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Hello hello, you might be wondering why I, Ruby, am posting this devblog? Well… someone decided to go to Japan again! The audacity of that man… I haven’t even been to Japan once! :/ oh well… Besides all that, the rest of this devblog was mostly handled by him. So, take it from here, Posty of the past! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Howdy folks! Hope everyone is doing well, me? Well as of this post going out I will once again be touching down in Tokyo, Japan. Loved it so much that I’ve already returned to spend even more of my life savings on silly pieces of shiny cardboard. Anyway, enough about that, today’s blog will highlight some of the work that our newest members have been producing since joining the team, but speaking about new members, we had one more join us in recent months! For those who don’t already know… I’m pleased to welcome Twoslashes to the Desolation development team! He has joined us in the mapping and spriting department and has already hit the ground running in producing some high quality content for the game. His work I will be looking to share in a future development blog, so keep an eye out! But for now, I’m going to pass it to Mags as he walks through some of the sidequest content he has been whipping up. SPOILER ALERT, it contains frogs. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hey there, I’m Mags! I joined the team recently as an Eventer. I’ve been mostly working on sidequests, which is perfect because when left to my own devices I tend to add flavor text - sidequests, in my opinion, are very elaborate flavor text. Indeed, some may argue the point of the humble sidequest is to elaborate upon the world in small ways, to make it feel more lived in and fleshed out…. And some may argue its point is to give you new Pokemon. Both can be true. Also I talk a lot so be prepared for a lot of yapping. I’ll be going over the process of making a sidequest I’ve been working on that you’ll be able to find down in Blackview. To start with… that new Pokemon thing. As you all probably know, Gen 9 ‘mons are getting added to EP 7. Yay! I’m quite a big fan of Arboliva, myself. Anyway, new ‘mons means new sidequests, and new sidequests means new NPCs… Now, I could’ve been normal about it. Could’ve just had some random nameless guy be like “hey can i get your help with something” and you just get a normal Pokemon out of it. But unfortunately, I was left to my devices, and now we’ve got a whole new sidequest-exclusive NPC. Enter: Ribbert. Ribbert is an NPC with a long and storied development history, the history being that I wanted to make a frog pun and then I portmanteau’d Robert and Ribbit together. But why Ribbert? Why… him? He fulfills a few roles. His first role is that he acts as the main sidequest giver, of course. Interacting with him and hearing his spiel about frog Pokemon begins the quest “Hop To It!”, which is the sidequest that lets you catch Tadbulb. This is also the 2nd role he fulfills: everything about Ribbert is designed to make you go “okay, I see why this guy knows about Tadbulb”. His character is, first and foremost, an explanation as to how you could find Tadbulb in-universe. Tadbulb, for those who don’t read Pokedex entries for fun like I do, aren’t actually found underwater or in traditionally swamp-y places. No, their dex entries say they actually just chill mid-air. Like in the sky. Specifically when there’s thunderclouds… so they’re probably high up in a rainy place like Blackview. Obviously, for optimization and gameplay reasons, SV just has them hover above the ground, but the wonders of [ sparkling effect ] locked camera perspective [ sparkling effect ] means that we can just say Tadbulb are in the sky and have it be true without having to render dozens of frog lightbulbs mid-air whenever the player looks up. That leads to the next problem, though: if we wanna make it feel like the Tadbulb are doing what their dex entries say they do, how does the player acquire one? How many trainers DOES it take to catch a Tadbulb? The answer is two, because you’ll need help from a real FROG EXPERT. Ribbert! Ribbert just needs your help in prepping a special maneuver to get some Tadbulb down from the sky. It’s a fairly simple fetch quest, since it’s… like, I love Tadbulb, Bellibolt is really cool, but it’s not a game breaking ‘mon, so I didn’t want actually getting it to be a real chore. So a lot of the quest’s fun just comes from the stuff Ribbert says to you unprompted. Incidentally, ignore the lack of accents over the es. Bad habit of mine, I’ll put ‘em in the game later. Anyway, that’s how I got to making this Blackview sidequest. I try to think in the bounds of the world of Pokemon, especially if it’s a sidequest ABOUT a ‘mon. How does that ‘mon work, and if it’s not just milling about in the local foliage, how WOULD you get it? Then I work my sidequest around that central idea. The sidequest has to explain how you got your hands on this ‘mon. Additionally, the challenge of the sidequest should probably be proportional to the reward - in a game like Pokemon, there’s really little risk, since losing usually just sends you back to the Pokemon center. But even so, you gotta think about what the player is going to get in return for spending however much time on a specific fight or objective for a quest. If it’s not equivalent or better, then chances are they’ll just abandon it by the wayside. And of course, I love to use sidequests and flavor text to just build out the world. Even if it’s minor, the implication there’s some guy running around Aryith who just… REALLY likes frogs and is going on his own little adventures to find and catch them makes it feel like, y’know, the player isn’t the center of the universe. And it helps that mono-runs that aren’t just about Pokemon type are very common and popular in the Pokemon fan space, so an in-universe character who exclusively uses frogs felt like both a realistic thing to happen, and I felt it would be a nice nod to that type of run in Pokemon circles. Ribbert’s sidequest will be available as soon as you get to Blackview, so feel free to drop by and do his