going to talk about that on stream at some point. So I'm just gonna hand over the game. Sound good? yes. Wait no, I lied.

First, we have a brand new website!

Check it out!

There's a lot of cool things and we'll be actively updating things as time goes on. (No, we're not leaving Reborn. We just felt like it was necessary for us to have our own space too, finally :) )

Due to the extreme amount of changes and additions, old save files that have not completed v12 data will no longer work correctly. There are still some places you shouldn't save. 

LOOK AT THIS BEFORE LOADING UP.

Official art press release kit:

Mega 17.6mb

PBS files

Mega

PATCH 13.0.5 CHANGELOG

PLEASE REPORT BUGS YOU'VE FOUND HERE

TIME IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT, AND THEREFORE I AM NOW HERE TO FINALLY PRESENT TO YOU;

*inhales*

ALL THE OFFICIAL ART & MUSIC I'VE MADE FOR V13!!!!!!!

...ahem.

Anyways, so like I promised, here's everything I've made! There's a ton of it. And a lot of it I've also been sitting on for like a year! But I'm very, very happy with all the work I've delivered for this version, and I really do hope you guys will enjoy it as much as I'm excited about it. Everything will be put in spoiler tags of course -- both for reading comprehension AND for the sake of not accidentally spoiling someone who's not seen all of these yet.

Actually, if you're here and haven't beaten V13 stuff yet, why the heck are you spoiling yourself??? you fool. you clown. you utter buffoon. you absolute walnut. go back to playing the update. don't ruin the experience for yourself!!!!!!!!!

unless you willingly chose to do this. i guess i have no say over your actions so it's entirely up to you in the end! but anyways, let's get to it, shall we? enjoy!

V13 COVER ARTWORK: Vague Clarity

V13 BONUS ILLUSTRATION: Aelita (1st popularity poll winner bonus illustration)

 V13 - PEARL ROUTE KEY ART (HEAVY SPOILER WARNING)

CHARACTER ARTWORK(HEAVY SPOILER WARNING)

V13 TEASER (+ Some drawings assets that flash by!!)

V13 ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK PLAYLIST (Not including the music done by Glitch, sorry )

As per usual, all the official art alongside links to the full resolution art (and wallpaper versions!) can be found in the Official Art Thread, alongside bonus icons and character wallpapers!

i spent........ SO much time on writing this post and also accidentally lost half my progress twice so i'm sorry if i missed anything LOL...

Oh, and if you're worried about a certain group of mons... Don't worry. A future post will have more about those. :)

Until next time!!! o7

Well, fear no longer, for today marks the day that we're launching the Rejuvenation Wiki Expansion Project!

The idea is to get people together and update the wiki with as much information as possible, so people will have a reliable source of information to go to in the case they need to know this. Part of this project is also writing a proper summary for the game's story -- this is something that we know that people have been asking for a long time, so where else would be better to have a summary for both the overall story and each chapter than on the wiki itself?

We've set up a discord people can join for the Wiki project specifically so talk about it doesn't flood the channels on the Reborn discord. The discord is mostly to discuss information put on all the pages and to help each other with formatting, so it's not going to be a community discord akin to what Reborn has and really more one for the sake of project organization. We're still affiliated with this community however, so the same rules of conduct apply -- it's expected that you behave accordingly.

If you wish to join the discord, you can click here to join!

Either way, your help would be greatly appreciated. The devs will also be around to keep an eye on stuff (though please don't ping us unnecessarily, we will kick you for that stuff) and will pitch in from time to time.

Thank you in advance! o7

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.

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.

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. 

As Jan has been on a much needed break for a few weeks, I felt it'd be a good time to hijack the dev blog once again and show off some of the new official art for 13.5. So, lo and behold!

Meet Kreiss, Cairo and Aevium's Champion, Celine!

Kreiss

Cairo

Celine

I've previewed Kreiss on twitter before and even put up his full body artwork on my own portfolio as a small teaser on the 9th, but he's gotten a complete redesign, which also includes something of an overhaul personality-wise. While appearing classy and sharp-looking, there's a little more to him than meets the eye... But as of what, you'll see at a later point (or for yourself in 13.5! idk what Jan's plans are in that regards). Next to Kreiss we also have Cairo (which I've also previewed before!), a character that was introduced in V13 on Route 4, as well as Celine, who stands at the head of the Aevium League as its champion... Or well, is supposed to. Shame that her current state of being is uh... A little bit Not Exactly In The Realm Of Consciousness!

As per usual, the character artwork & icons can be found back in the official art thread! Again, no wallpapers yet because I'm waiting with those until after V13.5 is out.

also pls send jan ur strength, he's in finals hell. godspeed you magnificent bastard

ok i leave now bye

What we found... Will shock you!

!!Aevian Form Discovered!!

...

...

...

Merry Christmas!!! 

Without further ado because I'm sure people are here for the artwork and not my incessant rambling, here are your characters with fancy new artwork! Cera, Erin in her Demoness outfit, Amber in her Ch15 outfit, Xara and Jean!

...Would it surprise if I told you that there's even more art on the way? Probably not. Because uhhhh I have *looks at notes with shitty smudged handwriting* a grand total of 19 pieces of character artwork for V13.5 as a whole. I need to draw one more and then this batch is done! Probably! Unless I think of more things to draw that I forgot about! But I SHOULD be good for now.

.........................hopefully.

But I'm definitely not done with art in general for 13.5-- there's more planned than just character artwork. And don't worry about the fully fleshed out artwork that I said I'd draw of Erin & Venam for the character popularity poll results; those are still on the to-do list. I've just been busy with working on another project of my own recently so I hadn't sat down in a while to work on things for Rejuvenation, lmao

Anyways same shtick as usual, icons & links to the full artwork can be found in the official art thread! No wallpapers yet because 1) I'm lazy 2) I haven't made them for the other characters yet either 3) don't want to spoil v13.5 areas yet and 4) frankly I'm also considering redoing the format so they're not white in color scheme and blast my eyes out whenever I close stuff and look at my desktop at 12 am. And maybe just make them location-free as a whole, so they don't uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh get outdated after an update or two. We'll see what the future brings in regards to that. If it means making my life easier with these wallpapers in the long run then I just might........................

As for progress on 13.5's development as a whole (as I'm sure you guys are curious about that as well), Jan's back in full swing and has been making progress again after a long break! Though stuff isn't quite ready to be shown to the public quite yet, so I ask that you guys are patient a little bit longer. I'm sure he'll have a post up eventually! Sometimes you just gotta let those sweet sweet game dev juices simmer on low heat for a good while y'know? Let them cook thoroughly before they're ready for serving. An undercooked meal is never a good idea!!!!!!

so consider this an appetizer from me. :)

but that's enough of me hijacking the dev blog again. hope y'all have a wonderful day and enjoy the art! <3

zumi out

Well... The real reason is that I'm just taking it slow! After the main release of v13, I decided for my sanity I needed to take an extended hiatus or take things one at a time. I don't like sitting around doing nothing so the latter option sounded like the best option for me.

That being said, even though I'm taking things slow, I have made good amount of progress in terms of set up!

I know not everyone follows me on Twitter, but I do post interesting things there occasionally!

Here are a collection of things I've worked on in the past few months:

Small Q/A as per usual:

Q1. Will the Pokemon in Legends Arceus be included?
Yes! Will they be included in v13.5? That is unknown at this time. We haven't made a solid decision for those just yet, but we'll have an answer on this soon! P.S. Overqwill is my son, please do not be mean to him.

Sneasler does not exist.

Q2. Is the "Main" content in 13.5 optional?
So, a lot of the sidequests have to do with the main characters and progressing their stories and personalities in less world ending ways.... I've decided to group them all together and a linear progressing mini story. Think of it like Where Love Lies. (Definitely shorter than that though, lmao) So... 13.5 turned into its own version I guess??? However, even if it's grouped together as a mini series, it will never be required to do. In future versions, players will have the option to input a password and automatically complete and receive all the rewards.

Q3: If 13.5 is its own version with its own content, does the content have a title?

Yes. It's named .Karma Files (Dot Karma Files)

Q4: Do you have anything to show from .Karma Files?

Yes! An evening of friends hanging out at the new GDC Night Market!

Q5: When Legends Pokemon are eventually added, how will you handle some of the evolution methods?

So there isn't Strong and Agile style combat in Rejuv, obviously. Stantler's evolution condition is to use its signature move in a Strong style. Instead we'll probably turn them into "Level up + [Have this move learned].

And... That's all! I really want to start updating more often, but I'm still taking my time~.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them below! 
 

This is a quick poll, but if you have opinions-- Feel free to put them in the comments below.

https://strawpoll.com/polls/bVg86bRqByY

Had to go to another site because strawpoll.me wasnt working of course :)

As usual, let's start with a collage of images I've shared on my discord/patreon recently:

Oh, and I also post cool stuff on my twitter occasionally, if you're interested.... 

Reborn's final release:

First thing's first. Reborn is going to be releasing very soon in the future and when it does, Rejuv will be hidden from the site. This is being done for obvious reasons (C&D reasons) and is hopefully only temporary. This is just a preliminary warning so that there are no surprises when Rejuv is suddenly poof. Our main site will still be functional though.

Update on Frostbite, Legends: Arceus Content:

So, after the most recent poll we've decided that it's best to just wait for Gen 9 before we decide on anything regarding status changes. It's possible Gen 9 will have updates to those statuses, and even if they don't we can probably include Frostbite along with Freeze.
As for Legends Arceus mons, we've also decided that we should wait for Home before we decide to do anything with those. v13 was bogged down by Gen 8 implementation and I am just Not In The Mood to go through that again even at a smaller scale. Right now I'd like to focus on new Aevian Pokémon.

Gen 8 Implementation:

We did a lot of work on this recently and there actually wasn't that much to Gen 8 DLC. Except for moves. There are a lot of new moves-- But other than that the DLC was kinda wack? Just a ton of legendaries. Moves have not been implemented as of yet because our scripts are Under Construction and it's going to take some time before this is complete. That's the only reason why the percentages under Gen 8 DLC aren't all 100%..

v13.5 Content:

Did you know that all the content in v13.5 is entirely new? Huh? What does that mean? I always mention it but Rejuv had an original private build that went all the way up to Saki's gym battle. But of course in v13 we're past that. This isn't that important I just feel happy that for once I'm actually working on fresh content. Mostly. Anyway, I began work on the update and things are going smoothly! 

I wanted to let everyone know that v13.5's story content has two routes! This depends whether or not you're on the good or bad ending routes. I'm interested in your reactions once the version finally drops this year. Still shooting for a Summer release but I'm not going to kill myself to get there. Progress so far is pretty good though! I'm getting a ton done every day even if it's not reflected in the status bar.

I fixed the itemfinder lol:

Long story short. I made the Itemfinder more visually helpful. No longer will it say "omg an item is nearby". If there's an item nearby, an animation will play over the spot where there's a hidden item like so: (Animation is a placeholder)

If there's no item nearby it'll just say hey asshole there's no item nearby try looking elsewhere. So, same as normal. zzz.

thats it. I feel like as I get older these posts become more unhinged and whatever it's fine.

Aevian Pokemon:

I come bearing news about a new Pokémon that has been discovered somewhere on Terajuma... Researchers Crim and Ceri have been hard at work gathering data on this recent new discovery! They managed to sketch an image of the new Pokémon. Here, take a look!

Not much is known, but we'll bring more updates when more is discovered! Or maybe we won't. 

That's all folks.

stay tuned for another trauma dump post May 12-15 idk.

Balance Survey
Last month we released a balance survey. If you haven't taken it, I highly encourage you to do so here. (Normal Players Only). At the time of this post we have over 200 responses. Thank you for that! It's no secret that I've felt very conflicted on the game's difficulty at various points. The purpose of this survey is to point out the outliers and address them accordingly. We also have balance changes that intend to streamline gameplay experience a lot more. 

But first, obligatory gallery:

--- Below is an excerpt from a past Patreon post ---

FAQ
Will Rejuvenation have passwords like Reborn in 13.5?
Very possible, but I am making no promises on this yet. At the latest, v14 will have passwords available to use.

Is Gen 9 being added in v13.5? v14?

Nope, and nope.

Is 13.5 still releasing in the summer?

We need more time, so not likely.

Will romance be in Rejuv (Yes I still get asked this. Daily.)

no.

Scarlet or Violet?

Violet for non "h" reasons.

have a nice day !

tl:dr streamline gameplay. more hidden items, mon availability changes, diminished trainer teams early on, boss bars gone, rifts getting reworked slightly, casual mode overhauled, Field Effect changes, and lastly professor turo is hot.

thank you github fork for making the comparisons far easier to show off because of the old/new comparison display. god bless

Starting off with Keta, as I've previewed one of the sprites before on twitter!

His sprites were in need of cleanup on several fronts. The first one needed a correction on the hair to be less round and more accurate to his official art, as well as the torso needing to be angled a bit better. He also actually has a neck in the sprite now LMAO

As for his bad future attire, the sprite as a whole just seemed entirely inaccurate to what his other sprite looks like, so it's more drastic of a makeover. in crim's words,

and frankly, i think that's an accurate assessment. He's also taller and like with his other sprite, his hair has been resprited to be more accurate as well! As a whole, it looks more appropriate for him. nice

Next up, Ren! Specifically, his outcast sprites.

Nothing too special going on here, just minor cleanup on his coat with the hood up and his face in the second sprite where the hood's down, as it lacked additional shading. Also, the lighting is consistent in the first sprite now!! which it wasn't on the hood!!!! and it was BOTHERING ME TO NO END. so i fixed it. yaaaay

Next up is Agent C(rawli)!

as you can see, he is fucking MINISCULE in the old sprite. Which isn't entirely inexplicable, because he was a child in earlier iterations of Rejuv. That's a remnant of the past though, and nowadays he's an adult and taller at that so I fixed his sprite to be taller and properly reflect those changes.

Erick is next!

Both his battle sprite and his vs portrait were rather dated compared to the other sprites. A lot of the detailing felt messy, as well as his face being very round in his portrait compared to his official art, so I elongated it a bit! The horns also look more defined and the sleeves and shirt have slightly cleaner shading. Colors are also accurate across the board now!

Next up, Neon & Magenta.

Like Erick, these sprites have barely gotten touched at all since they were first made, so I felt after V13 now's as good of a time as any to clean up these sprites. The masks look more accurate to the Puppet Master's overall design, and the colors of the sleeves match the official art now as well. Also the shoes look like actual jester's shoes now!! Honestly for me it also took a little while to get used to the mask looking different, but it deffo looks better regardless.

Next up, everyone's beloved *cough* sky grandpa, Souta.

His sprite has always been a bit of an awkward one, what with the pose being tilted and the robes being rather detailed. This sprite kinda become more of a rework rather than a simple cleanup, and the difference is pretty palpable if I say so myself. It also includes the change in his staff's design which i still need to fix on the official art for both him and eldest, but w/e as well as a general reshade of the robe to have more accurate lighting and colors.

i still hate spriting that robe, by the way. it has no right to give me as much trouble as it does

ANYWAYS.......... Next up is Ryland!

So while his first sprite actually goes unused as of right now, I wanted the cape to be more dynamic. This was in order to match the second sprite's rework, as I fixed the shadows colors to be less... blue? purple-ish??? it shifted very much towards blue on the color wheel, too much to actually look good, so now it's a bit less saturated. The second sprite I actually made from scratch during V12's dev cycle, but ever since later on in V13's dev cycle, that sprite has started to bother me with how much it stands out proportionally compared to other sprites. It didn't feel right, so I felt a rework was in order for 13.5, and the result you can see here! I like this version a lotttttttt better, feels more dynamic imo

Next up, Nim!

It's really just her vs portrait that needed a cleanup. Her face felt very small in comparison to the rest of the sprite, as well as the hand feeling too big, so I fixed both alongside with the hair being more clean looking and not as overly detailed! It's the same thing Erick's sprite suffered from, which is the result of a sprite becoming dated over time compared to my current spriting style.

And last but not least, Melia.

Her first sprite just got some overall cleanup to make her pose feel less static, as well as her hair color being accurate to the other sprites now as well since I hadn't fixed that yet! For the second sprite, I made her taller because this sprite always has felt kinda small compared to the other ones she has. It still feels like she looks small in it, but she's also bent forward slightly so it's like............................. whatever

Though the biggest thing that's changed is this third sprite; her outfit that she wears on Terajuma.

Along with V13.5's changes comes the total overhaul of Terajuma, and along with it comes an outfit change for Melia. We've felt like her current outfit for Terajuma doesn't really fit her that well, especially compared to her other outfits later on in the game, so it got a redesign, along with a change to the official art to match!

I won't quite be uploading the full sized version of the art to the sta.sh archive yet (I'm writing this post on a small amount of time LMAO), but I will later.

That's all for now though! I hope people find it interesting to see the before and afters as per usual, hehe

I'll maybe do another one of these a bit further into development, depends on how much else I end up doing. I do have another post I'll have up in a couple of weeks, but that's in regards to the survey we held, so it won't be about the graphics. So for now this is all you'll be getting!

see y'all later o7

I’ve been kinda putting off making a post about this because of the inevitable complaints we’re going to get bombarded with in the comments of people who refuse to look at things from our perspective, so before I talk about any of the preliminary changes we’ve come up with at this point, I want to make a few things absolutely clear to people as I don’t feel like having to repeat myself like a broken record in the comments.

1. Yes, the overall difficulty will be toned down for the vanilla experience rather than being adjusted to make fights more difficult. We do not care if you don’t like these changes because “MUH CHALLENGE”, it is not our problem anymore. We want to give the player a smooth experience where you don’t have to get stuck on the same fight for hours on end, and with the current state of balancing it’s just not possible to give that experience. If you really want to continuously get pulped by every single fight in the game, there will be passwords added in either V13.5 or V14 that will manage difficulty on a smaller scale to make things harder or easier– please use those instead. The amount of challenge you give yourself is in your hands from this point forward, we’re not going to make things purposefully insanely difficult anymore as dealing with people getting mad at us for making things too hard is just… so not worth the time and energy. If you're an intense/veteran normal player and want to retain the challenge you enjoy, I suggest you make use of said passwords or look into difficulty mods instead—we're leaving intense in the hands of the community now instead.

2. We are responding to data we’ve collected with the survey. We’ve had close to 350 responses to the survey! Sure, it's not the complete playerbase (it's impossible to collect the opinion of everyone anyways), but it's a much more reliable data source than smaller circles like rejuv gen and the likes are. As a result, it gave us a much better indication of what fights truly are troublesome and which ones are fine. Turns out that fights some people perceive as “too easy” has shown in the survey that they're actually a lot more challenging for people than we thought! From chapter 2 onwards, every chapter had at least one major fight that was giving people problems one way or another— yes, even fights that we as the devs were surprised that people were having trouble with. We are simply adjusting according to the averages and read through the notes people left to sift out what the sore spots were for those fights for most people.

3. “But why aren’t you appealing to the audience that likes the challenge?!?!” I hate to break it to you, but that group of people is a small but vocal minority. And besides, no matter what we decide to change, someone will be pissed off and will disagree. Jan’s somewhat recent post on tumblr best explains how it is dealing with this, it always feels like a losing game trying to satisfy everyone. Balancing Pokémon—which is inherently unbalanced to begin with—in a way that it’s fair for everyone is a NIGHTMARE. So to answer your question, at this point we’re just trying to make it fun for the biggest group of people possible, which is a more casual playerbase. As such, we’re improving overall QOL by making fights not as difficult so the game feels more streamlined to get through.

4. THESE CHANGES ARE PRELIMINARY, AND NOT ALL OF THE CHANGES WE'RE MAKING. Like I tried to explain in the comments about the boss bars in Jan's previous post on the dev blog, if something turns out to not work as well in practice, we will likely change them over the course of testing and see if things work better that way. If a fight is still too difficult, we'll likely make more changes to adjust accordingly. The stuff mentioned in the post is the changes we've made prior to testing, and which we'll have to try out to see if it works out.

For now, I would appreciate it if people would hold their horses about yelling in the comments that they don't like the changes (regardless of whether they seem to make things easier or harder) because we've literally not even tested some of these in practice, thus we don't know for sure whether these changes will be definite or if they will receive further revisions. We're communicating this with you guys because we see value in being transparent about changes we make and being honest about what the current situation's like.

Sorry if the game’s difficulty is not heading in the direction you want it to, but we've decided that we want to steer the game in the direction that's the most fun for the devs to work on as well, and specifically Jan's. He's the one who has to make the game, and in the end we've agreed that this is the healthiest for both us and the game in the long run. On top of that, I want to stress that just because we're very open about communicating to people about development and therefore are generally very much within reach of the playerbase, it does NOT mean people have the right to send us pointed or passive aggressive messages constantly telling us how you don't like certain things. This is not your game, and therefore these are not your decisions to make. Once again, if Jan (and subsequently the rest of the team) stops having fun, Rejuvenation stops being made. Please, we ask you to treat us with respect over this.

————————————————————————————————————————

*cough*

That being said and on a more positive note… Let’s move on to the actual changes, shall we? I'll put stuff for each individual thing that I'll cover in spoilers in the case people would rather not know about specific changes! New additions are marked in green, changes are marked in yellow and things that got removed are marked in red. The new additions are added on top of the existing field, so most of the changes do not fully replace what's already there, but instead will open up more avenues for the player to make use of when going into a fight.

(Frozen) Dimensional field & Angie

Sky field & Souta

Haunted field & Narcissa

Bewitched woods & Flora/Florin

Some more minor but notable changes...

As mentioned before, these are preliminary and definitely not the only things we're looking at to change. Stuff like Geara's battles, boss battles and most other gym leaders that haven't been mentioned before are being looked at—with Saki's fight likely being redone from the ground up due to that the fight is fundamentally a pain in the ass and can't be fixed with just one or two minor changes. It's taking time as people are busy, but we're still working on them and hoping we can find a solution for making the fights more manageable than they are now.

————————————————————————————————————————

That's all for now in regards to changes! We're adding more in the future and there'll probably be another post about it when the ideas have become more concrete, but that'll be a while away from now. For the time being, we'll keep working hard to make the game a better experience overall.

What's next on the list to do? Well for me specifically, if you've seen my twitter last week or so, I'm working on fixing up the official artwork for almost all of the characters as I've come to realize I really should've utilized flipping the canvas more often to see if what I drew makes any proportional sense........... of which a lot I'm ashamed to say they did not. BUT I'M WORKING ON IT. Will it get a separate post detailing EVERYTHING? Probably not. But I'll be making a post when everything's been uploaded and fixed! Here's a couple of the more notable changes.

Oh, and I'm considering making completely new wallpapers with the character art that doesn't blast your eyes out at 2 am. But that's up in the air. we'll see.......................

anyways this post has gone on for long enough. i'm done hogging the dev blog for today, so until next time!!! please don't kill me in the comments!!!!!!!!!!!!! thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

o7

As I previewed in the previous dev post, I've been going back and editing all the character artwork! A while ago I've noticed that qualitatively the old artwork really does not match up with the more recent art. This is both because the more recent artwork wasn't made in a rush and is simultaneously also made after I've gained more skill in drawing. Out of curiosity (and also after seeing some flipped art in youtube thumbnails) I decided to check to see how the art looked when flipped and found out a huge majority of the artwork suffers from what I like to call mirror syndrome,

meaning, the moment when the canvas is flipped the face decides to skew itself in 23409823 different directions.

I wanted to scream. No way in hell i was gonna let that remain that way, so being the reasonable and completely sane person that I am (that's a lie) (i'm not sane) (reasonable is debatable) i thought it was a SPLENDID idea to go and edit the 120+ pieces of art I've made (including some stuff that hasn't been shown off) to be better! because i'm normal like that. eyup.

That being said though, I'm not going to showcase all of the changes because this post would literally take me another whole ass day to write, so instead I invite you to look at the new versions in the official art thread! I've also updated the art post to include new versions of all the icons, and have also made completely new wallpapers of the updated character art to go along with that are generally darker in terms of colors and don't blast your eyes out when changing back to your desktop at 2 am if you're like me!! They're also infinitely easier to set up!!!!!!!! And won't get outdated with every map update!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it's pretty great and they look super nice in practice. go check them out!

Before I leave people to their devices though, I did tease a certain character getting artwork on discord and twitter, didn't I? Well, no need to wait with baited breath anymore, for here he is; The new appearance of Adam Might as you first see him in Grand Dream City!

Adam's always meant to be kind of a showoff during the time you spend in GDC, but his old appearance really did not do it justice. Jan himself explained that the reason for Adam's somewhat weird appearance in GDC was because of his own perceived lack of skill with spriting at the time, so we ended up deciding that it was time for a redesign. He kept the open blouse and sunglasses, but pretty much everything else has changed. There's a couple of throwbacks to his Blacksteeple/Terajuma outfit worked into his new outfit, though! His sprites have also been updated to match the new appearance and will be included in the upcoming update, 13.5.

But wait, there's more!

If you take a look at some of Jan's older posts, you'll maybe have noticed that Ariana's sprite has been updated, and maybe have suspected her design got an update. And it's true! That's exactly what happened! Her design has been revised for both her first and second appearance, and her artwork has been changed to match. Her design didn't change too much from her old one, but it does have more detail than the old one as the previous one was a bit too plain in comparison to most other protag designs.

That's all for now though! Again, I invite people to look through the new art as I've spent quite a bit of time on making sure the art looks better. The art will also be updated in-game! For now, thank you for your time!

i'll stop hogging the dev blog for now i promise. i've been posting too much sdkjsdklfjsdlkfhsdgskdjslfdlskdj

o7

Shit's fucked, shit's broken, and we need a helping hand to make things not fucked.

The basic requirement for this is, ah, uh, lemme look at the cue cards... uh... "Know how to code, and get along with Cass."

Right, that aside, I'm also extending this for people who want to help and are experienced with spriting-- Particularly in editing/dealing with Pokemon sprites. With Gen 9 looming and all of our ambitious takes with Aevian mons... Well, quite frankly, we need help in that department too. (If you think you can do well editing tilesets, or animating moves, that'd be a big help too!) Discord is required.

Zumi's edit 17/7/2022: Also, please make sure you actually have time to contribute! We're looking for people who are able to consistently help out during development. While we try to be as understanding as possible about any circumstances that pop up and IRL responsibilities are also super important, times like right before and on version release we need all hands on deck, so please make sure you're not signing up while already having too much on your hands.

Scripting application:

Sprite Artist Application:

#------------------------------------#

Before I start with the updates, I want to reiterate that v13.5 is a full version. With its own new storyline, and sidequests... I have to put that there because I got some nasty tumblr asks a while back dogging me about "taking too long for a half version".  

it's not a half version. Even if it was, making a game takes time. I also have my own personal life. Please be patient. If you're not patient, die mad about it. I'll take as long as I need. Okay? Ok.

Continuing!

#------------------------------------#

Obligatory collage of in game images GO!

#------------------------------------#

GDC Updates

Grand Dream City has been under the radar during this update. My goal with this area was to make every singe map look distinguishable, and to have a clear layout so that getting lost wouldn't be an issue.

Of course, some people can't help but get lost. That's a given, but I wanted to make it so that when you get lost, it's easy to get back on track. 
So... What's new with GDC? Besides the new maps, of course.

• All districts will be open the moment you arrive. That includes the festival area with all the mini-games. (Route 9 will not be available.)
• Maps have been compacted.
• New bus line. This will get you places the train cannot!
• New Train/Bus pass item. If obtained, transportation becomes free.
• Revamped encounters.
• New trainers.
• New Help Requests.

Help Requests: 

I've mentioned that there's a new quest log system, right? Pretty sure I have. TL:DR on that is, you get a quest, it's logged in a new menu, and it will be there to tell you what to do and what rewards are available.
However, in addition to that, Help Requests can now be started anywhere. If you come across Sasha lamenting over her mother's absence, you can start the quest just by speaking with her. Girl with the lost Starly? Speak with her! The quest will begin.
Additionally, if you like just grabbing all the quests in one place, you can still use the Help Centers to do so.

New Battle UI:

So uhh... We're getting new UI! The UI we've been using initially was Reborn's, then we moved onto use Xenogene's (recolored blue), and now we're moving onto our own unique interface!
It's not finished, so keep that in mind!

Some things to take note of:

• Status changes the entirety of the health bar. There's also a faint marking over the health bar as well. 
• New shiny symbol.
• Crests and Mega evolution symbols are in the same spot.

Legends Arceus Mons:

- We're probably going to push these with Gen 9 because we still don't have a lot of info on them, and with Gen 9 seemingly bringing them into the game as well, they're probably going to have a lot of changes as well. Plus, we have a lot on our plate already.

But that's all-- Huh? What? ... Oh, yeah, okay. 
So a little something for veteran Rejuv players (I'm talkin' like, V1 players) I have a small lil treat for you!

k bye.

Last month I opened up applications for new dev team members! There were a LOT of applications. More than I expected.

Thank you for that!

Of course, realistically I couldn't accept each and every one because... yeah, but I want to thank you again just because seeing

the amount of people who wanted to put their all into this project was honestly very touching tbh. 

I've also kept some applications that looked promising for future stuff if I ever end up needing help again.

That being said, August was a slow month for me. It usually is. It's when I take off time to go outside and touch grass as that one tumblr ask told me to do lol. 
and touch grass I did. Am I feeling refreshed? Ehh... But an attempt was made! But you know what wasn't slow? My amazing new team members who swooped in

and carried me this past month. I'd like to introduce them to you all!

And that's all! They have been welcome additions to the team and productivity has spiked like crazy. Really exciting. 

Did you know that Soulja completed literally all the sprites for our planned Aevium mons (and more), already? Seriously, they did. 

Allow me to share one with you!

Dragon Mono players, rejoice, a new early dragon mon has dropped! (Concept Art)

IIRC, this was not a planned mon. This was something of Soulja's own creation. I think it looks great. Not because I'm biased and love the Sewaddle line or anything. nope.

As for me, I've been focusing on GDC again and quite recently fixing up the desert. Lemme show y'all what I got:

Not much in terms of actual new content to show, but I hope these screenshots look promising nonetheless!

Well, that's really about it. This post was mostly here to introduce the new team members and let everyone know what's up. If I had to give an estimate of where I'm at development wise, I'd say over halfway, but still nowhere near completion. Maybe 60-70% done? Game is still slated for this year hopefully... Really pushing for it but time is runnin' out and I'm a busy lad irl!!!!! Always trying my best though. Please bear with me <3.

cya.

game is still broken lol. But bc of New Team Members, it's a lot less broken. ty new team members. u are da real 1's

Backgrounds

Three of new variations of battle backgrounds being added are for beaches, Grand Dream City and... Zeight? Oh boy. Wonder when that's gonna be used The backgrounds were made by yours truly!

Beach

Grand Dream City

Zeight

Battle sprites

Our lovely new artist Dallas has been working hard on making and updating some more of the battle sprites for some of the NPCs, as some have gotten a makeover! Say goodbye to the Hardcore Trainer's and the Battle girl's old sprites, for your new ones have arrived! Old sprites are on the left and the new ones are on the right.

VS Sprite updates

I've also been working on updating some of the VS portraits as some had some crust on them from being outdated compared to the rest. I won't be giving a full on explanation for each of them this time, so it might just be best to see the results for yourself. The updates include Zetta, Kieran, Erin and more! Can you spot the differences?

Oh, and speaking of Erin...

I mentioned the popularity poll, right? Well, back in 2020 Erin placed third in the poll, meaning she would receive some special bonus artwork alongside Aelita (1st place) and Venam (4th place, getting the prize instead of Melia who placed 2nd as she was slated to be getting artwork for V13 to begin with and has already been featured in official art a ton). And after like 209381029381 years of being too busy to work on this, I've finally gotten around to working on the art that she'd be receiving! Please take a look!

As per usual with any official art I make, the artwork has been uploaded to the official art thread as well as having a sta.sh links to two different wallpaper versions (with 1440p being the full resolution version). The only one left to make bonus art for is Venam! Maybe I'll have it done in time for 13.5's release? Who knows, entirely depends on whether I get around to doing that on time. Otherwise it'll be somewhere between 13.5's and V14's release! We Shall See(TM)

That being said, that's all for now. Hope y'all got a kick out of these and enjoy all the new work! There's more to come, but some of it will remain a ~*~*~*Little Secret*~*~*~ until 13.5's release, so hold onto your horses until then. Our dev team is working hard to get everything working again and slowly but surely everything's starting to come together, but we ask for a little bit more of your patience for the remaining time!

Thank you again for enjoying the game and see y'all on the flipside!!!

o7

Today I want to talk to you about Boss Battles. In a previous post I mentioned we were getting rid of them because they didn't work out. But apparently a lot of you loved them??? So we're not throwing them out, omg. 
We've done a lot of work with them and I think they're spicy as well.

So, let's talk about the changes.

Shields: 
No longer act like shields from Sword and Shield. Instead, they act more like extra HP bars. If you're privy to the KH series, it's almost identical to that. Similar to the monsters in FE: TH as well.

When the HP bar is reduced to 0, it will refill itself and a remaining "shield" will break. 

But we're not stopping there! We're reworking how bosses work in general! @Azeria went above and beyond with this and added special "effects"  when a certain thing happens. Yeah, that "certain" thing is when shields break. 
Now, when a shield breaks, different things will happen. Here's an extremely (funny) and exaggerated visual example of what I mean.

When a shield breaks, Bosses can:

• Change the field.
• Change the weather.
• Gain special move/abilities [Safeguard,Magic Bounce]
• Have moveset changes.
• Gain stat boosts/decreases.
• Call for help in certain instances.
• Much more !

In addition to that, 1 hit KO moves are back, but with some caveats.

• They will only take down 1 bar of HP
• Cannot be used more than once. (If you use Fissure once and its successful, all other moves will also be locked.)

Oh and of course, stats of Boss Pokemon will be adjusted with the new mechanics/effects in mind! 

What I've described is pretty much just the tip of the iceberg, though. We have a lot of cool ideas for bosses and we hope to make each one unique in its own way. The best way to describe boss mons is that they're more like a puzzle now instead of a brute force wall of frustration. You'll be able to deal damage and not take as much, but you'll need to know how to maneuver around the active changes happening during the fight. Naturally, if things are out of line, we'll adjust as we go.

Speaking of Entei, though... I can't remember if I mentioned this on Reborn or not, but I am not planning on doing a huge post game like Reborn's. Rejuvenation is already huge, and I just don't have the energy to make a lengthy quest for each and every legend possible. There are just too many, and with Gen 9 on the horizon, there are just going to be MORE and MORE. So here's the deal. 
I previewed this on Twitter: 

Notice the Regirock on the overworld.

That Regirock is catchable. The Entei in the picture is catchable.

Now lemme stop you there. I know what you're gonna say.

Jan.

You said legendaries wouldn't be gotten before Post Game. You're right, I did say that. 
But also I changed my mind. We'll be introducing lower tier legendaries post v13 story (As in, they won't appear to you in game until a certain point after v13.) Some of them will have quests! Some of them won't. Some you'll find just in hidden areas. More info on this one later.

IIIIn other news, @Zumi has been back at it at the music game and created a new track for Team Xen areas! (Primarily their various bases around the region)  Please take a listen!

Additionally, we have a new track from Glitch! This song was actually not requested, but was a gift! And tbh that makes me feel emotional so im sharing it here. No I will not elaborate the title. Just enjoy the tunes~

BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT that's not all! I have one more surprise for you! A new Aevian form, and one of my personal favorites from this batch. Please note that this will be the final aevian form we'll be publicly showcasing as we want some of them to be a surprise when you actually play the game. 

Mirror Mirror on the wall, which heart shows the darkest destiny of them all?

That's all for now though! Something new im doing here, but the next post will be on November 9th!
Yes I'm declaring a post date. I just think this post will be a little special. no it's not the release of v13.5

Have a nice rest of your week :).

H-Hey, what's Amanda doing here?!

....*ahem*!

Hi one and all! I'm back with another art update! This time it specifically about five characters that finally got art, or received a glow-up in some shape or form. You've already seen one just now! Indeed, while it's not any standalone art, the intro screen with Amanda has gotten a makeover. The graphics are overall more polished and her talksprites have been updated to match! It's one of the bits of art that felt severely outdated compared to all the other individual character artwork shown in the game. As a little comparison for those who haven't started a new file in a long time, this is what the screens generally look like in the current build of the game.

yes i know, she does look a little like geara in the new art, doesn't she. welp. that's just what she looks like without the hat!! i had to base it on her artwork with the hat. it is what it is. i think it's also pretty obvious that the third image with me crashing against the screen also won't be in the game so don't even worry about it.

Moving on, a character that's been long overdue for getting her own artwork has finally received said artwork! Please take a look at the art for Novae, one of the most prominent recurring sidequest characters in the game!

As I mentioned on twitter where I first previewed her artwork, I really have no excuse for me forgetting about doing this. She's a very beloved sidequest character and it's high time that she got the love she deserves from our side as well, so she's finally gotten some official art to make up for it.

Next up is another character that's been teased/previewed before, Mr. Luck! This is a character that up until the upcoming update has had a very minor role as he's currently only really there for people to swap between difficulties, and therefore never had a truly fleshed out design. As we're removing intense and instead adding passwords however, the experience is easier to tweak and making it easier or harder for yourself is now done through other means than through Luck. But it's a shame to just ditch his character outright since he has story relevance (remember that flashback from Gardevoir? ), so we've got other plans for him now! Plans that I cannot detail for the time being, sure, but plans that were enough of a reason for him to finally get a proper design as he'll be playing a slightly larger role than before. Perhaps those plans will be detailed at a later point? Who knows! Oh well. Let's see if you'll get lucky enough to hear about it sooner than later. For now, enjoy his full character artwork!

Oh, and have his concept art that I drew while I was working on his redesign as well. Figured it'd be fun to show off the full thing considering it's what I used to tease the character anyways!

Finally, there's two more characters that have not had full artwork of them yet despite them being relevant to the main story. Honestly, I have no clue why I even skipped over them to begin with. Maybe it's because they're not particularly the most popular characters considering their role in the story? Idk!!! Regardless, to close this post off, have a look at the finalized designs for Spacea and Tiempa!

Concept art is courtesy of @Cerise, as shown below! They're the one who did the rough designs of the two, with me polishing the designs to the finalized versions you see above.

...And there's yet still more to come, of course! But alas, some stuff is sometimes better saved for later. I cannot give an estimate as of when the next post on my end will be, but you shall definitely hear from me again for I got PLANS. IMPORTANT PLANS.

YUH.

Anyways, as is per tradition to close off an art post, hereby the announcement once again that all artwork alongside a link to the full resolution versions can be found back on the official art thread along with new icons and wallpapers! You know the drill. For the time being, I'll be on my merry way again.

See y'all later! o7

But not just v14, but for the rest of the game. As many of you are aware (v13 spoilers for those who haven't finished it yet.)
There are two main endings in the game. The Bad Ending and The Good Ending as it was dubbed. I was asked a long time ago on Tumblr about how far I was willing to go with "The Bad Ending". Well, let's get into that!

I've been planning this part for a long time now. I knew that I wanted there to be two main routes, and I knew just how far I wanted to go with each of them. Well, basically, The Bad Ending, is called the Renegade Route. It will be the largest divergence in this story (yes I'm crazy.). After v14, the two paths will not cross each other and will provide unique story experiences for both. Essentially, from v13.5 and onward, there will be two versions in one. (Though due to the nature of the beast, v14 will be more linear)  Why am I doing this? Because I want to. And because I am crazy. I know it's a lot of work you don't need to remind me! 

Each version will have equal amount of effort and time put into them*, and each route is canon. They also, like, totally play off each other so you should do both eventually! 

(*This does not mean they will be the same length in content. I won't bloat one side to catch up to the other in terms of content. The story will be told how it was meant to and if one is slightly shorter or longer, it is what it is.)

When v13.5 drops and the Renegade Route begins, expect a huge turn in the story. I hope you're ready!
Oh, but uh... If you're going down the route of oblivion... That means you're attempting to destroy our game, and our world. Just know that...

I won't make it easy for you. :)

Oh and because people aren't aware/confused... The Renegade Route has no post game. I just want to make that clear. When the game ends, it ends.

Q/A:
1.) Because the Renegade Route has no post game, what about the legendaries that are planned for post game?

So, because of the lack of post game, I am planning on releasing all legendaries before the ending of that route, which means some legendaries (and items) will become available much earlier than in The Good Ending route. But as a caveat, there will be a sudden power spike in this route at some point. This route will be tougher/more unforgiving in general, but never impossible. 

2.) Does "The Good Ending" have an official name yet?

The Paragon Route.

3.) Is there another way to start the Renegade Route after the initial threshold?

No, you have to meet the requirements before starting the player/aelita branch. If you're on the good ending route now you're there for "good"! And also vice versa.

4.) Will you update the status bars soon?

No, screw the status bar dude. I hate it. It's never accurate because things get added/removed from development all the time and it's a pain to maintain. So I'm abandoning it for now. If you want an exact standing of where I am at this very moment, here:

Next post is on the 15th of December. (I'm giving myself dates so that I don't procrastinate!)

I'm gonna be honest. The first time I opened up Rejuv's project folder this month was **checks notes**... Last night. 
December is traditionally an extremely busy month for me and that's just all it was. I was busy. I have obligations I must attend to irl and I'm making moves towards securing my future financially. 
I truly wish I could work on Rejuv more often, but that just isn't in the cards for me. Maybe one day! Patreon has been a huge help, but it's not something that can sustain me long term, neither do I want it to.

That's the thing about working on Rejuv sometimes. People assume that that's what I'm working on all day every single day, and when I reveal to them that I'm not-- I'm just being slow or I'm wasting time as if I'm obligated to dedicate my
entire life on a fan project. Then I get the annoying anon in my inbox asking why each version is taking way longer than the previous ones as if I'm supposed to break down crying saying that I lost interest or the expectation that I'm supposed
to thank them for putting me back on the right track in life and dedicating every single moment of my life to something they'll finish in a few hours and then ask me when the next one's coming out. And then when I'm saying I'm taking a 
small break that's when the passive aggression starts or whatever. 

And if it's not that, it's the gen 9 or item/mon location questions I'm constantly getting despite the fact that I said I'm not adding it next version, but somehow I'm still expected to know each and everything I plan to do with it. Am I gonna keep this nerf,
am I happy about this buff. Who is going to give what, when am I going to get this, this mon is broken so put it there, this mon is garbage, it needs a crest. Are we getting new crests. When is the new crest. Release mega evolution earlier.
Omg when is Venam apologizing for stealing Tesla's Charizard omg omg. Make an entire branched story path where I do what I would do in this situation. When is this happening. Who is Madame X Who is gonna die next version tell me tell me tell me
here's my crest idea u didnt ask for. why is this crest a prototype. this mon lost this move are u removing it 2

This thing got a new evolution that's ZACIAN NERFSS broken is it being axed is it being
moved is it being axed GLACEON JUMPSCARE is it being nerfed is it PROTEAN being axed is it being nerfed is it??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

--

Anyway.

idk yet. 
I haven't lost interest.
I still love working on this game.

I'm just busy.
That's all I got for you.

So, there, that's out of the way. quick q/a

1.) new crests?
yea

2.) gen 9
v15. Although knowing me im gonna be impatient and add it in halfway through v14

3.) anything actually new to show?
yea, actually this part is pretty exciting! Zumi is creating art stills for certain moments in game. This one is pretty iconic so I'm sure you'll recognize it! Here's a preview:

4.) omg are u single 
yes i make pkmn fangames wtf u think .

5.) will venam actually speak to tesla about the charizard?
yes, goddamn.

6.) favorite gen 9 mon?
Tinkaton, or Chi-yu, or Wo-chien. Tbh? the whole quartet is amazing.

7.) Least favorite gen 9 mon?
Scovillain, or Gholdengo. Maybe Orthworm.

anyway, when i opened this page I didn't expect to start screaming into the void, but I feel a lot better in doing so and I don't really feel bad about it. 
Also I'm not saying you can't be curious about something in game, or whatever. That part is fine and expected! I mean, hey, I would be in the same boat!
Just, give me some time to process an entire new gen first lol. IRT in game events, how about idk... just waiting for the game to be done. Then if it's shit you have all rights to yell at me lol.
Actually you don't, but still. 

cya
 

2022 was a wild ride for many of us, wasn't it? Lots of progress on the game-- introducing a couple of new characters, finally addressing some issues with the game on all fronts (technical, visual AND balance-wise), we've got a bunch of new team members who have been pulling some great weight over time, new music, new visuals, new quests, you name it! And while we weren't able to bring out V13.5 in 2022 like we initially hoped, sometimes life just gets in the way or things end up being more work than initially expected. And you know what? That's okay! Sure, things take longer for them to be done, but I do want to reiterate that this update is slated to be the last update that brings major overhauls to older areas to become their finalized versions. It takes time to create quality content, and as we only want to put the best experience for you guys on the table I hope people will remain supportive of the team this year too as we try to polish 13.5 to perfection!

As a gift for everyone's support in the past year and to ring in the new year with a bang, Jan & I figured we could give some art as a gift! So here we go; some "new" character artwork. Specifically the interceptor forms for the protagonists, which is something people have been asking for quite a while. Please take a look at their official designs!

Aevis (Bravery)

Aevia (Tranquility)

Axel (Chaos)

Ariana (Happiness)

Alain (Wrath)

Aero (Strength)

Ana (Mercy)

The artwork for the interceptor forms have been a long time coming, and truth to be told I've already had them done for like uhhhhhhhh..................... literally almost a year now. hence why new was between quotation marks. they're from late january LOL..... It never quite felt like the right time to reveal them though, at least until Jan came up with the idea to show them off as a new year's gift.

That being said, that's all there really is to show! As is with just about any other character art; icons, wallpapers and links to the full resolution versions of the artwork can be found in the official art thread!
 

I hope everyone has a wonderful year and I look forward to sharing our work with all of you in 2023 as well!

o7

Speaking of time though, Jan's got his hands full, so I'm taking over for this month's post to give you all a bit of an update on what's been going on with development! I'm sure you're all plenty curious since it's been a while since our last substantial update, so let's dive into it shall we?

First off, screenshots! Some of these were shown on twitter, but I've included them in the case you missed them. Some are entire reworks, some are simple updates, some are... something else.

On top of area updates, Jan's actually been working on some QOL updates in regards to cutscenes! An excerpt from one of Jan's Patreon posts:

• "Looking at the pages of events I wanted to work on, the amount of text... was kind of insane. I've cut down on text quite a bit, and I've made things snappier and more involved.
  
  Speaking of trimming text, I've also been working on a QOL I think a lot of people will enjoy. Starting from 13.5+, you'll be able to skip entire segments on repeat playthroughs. These segments are usually ones that have a pause from the player's story and give insight elsewhere. It's neat that you can play as Melia in the library and all, but the purpose of this section is to give exposition and push the story forward. But on repeat playthroughs, you've already seen this! You can just skip it. This goes for Lavender's "escape" segment and the Diamond and Pearl segments (And more!).
  And for those who don't particularly care for the action segments in Marianette's mansion, I'm planning on having those be skippable as well, just maybe not through the same way.
  
  Please note that if there are relationship gain/losses in these segments, you will lose out on them. Additionally, this is a QOL that will only affect new save files, as the condition of multiple playthroughs is decided during the intro."

Next up are some extra previews of the new CG's I've been working on for the game! Two were previewed in the previous dev blog Jan posted and I've personally previewed two on twitter myself (they are included in here if you missed them!) so here's another small handful of previews. Now as some of you guys probably already are aware of I may be a little unhinged for doing this, but this is only a small handful of them-- the total will amount to roughly 30 new CG's to be used in-game, for both old and new parts of the story. If you want to see all of them, consider starting a new file to see them all in their proper context! or go through the game's graphics folder i guess once .5's out. but what's the fun in that?

Next up, in the case people missed it, fan-favourite minor NPC's Piano lady and Truck guy finally got their official art as enough money was raised for charity back in December in order for them to get theirs! The images were posted on twitter & tumblr, but hadn't been posted on the dev blog yet, so here you go. As per usual, all related artwork can be found back in the official art thread if you want to find it back.

Finally, we've got some music previews! Plural, because there's two. Both were composed by yours truly! No full loops this time around, just a few snippets- but enjoy them nonetheless :) Won't be telling where exactly they'll be used, but I'm sure you can figure it out from context clues! Maybe.

That's all for now! We've still got some work left, but things are slowly but surely coming together. It's shaping up to be pretty exciting, and I hope people are still just as excited about the update as we are! We're also extremely ready to just be done with v13 and .5 as a whole and move on to v14, but we're not gonna rush anything or diminish quality just because we want it to be over and done with, so once again we're asking for everyone's patience for a little while longer. this update is CHUNKY, but it's worth it.

thank u guys for bearing with us

until next time!

o7

Official artwork updates:

Most of my work has been with the Renegade Route, and while I'd love to show things from that, literally every frame of it is a spoiler in some capacity. So... Yeah. I don't have really anything to show in that regard. 

We're way past the schedule I wanted, but tl:dr, a close family member of mine was diagnosed with cancer and it's been really hard to do things like normal. I know things are taking long, but please be patient! I don't intend this post to be sad or anything, but it is the reality of my situation. 



It will be out this year :).

We understand? Ok good.

Hi, it's May now. I've been pretty busy with irl stuff as per usual, but I've gotten a lot done if the two screenshots above aren't any indication.
As of right now (besides 2 small things), both the Paragon and Renegade Routes are completed.
That is the main content of the game and omfg I am so ready to be 100% done. I'm very close to being there.

So what does this mean? Well, there's still some polishing/updates I'm doing in other places that will need some time to get done.
As well as completely implementing new Aevian forms, fixing positioning, etc. etc.. etc.

That being said, I'd like to get some sort of testing started in the next month or so.
Been another long journey folks, but it's smooth sailing past this unlucky number.

Some screenshots, of course:

 

Ok, now it is Zumi's turn to speak:

==========================

"Hiya!! Zumi hijacking the post for a brief moment to talk about the track you're about to listen to. This one may be a bit of a surprise to some people as this isn't exactly a new track, but instead a new version of a track I previously composed that some may be familiar with already. Normally I'd try to be a bit more vague about the purpose of the track-- and despite having said over and over that the project it's from is dead, I've always wanted to give it one last farewell, one which Jan was kind enough to help out with. So I'm bringing the project back one last time through Rejuv... In a stripped down form, with some music overhauls to go along with it! I've already teased it slightly before, but make sure to explore GDC during 13.5's story if you're on the Paragon route-- you may just across what's been my little passion project for this dev cycle, and it'd mean a lot to me if people checked it out!"

But that's it for this dev post. A small one, but a lot of what is new is TOP SECRET!!!!!! So you'll just have to wait just a littttleee bit longer. I promise.
This will probably be the last dev post for this cycle. Next post will let everyone know when testing has begun or whatever. 

Thanks for your patience and I hope you all have a good week. 

Testing has begun (a week ago)! You know what that means! 
It's time for me to be drowned in bugs woohoo.

Please play this song while this post is being read:
 

I started testing phase with 3 quests unfinished because im confident that i can finish them before this stage of testing phase can be completed (he's not that confident.) 

I'm sure there are some new folks. Let's talk about how the testing phase goes.

There are three Stages.
Stage 1: Internal : Developers get together to test and laugh, and laugh, and laugh. I don't laugh. I fix bugs. I cry. 
Stage 2: Alpha : Small selected individuals are brought together to test and laugh, and laugh, and laugh. I fix bugs. I cry. 
Stage 3 Beta : Patreon folk are brought together to test and laugh, and laugh, and laugh. I fix bugs. I cry more. 

We are currently in Stage 1. There is no set period of how long each stage takes. It is simply just how severe the amt of bugs are + the speed of the playthroughs. Each time testing takes a little longer bc game big. I fix bugs. 

What's next ? 

Well, sometime before release I'll be releasing a post on how to make sure your save files aren't completely busted when u load up v13.5! 
Here, I'll give you a preview. If your game is at any point on or after terajuma, but before the end of v13 main story-- just finish your playthroughs. please. if you load up the game mid arc. its gonna blow up.

ur gonna die, man. you're just gonna die. Let me make it more clear: If your files are anywhere in these sections::::::::
Chapter 1 - ur gonna die
Chapter 2 - omg ur living, just dont load on route 2.
Chapter 3 - omg ur living
Chapter 4 - omg ur living
Chapter 5 - omg ur living
Chapter 6 - ur gonna die
Chapter 7 - ur gonna die
Chapter 8 - ur gonna die
Chapter 9 - ur gonna die
Chapter 10 - ur gonna die
Chapter 11 - ur gonna die
Chapter 12 - ur gonna die
Chapter 13 - ur gonna die
Chapter 14 - ur gonna die
Chapter 15 - Defeat Saki first or else... say it with me, ur gonna die

the reason for this is that story variables have changed. If you just walk into terajuma on old files without your save files being configured, ur gonna die. \

look at this funny bug that happened during a run a few months ago (spoilers: H-Braviary shiny)

some screenshots.

i cant remember what i posted before. sorry 4 repeats, if any,

okie bye bye.

It's been roughly a month since testing has begun, so I figured this would be as good a time as any to post an update on the goings-on with the game right now. We've all been hard at work to get stuff finished up and are excited for people to see all the new stuff! But of course, keeping radio silence on here isn't the way to go or ppl will start sending me asks on tumblr again asking why there hasn't been a dev blog post yet and being very sad about it so let's get into it all, shall we?

The current state of testing

First up, Jan will be leaving on a holiday for roughly a week starting this weekend! He's taking a well deserved break before all hell breaks loose later this year LOL. However, that doesn't mean stuff in regards to testing will come to a standstill. A good couple of our dev members are actively involved with fixing bugs we come across (both scripts and events!), so testing will continue as usual.

Speaking of which, we're still on internal testing! This is mostly because we want to be reaaaally thorough with the game ourselves this time around (unlike what happened with V13), so we can catch as many issues as possible ourselves before moving on to alpha testing. As of right now, a lot of us are on testing Chapter 11, and ACT 1 is completed by almost everyone! There's only a tiiiny bit of event work left for the update as a whole, which is expected to be feature complete shortly after Jan is back from his trip and he's able to work on it again. Most of the graphics are done now as well with only a few sprites left on the backlog, which should all be done before alpha starts. Weeee, progress!

That being said, the plan was to actually start on ACT 2 testing sooner than we did, but Jan spent a good amount of time polishing a bunch of the content in ACT 2 to be more enjoyable as well. Sometimes a part of the game/story needs a little extra ~*Pizazz™*~ and that's ok. Especially considering it means the experience for you guys will be better! We'll probably be stuck on GDC for a little while anyways because that place is Beeg™ and therefore the amount of bugs that have been discovered is also Beeg™. There's also the fact that we've got a Quest Log now and that we have to update/add it as we go through the game ourselves. Jan has been doing main story + major sidequests which is honestly Quite The Task. I've been doing the sidequests that were missed/hadn't been updated properly yet to even have a log, so he doesn't have to do everything himself, but I can definitely tell you that it's a lot of work for a game as big as Rejuvenation dflkjsdflksdfllasjdalsk

Oh, and for those wondering about the opinions so far on Terajuma considering that place got a massive overhaul... It was a huge success! The team really really enjoyed all the changes, and it really turned a weak arc into a very very strong one. I really highly recommend checking out the place in a new run or going back after you're done going through the new stuff in .5.

Unfortunately it's not all fun and games with testing. Aside from the usual game-crashing stuff where there's a typo in a script somewhere that can be fixed rather easily, we've ran into a pretty concerning bug that we haven't been able to fix that will ever so rarely straight up crash your game out of nowhere, no warning/error popup or anything— and with barely any rhyme or reason to it happening. This is not to cause a panic because Haru's doing their utmost to find a solution for the problem (EDIT 4-8-2023): which is looking to possibly be caused by MKXP-Z having upgraded to Ruby 3.1. The chances of it happening at all are pretty low as well, with most of us having ran into it only once or twice—aside from Alex, who is Game Crash Georg, gets 10000 crashes a day, is a statistical outlier and should not be counted— but there is a chance that we won't have a fix for this by the time the update comes out considering that downgrading back to an older version of Ruby is currently broken. All we can do right now is give the advice in advance that you save often when .5 is out so in the case it does happen, you won't lose a lot of progress and you'll also know that this is a known issue.

think of it as working with any software that is unstable, for example after effects. i speak from experience. that shit will crash for no fucking reason so you gotta hit save often!!!!!!! treat it like that!!!!!!!! be vigilant!!!!!!!!!!!!

In all seriousness, we'll keep you guys posted about this problem. If the bug persists into public release, we'll put a warning alongside the download/update post to make sure people are aware of it, but we'll keep trying our best to fix the issue before it even gets to that. please send haru your thoughts and prayers.

To wrap this segment up on a happier note however, here's some more OOC stuff from during testing. There's already some funny stuff in the column next to the dev blog, but why not share a little more? We're all taking this very seriously I promise.

Beans! ok moving on.

Last minute sprite updates!

Because I just can't help myself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Sowwy. Speaks for itself, here's a couple of VS portraits I've updated recently! I showed a few on twitter before (which are included in here in case you missed them), but there's a couple that I hadn't posted publicly in here yet as well. I know some of these changes might be quite drastic and may take some getting used to (particularly Ana and Ren from what I've heard so far), but I'm trying to bring the sprites a bit more in line with the official art and have style be consistent across the board. And stuff is still subject to change even between now and release!! So maybe some will get some minor changes even after I post this.

okay but WHAT is with the title of the dev blog. none of this is related to it. wtf

Good question! But also stop being hasty or I will CRY and SCREAM and throw you to be PECKED AT BY THE BIRDS. I was just about to get to explaining this.

gosh. ugh.

Anyways, the title is related to something we teased all the way back in the dev blog from October of last year (GOD IT'S CLOSING IN ON HAVING BEEN A YEAR HELP ME) and has finally been fully realized into a brand new feature to Rejuvenation. In particular, it's related to this smug bastard— Mr. Luck.

Don't remember him? Now you do! If you don't, that's fine too. Don't worry about it. Either way, he's a character you can find at the start of the game in East Gearen, in a circus tent! Prior to .5 he 1) did not have a proper design, and 2) only existed for the option for people to switch between difficulty modes. However, what with intense being gone coming next update and with passwords being a thing, this functionality of his has become essentially redundant, and has since been removed. So what are we gonna do with him? We can't just remove him from the game, he's got some (albeit minor) story involvement, so we have to figure out something else to use him for.

So clearly, the correct course of answer here is to go all-out with this clown, and have him offer a lot more than just a difficulty swap. Introducing Black Prisms and Prism Pokémon!

Before going into what Mr Luck has to do with this, let me explain Prism Pokémon first. When getting a wild encounter, you'll have about an 1-in-100 chance to run into a Pokémon holding a Black Prism, and they look like this! You can recognize them by the rainbow aura around them.

This isn't just cosmetic though! Upon entering a battle with one of these, the Prism Pokémon will get a +2 boost on all of its stats thanks to the prism it's holding. If you manage to catch it, you'll be able to take its Black Prism off of it! Not only that, but these Pokémon generally tend to have better stats, so it's worth catching them for that as well. However, putting a prism on one of your Pokémon does not give the +2 omniboost to your own Pokémon. It really only works on the enemy wild encounters you find. Buuuuuuuuut if you want, you can just keep the prism on your mons if you want to keep the rainbow aura purely for cosmetic purposes. every pokémon can celebrate pride now!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAHHHHH

But um... That aside, what does Mr. Luck have to do with these Black Prisms? Well, it's pretty simple. He collects them. He'll offer all sorts of things in trade for the prisms, including contracts that can help you in all sorts of ways! He can increase the odds of running into shinies, make it so that there's a chance that wild Pokémon have egg moves by default, increase the amount of money earned in battle... Or even change your character appearance.

Just don't worry about the fine print! ...Or do. There might be some downsides involved, after all. Can't have everything handed to you on a silver platter, now can it? He's got the smarmy businessman look down pat as well, so there's bound to be some fishy stuff involved. But it's funnier if you find out for yourself what those... Er, little snags are. Tread with a small amount of caution!

He's also got a cute little assistant called Doxie that you'll see for yourself if you visit him, and will trade you all sorts of useful items if you've got prisms to spare for things that aren't Luck's own contracts. It includes items such as valuables you can sell for big money, cell imprints and even glitter balls! They won't be cheap however, so if you want to get your hands on those, make sure to keep catching those Prism Pokémon if you come across them.

─────────────────────────────────────

That about covers it for this dev blog! Hope you're all excited for the new features─ Oh, wait. Just one more thing, as a little ~*Treat™*~.

For people on fresh playthroughs, there are a lot of new, hidden things to find. Some things you'll only be able to find/understand on your second playthrough or beyond. Unless, of course, you use a guide on your first playthrough, which is just unfun so booooo if you do. smh

Best way to view all these little new things to discover as.... Hm, inconsistencies. Yes, that'll do. Exciting, no? And I'm sure we're not the only ones excited about it. :)

That's all I'll spill on the matter though, so hope you'll enjoy looking for all the little secrets when the update comes out!

For now, see you next post!!!!!! We're so close!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

However, as a player, all you have to worry about is one thing. 

Before that, let's talk about how the download will work. 

HOW TO UPDATE YOUR GAME GOING FORWARD:

For your save file to convert properly, you MUST save ANYWHERE inside the League Administration area. Any room will do. 

You MUST have also defeated Saki. These are your conditions. Loading up anywhere else will result in major problems, I'm not kidding. 
There may be some instances where you're safe to load and fly to Sashila, but I seriously advise against taking that chance.

Once you load up in the right area, you will see this message pop up:

After this is done, you're ready to go! Really, that's all! I even threw in 3 Data Drives to start you off if you're interested in using the password mechanic! (Yes, there are passwords this ver. However, not all of Reborn's passwords are implemented.)

You can start .Karma Files content by speaking to Erin in this room.

You will be directed further on from that point. If you're still lost, use our new Quest Log system!

That aside, there's a LOOOOOT to do in 13.5. A lot of people during alpha/beta have mentioned that calling this a half version is sort of a disservice. Welp, oops.
But here's a couple of important things you should do right away!

--------------------------------

1.) Visit Luck's Tent!
There is one tent on each major island.

Floria Island: (Gearen Park)

Terajuma Island: (Mynori Sea)

Terrial Island: (Route 7)

Badlands: (Zorrialyn Coast)

2.) Activate Fast Travel Posts!:
Like Luck's Tent, each island has its own form of fast travel now! They're all like Truck Daddy's Guy's services.

Terajuma Posts:

Terrial Island/Badlands:

3.) Visit Kecleon's Bazaar!

--------------------------------

Boss Mechanic Changes!

The way bosses work have changed! They are a lot less restricting. You have a lot of freedom in what you can do against your enemies~.

So, how does this work?

--------------------------------

But that's all! V13.5 Drops tomorrow, Oct 29th. No set time. It'll drop when it's ready to~.

I hope you all enjoy. And welcome back!
 

Instructions on what to do before and after loading can be found HERE.

THE FOLDER WHERE YOUR SAVES ARE HELD HAVE CHANGED!

Windows -> SavedGames/Rejuv (NO LONGER PokemonRejuvenation)

MAC -> "Pokemon Rejuvenation"

Download the game here.

General Release Notes:

Hello everyone! It's been a week since V13.5 has been released (already?!?!?!?!? what the FUCK) and that means it's time for me to start uploading the new music and artwork I've done for V13.5! I'm also including some of the artwork that's been in previous posts, but am including it just in case someone missed it since I know people like having stuff in one place!! In other words, consider this a compilation of all the art that's been done between V13's release and now.

Some keen-eyed people going through the post may notice that some characters and new music tracks are still missing—but do not worry, for those will be uploaded next week instead, or will be drawn at a later point. We're giving people a liiiiittle bit more time to (re)discover these characters. Or we're just keeping them for the next batch bc they're spoilers, lmao. We know a lot of people are on new playthroughs, so unlike V13 we're taking a little bit more time before posting all the funny spoiler bits. (i'm personally gnawing at the cage bars for next week to arrive as soon as possible for a VERY specific reason, but that's an aside. if you know you know and i prefer it if people don't point it out in the comments LOL... let's keep the comments spoiler free from stuff that isn't shown here shall we?)

And speaking of new files—if you haven't done a new playthrough yet, PLEASE start a new save and continue on from that one with future update releases. I promise you it's going to cause way less issues in the long run. Not only is there a lot of new stuff to see and do (including some very neat stuff you would probably miss on an old save if you've done most side quests before), it also just doesn't snap your save in half when entering some older areas like it does right now with old, converted saves LOL. Unfortunately we can't actually fix all the problems with due to how some variables are used. :( We're trying what we can to make the converter catch as much as possible, but some stuff will inevitably break, and we won't be able to fix it. If you want to start a new run of the game but don't want to take a super long time to catch up due to game difficulty, I highly suggest starting on Story Mode and switching back to Classic through Mr. Luck's contracts once you're at current content. The mode is significantly easier than Classic and will be plenty easy to go through for people who normally play on a harder mode. Or don't and stick to Story mode, or just play on Classic! It's up to you!!!!!! The world is your oyster and making use of passwords can make your life easier or harder as you please.

Tiny tangent aside, let's move on to the actual contents of the post, shall we?!?!?! GOSH. I'm putting everything in separate spoilers and categorizing so the post is easier to navigate and not flooded with a bunch of... uh, more separate spoilers. You can just skip to whatever piques your interest the most!

ARTWORK:

MUSIC:

POSTERS?!?!

That's right! As of today, a bunch of the official illustrations for the game are available on my new INPRNT store to buy as prints! If you have a particular fully detailed illustration that you like, there's a pretty big chance that it's available on the store. I plan to add more in the future, but we're starting off simple with what's currently available.

...there's also two, uh, tiny bit saucy prints of two specific characters on there, which some people might recognize them from my twitter shenanigans from the past year or so.

i'd say i'm sorry for also putting them up there, but i'm really not LOL. do with that what you will

I will note that this is my personal store, so I'll likely be uploading things from other series and hyperfixations as well. The store won't be 100% dedicated to Rejuvenation for that reason, but there'll still be a lot of it available there. I'll also post about it if any new Rejuv themed prints go up! INPRNT takes roughly half of the earnings as they do all the production and shipping work, the other half will go directly to me. Soooo, if you want to support me and my work, consider buying a print from there!

------------------------

That's all for this post! So again, next week the post with all the more spoiler-y stuff will go up. If there's some stuff missing even after that, it's simply for another time in the future, likely somewhere between now and V14's release. Thank you again everyone for having been so patient with all of us over the past few years, and we hope you've been enjoying the update!

As per usual, all the official art can be found back in the official art thread.

Now, we've finally got V14 to look forward to and work towards... Spicy.

See you next week!

o7

WOOO I'm excited to finally be able to write this post!! Two weeks I have been awaiting to be able to post these as I wasn't able to include them in the first post due to them being SPOILERS—or in one particular case, a character that you can find relatively early on but is hidden in a place that sometimes people forget exists. But no more secrets, for we shall now reveal the five remaining new pieces of artwork (along with a set of CG's that wasn't included in the previous post)! I'll put some minor explanation for each character in separate spoiler tags since I don't want people to click on this post and then get blasted with massive spoilers just from a glance, so proceed with caution.

Anything that isn't included in this batch but might still seem missing is something that can possibly still be included in a later batch or V14 instead. Who knows! Perhaps there's a reason some characters haven't been included.... or maybe i decided putting it off is for the best considering how much i've already done for .5 but i'll leave that up to your interpretation

ARTWORK (MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD, PROCEED WITH CAUTION)

MUSIC

On a final note, the INPRNT shop with a bunch of the official art now has two more prints available on the store; one of the characters included in this post, as well as a print of Erin's popularity poll artwork! Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about Venam's artwork that she's also still supposed to receive in that regard—I just haven't had time to sit down and work on that one yet. My plan's to have it done before V14's release, and I will add it to the print shop when it's done right away.

Anyways, that's all for the art & music uploads for this particular version! There's a couple of other characters that are already in the game that I've got slated to draw art for between now and V14's release, but I do want to mention that this dev cycle we're likely gonna keep the details and explanations about the completely new content more on the down low. We're working towards the climax of Act 2, and this is something we absolutely do not want people to be spoiled on, so what we'll be sharing will likely be pretty selective. Gotta keep things a surprise, no?

As per usual, all the official art can be found back in the official art thread! Wallpapers and icons have been added as well :)

Thank you again for supporting the game's development all these years and having been so patient for V13.5's release! We're excited to finally be moving into the territory of doing completely new work again rather than having to focus on reworking old content. We're finally at a stage where quality is overall very consistent across the board, so now we can pour all our energy into progressing with the brand new story parts and gameplay.

Until next time!!

o7

It's been a couple of months since the last post on the dev blog! The holidays have come and gone, but things have been relatively quiet on our end since we stopped putting out the patches for V13.5, hasn't it? I completely understand people are looking forward to whatever we're putting on the table next, so I'll be using this post to explain a couple of things that have happened recently and what you can expect for this development cycle.

For the past two months or so, most of us have been on an extended break! Many of us either just needed time to take a breather after V13.5 came out (which, y'know... isn't that weird to want considering we had two very intense dev cycles that both lasted 2 years back-to-back), or had personal matters to attend to/deal with. For this reason, we haven't really made any significant progress on the next update. Jan's made a start on mapping some of the new areas shortly before going on break, but it's nothing that we're able to show here (yet). This actually ties into the main point of this whole post, which is about that V14 marks the end of Act 2. Development for it has slowly started to pick up again! This is super exciting, of course! We're all super stoked for you guys to see what this act will culminate in, and moving on to the final act of the game— Act 3.

However...

Due to the nature of the update, practically everything in this update is riddled with major spoilers— and as we want to keep as much as possible a surprise for players, it means that development updates this cycle will be far and few in between compared to the past couple of cycles.

This is a very conscious decision that we've made— and I know it may not be as fun for most people who are invested in the development process, but there really is just extremely little we can show that wouldn't outright spoil something major or indicate/imply something.

So will there just be... no posts? about development??? at all?????

That's not what I said, was it? There's just going to be less than usual! That being said, there's still a couple of things to look forward to during this dev cycle that I will personally be seeing to. I've got some characters lined up that will be getting their official art between now and V14's release, as well as the final artwork that I owe based on the 2020 popularity poll; the illustration I was going to make of Venam. I'll likely be posting this alongside the remaining character artwork somewhere in the near future. And of course there's still a chance we'll have proper dev posts from the team every once in a while! It's just entirely up to the discretion of Jan how much he wants to share or wants to be shared.

I'd imagine it's not a lot though... The team—but Jan and I in particular—have been looking forward to this highly important climactic update for a very, very long time, and we want it to be just as surprising and engaging as we've been planning for it to be.

That's all I can share for now, though. I'll leave you guys with the parting gift of a screenshot Jan shared on his twitter back in December for the people who missed it. In Jan's words, "it shows a lot but also nothing at all".

Enjoy, and wish us luck for this dev cycle! We hope you look forward to what we've got cooking!!

o7

As I promised in my previous post, I still had one more art post that I owed in regards to some remaining character art, as well as an illustration of Venam that I still had to make as a reward for her placing high in the 2020 popularity poll. Yes yes, I know, it took me FOREVER to get around to doing it— but guess what! I've finally got it done, and the remaining character art is finally done as well! I'm not gonna beat around the bush, so let's get a move on and show off the art. I'll keep things brief!

We'll start off with Venam's popularity poll artwork!

A 1080p and 1440p version can be found here!

Next up is the remaining character artwork for pre-V14 stuff! The characters that have received artwork for this final round are Jenkel, Hynde, Maman, Cosmia & Comet, Peony, Adrest and Variya!

At this point, if anyone feels like any artwork is missing it's either because it's just not worth the effort (i.e. temporary character outfits) or because they're slated for a later release/inclusion in V14 or beyond. I'll leave it up to your imagination which one's the case :) But for now, this is all the official art I'll be showing off prior to V14's release... So this'll likely be my last post for the time being (unless I'm tasked with writing a post about V14's actual development again. teehee)

As per usual, all official art as well as icons and links to full resolution wallpapers and artwork can be found back in the official art thread! All artwork has been added to their respective chapters in the archives (Jenkel is in CH2, Cosmia & Comet in CH11, Variya in CH15, Adrest in .Karma, Maman in Sidequests and Hynde in Sidequests as well).

That's all for now! Enjoy and see you next time, whenever that is! Thank you again for supporting the game's development!

o7

Though it's for something very different this time around! For people who have browsed the Rejuvenation Club before, they might be aware of a Q&A thread we did back in 2019, and a tiny bit more recently there was a Q&A stream that Jan and I hosted after V13's initial release in 2021. We haven't done one in serious capacity since then (if you don't count the impromptu one Jan did on his tumblr a couple of months ago), so why not bring it back? We're not going to be able to post many updates about the game itself, but we still don't want to have complete radio silence on our end, so we're doing a Q&A with the entire team again!

To give a quick rundown of the team so you know who could potentially answer specific questions:

• Writing: Jan (also does tilesets and overworld sprites)
• Art: Crim, Nym, Soulja, Dallas, Winter, Zumi (also involved with writing and music)
• Programming: Haru, Falirion, Sardines, Cass
• Balancing: Alex, Azery (also does some programming)
• QA: Ramiru, Dream, IceCreamSandWitch, Autumn (also does some of the move animations)

I can't guarantee all of us are available or willing to answer, but I know at least some members of the team will be happy to pop in and reply. And it could be about just anything! It could be about the story, but also about the game's development as a whole if you're curious. Or just about how the devs have been experiencing Rejuvenation from a developer's point of view! The world of questions is your oyster and you can do whatever with it...

Well, as long as you stick to the rules.

• Please stay courteous with the questions! Crude questions in regards to us or the characters of the game (i.e. "can you kill off this character bc they suck", stuff like that) will be ignored and/or removed.
• We will not give answers to questions that are obviously veering into spoiler territory for future content. For your own sakes as to not drive yourself nuts over theories, please do not treat our unwillingness to answer certain questions as confirmation/de-confirmation either. It'll do nothing but cause confusion LMAO
• Please don't ask about adding romance options for the MC. The answer is still no— it's even been mentioned in the old 2019 Q&A post that they won't be added and that has not changed. There's a whole list of reasons (narratively, technical and personal) for this decision, but the tl;dr is that it's just plain not worth it. We're asking in the nicest way possible to please respect our decision on the matter and to not press it any further, we will ignore/remove your question if you do. (That's not to say we disapprove of any ships entirely! We simply instead encourage you to dabble in making fan content of your favorite ships yourselves through writing, art or other means. Just don't bother us to indulge you on the matter in official capacity, that's all.)

We'll keep the Q&A running for a week and will be answering questions as the week progresses before closing it off. If you've read all of that and agree to be nice, then fire away!

Have fun! o7

There's a whole other section to this place, but I'm gonna keep that a secret for now :3.

Various other stuff that don't matter lol:

But yeah, that's pretty much it for now. Please know that even though updates will still be a bit scarce, I am doing my best to get this done ASAP. Conversely, I am also taking my itty bitty time with things because I want this version to be good lol. From what I've made, I think it will be. Very packed with content. Also did I say Gen 9 was being implemented for v14? if not then surprise !

I'll be back... in a month or two or something. idk. Anyways yaaaaaaa

Anyway, I just wanted to crawl out my grave and actually show that yes, I'm doing science and I'm still alive.

Before I continue, I did upload a bit of a preview back in November!

You can view that here if you missed it:

So, besides that, what's going on in the rejuv world? It's been a year! You said this time it wouldn't take as long!

Well, I was wrong as usual. Life comes at you fast. To the people who thought the game would drop the february after v13.5 dropped... Uh, no.
This game takes time and I will take my time. I still plan on being 60 and playing Pokemon and that's just a fact we're all going to have to live with.

That being said, update! Where am I now? Well, Paragon is in its final stages! (Besides one big thing but that's something i need to work on over time, even during Renegade's development.)
I'm in the final new area and I'm working on finishin up the story. One event takes me a day. Maybe more sometimes.

I wanted Paragon to be done by the New Year, but I always forget that December is my suffering month (aka holidays), so that never gets done. And then I remember January is my annual I'm so fucking burned

out from life month. So progress has been a bit slow now, too. But then February rolls around and I'm like hold on I'm a beast?
Also, I know I'm going to be asked this.

Q: "Will you release Paragon once it's finished, or will you release that when Renegade is finished?"

A: I will not release Paragon once it's finished. Paragon and Renegade are meant to coexist together. Even if it means I hold onto a finished Paragon for a year, it is what I've decided. ty.
 

And yes, I did say Renegade probably won't take as long, and that's PROBABLY still true but please don't hold that as a promise. Nothing is a promise.
Except for the things I'm going to promise right now.

Gearen Laboratory

I didn't expect the lab changing to look more sleek was going to be such a contentious topic. Though, I am willing to give some context on the decision. Whether or not you like it is up to you.
(Spoilers for v13 story. I can never remember the chapter number/plot correlation.)

During the expo drop, it was revealed that Celine went to Reborn City to learn more about their league process and how it was done. Inspired by the way the league is run in that region, she chose to emulate

that process and as such, the Gearen Lab (The PUBLIC league HQ) was meant to look more like the Grand Hall. But that in of itself isn't the main issue. People found problems with the way you get your starter.

Calling it boring and less exciting than previous versions. I do agree. However, the intent was to streamline the first few moments so that you get your starter as fast as possible. And as of this moment, I'm still quite happy

with that.

There was another reason for this change, though. Gen 9 was coming out and I knew I wanted to include it.  Which means more events taking up space in the mini biomes. tl:dr i was running out of space and expanding
the biomes took a lot more technical work than expected and thus just defaulted to tables i could just perma extend.

Regardless, I understand that the more personal way of obtaining your starter is important to some people. Especially those who like to create OC's. I hear you, and I understand you.
Which is why I plan on creating two versions of this experience!

Express Version:

Is exactly how it is now in game. You go up to the table and adopt your gerbil.

Standard Version:

Amanda will take you downstairs into an enlarged biome where you can walk around and find your starter and pick it. Older rejuv versions did have this. But it was removed due to the maps being ugly lol.

Now, this is not promised for v14. I would much rather work on new content than spend energy working on this rn. However! I am promising that this will come eventually. It may even come in v14 if I finish things up early! Or who knows, I may gain inspiration randomly during a testing period or whatever and knock it out in a day. These things happen. I have ADHD. It is what it is.

Prologue Intro:

Everyone knows the intro with lil Maria walking around her house and then somehow finds herself in some horror game!

Well, the quality of the intro has been bugging me for several years now. When I take a break from a release, I usually do something fun to unwind and shake off the rust.
This cycle, I finally went back and used my current skills to update the intro. Yes, with the Pangoro story still present, if not a bit changed.

Old intro:

New Intro:

(These gifs/images are a quite a bit old as I've shown these off on my patreon like a year ago, but theyre still like 99% relevant minus some polish and detail.)
There's also a few new secrets to be found in the intro, so you definitely want to keep an eye out for those :).

And also no it is not necessary to play the entire damn game again just for the intro. It's neat! but not necessary.

Uhhh, what else do I got to say?

I guess I can dump some stuff I posted on my discord? There's not much this time around. but ye.

Yeah, that was kind of a bad showcase, rip.
Everything is very hush-hush. under wraps. CIA. FBI. Uhhh idk 9/11... never forgetti spaghetti whatever. idc.

I do care, but also I'll leave you with one thing. A word to have you prepare a lil better. But.

[Image ID: Image of a mysterious room with a Zygarde statue at the very back of it."]

You better start collecting those cells.

So it's been 5 months. Hey... How are you? Good? No? Sorry.

Progress:
Paragon:

Part 1: 100% (Tested)
Part 2: 90% (Untested)
Part 3: 95% (Untested)

Renegade
Part 1: 100% (Untested)
Part 2: 95% (Untested)
Part 3: 85% (Untested)

I took a big break during May, and a few days off in June. I needed it. 

Part 1 in each route are done! Part 1 (Renegade) needs testing, but I'll do that later.

Part 2 of Paragon has a big segment that needs a lot of work. Likely will be done last.
Part 2 of Renegade is basically complete, I just need to create a cutscene with the two M's

Part 3 of Paragon is nearly complete. I have one last segment, but it's the hardest one.
Part 3 of Renegade needs its last segment done as well, but I did so much work in one small time period that I need to do something else.

I've been focusing a lot on Renegade recently because I got that Ren(egade) in me.

Let's talk about it. 

Introducing THE WONDER TOWER 

I mentioned a long time ago that a lot of the events of Paragon's Karma files -still- happen in Renegade. The player just isn't there to take part in them. Most notably, some interesting things with Alice (Again)
But this time it's a bit different... Alice has created a special dimension called The Wonder Tower.

What is the Wonder Tower?

- THE WONDER TOWER, is a 3 zone mini rogue like. The player will enter the tower and be cursed by the Queen who rules it all. Angelica! Also, it's ANGELICA'S WONDER TOWER. You've been stripped of your Pokemon, but fear not, there are Pokemon available to you inside THE WONDER TOWER! Also! The Pokemon you get here are yours to keep! They're received at random, though. Each time you lose, your experience will get a bit easier. I tested this area out with some of my dev members and the reception was really good. Review: "It was really fun" - Jan 10/10 starly.

Renegade exclusive btw.

To sum it up:
3 Zones
3 Bosses
3 ??? Encounters
2 Locked up Teammates

ummm what else. oh yes.

playable m2 segment

us renegaders really won with this post... go us.

In other misc news... Two icons from emo village got an emo upgrade (no)

rad...

zumi also posted this preview

what's with all the emos...

also... did u know... renegade and paragon are both having "xen raids"... but each are getting their own unique areas ? like... in renegade you cant go to paragon's maps and vice versa... Why did I do this... Well... it's becaus e i love you. 

That's all I really have to say... I'm still shooting for a release this year... but if its not perfect why bother....

oh and one last image for everyone!! Yay! 

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

it's the last one, too. As of typing this i only have a few events left to do (Note, they are all long and complicated and I may not get it right on the first try)

But what have I been cooking? Well, a lot!
Renegade has been complete. Like, fully. Maybe some battles need tinkering here and there, but all cutscenes have been made, all events have been done.
I may go back and add a few easter eggs, item placements etc. But yeah! 
 

After Renegade, I needed a BREAK from main story stuff. A lot of the events in Renegade were very intensive on me to make. Not really from a story/mood perspective, but from an actual development side. I really pushed the limits of what I could do in Renegade. But as a result I did get burned out a little. I mean, if you see what I cooked, you'll understand! Really wanted to drop it around Christmas time as a present, but I'd rather get it right on the first try rather than try to fulfill some funny date dream.

=======================

New Early Game Content:

I said there would be no side content for v14, and that's kinda not true anymore. I mean, there are a few sidequests DURING v14, and are time sensitive to that, and by a few I think literally just 1 lol. But thats a lore sidequest-- I'm getting off topic. Anyways, this is to say that I actually did a few new events in the early game because Gen 9 kinda forced me to. Game is huge, but all the encounters are very tight. 

First off, there are new missions in East Gearen (Minor, non help center ones) 
 

Past Regrets:

The week after I finished Renegade, I was desperateeeee to get out of v14 content, so I went back to the past and came to a conclusion.
Man. These maps are really held back by my decision to keep them gen 3. I think the game really shines best when I put my own spin on things. 
And no, before you get worried. I did not remake all of the past (again). I did give it a texture update, though! For those confused by that, I simply

mean that the maps are the same, I just made custom tiles instead of using default R/S/E tiles. This includes battle backgrounds as well.

A comparison of Kugearen City:

Skip Skip Skip!:

There are other few things I have cooked, but I'm can't give away every surprise right? 
Okay, that beeing said. This is most likely going to be the final dev update before v14 releases. It will not drop this year. So do not expect that.
But I estimate testing will begin sometime in December if I'm lucky. Again, no promises. Also no promises on how long testing will take. It will just take as long
as it needs. It's a BIG chonky version. This game is a behemoth. But it is made for crazy people like me.

I bid you adieu, with one final screenshot