froggy bidding when Ep7 comes out! Ah, by the way… I’m not a big fan of introducing a named character just for one sidequest. While I like expanding and fleshing out the world, I also like using those fleshed out elements more than once to at least keep it from feeling like there’s too much going on all at once and also tying things together a bit neater. So… This Tadbulb quest isn’t the last you’ll see of Ribbert, I’m sure. (And here, some additional memes, as a treat…) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ribbert, Frogs, and even some memes, Mags really gave us the goods for this. Hope this has got you excited for the new sidequest content coming to EP7. One of the reasons behind picking up a new Eventer for the team was so we can deliver on some new sidequest content, and with my time being a bit more limited than it once was, this was an area I really want to not fall behind while I focus on the rest of the project. We have been discussing some really cool ideas and concepts for sidequests, and Mags really played a part in providing some creative direction for these. Now let me pass it over to Wire, for a brief look into a major update coming to our shops. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hello, I'm super excited to join Desolation's dev team! Ironic, considering I hadn't finished Desolation when I joined - E6 is unstable on Mac, so I only got most of the way through before getting too frustrated. That's been rectified, of course! I'll be acting as a general scripts developer, helping out with whatever is needed. I've also got some features of my own that have been introduced - for example, from my rejuvenation modpack, Complex Shops! All shops have been changed to use this system. This system was originally created in my modpack for Rejuvenation's Cairo, who sells things in bulk as well as for different currencies. It allows us to make any such shop interfaces, including in the future, all navigated similarly, and with far less effort on the development side. No more long menus for buying evolution stones, Pokemon, or TMs... No more trying to remember which TMs you bought... it's all just regular shop interfaces now! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Short and sweet, sometimes that’s the best way to go about it. You don’t know how much I have been hoping for something like this for our Credit Shops, comparing what we originally had, this is a night and day difference. No longer will you have to double check the amount of credits you have in your bag as they now appear while you’re browsing the shop. And to even show the Pocket Monsters there as well, chefs kiss. This is just one of the many things Wire has been already working on and optimising for the game, which alongside Yumil, have been crushing it with the scripts. There will be more to come in terms of optimisations… and maybe new passwords? Got to wait to find out! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As we proceed with development and through 2026, I’m going to be looking to drop some more EP7 story teasers as a little taster for what you can look to expect once we finally get round to being ready to release. Here, I offer you all some crumbs :) There’s a lot more I would like to do/experiment with Desolation as we progress forward with development, ways we can look to expand upon and develop our story telling to allow you, the player, to feel more immersed with the story. This comes from playing through some other fangames (Rejuvenation) and giving me a ton of inspiration about how we can improve our storytelling, especially without Caz at the helm. I will continue to keep you all updated on development. Desolation’s development team has really undergone a lot of change over the last 4 months, and I’m excited to continue to share more of all the amazing work they have been producing! And with that, I’ll see you all next time. Posty (and Ruby...)

gosh, it's dusty here, isn't it? well... i suppose that's the nature of a finished game. most of my efforts in recent times have gone to things that are not reborn... but most is not at all. in our last post, orsan teased the following about finally updating the protagonist OW (OverWorld) sprites for 19.6: today, we're going to show and talk about these in a bit more detail. (a note for our blind players-- this is a purely visual update most and so this is probably not for you. with apologies, i will be sparing myself the task of IDing each image). OW updates were something that, in an ideal world, i would have done with e19. only, i was soooooo tired by the end of it, and we did a lot of shampoo-ing of VS and battle sprites, i truly did not have the stamina. however... these sprites appear in virtually every screenshot of the game ever, and so the mistakes of my past continued to haunt me until i was cow-prodded into doing something about them. fortunately, there was a lot that i wanted to fix, and my skill in spriting had grown over time, so it was quite rewarding to do. to see them in action, let's post a dizzying array of gifs: above includes both walking and running variants. our old sprites were made with very, very minimal effort to make the run sprites; i only moved the head forward and down a little bit, which is what sometimes resulted in the ability to spam the run button and appear to dance in place. i don't know if that's still possible these days, but i think that having a more dynamic running pose will feel nice anyway. truthfully, i want to develop my skills to push such poses to even more exaggerated animations than this. but alas, that is not for this little update project. when updating our protagonists, i wanted to choose a 'style' of animation and stick with it for consistency between them. this consistency was a flaw in the previous set of sprites. they were made at various times and levels of skill, and so they are not always consistent in their dimensions and animation. this is also why the shape and size of some of them will appear to have slightly changed. this was also an opportunity to fix some of the issues that had nagged me with our previous style of sprites. compare these frames. new vero (left) vs old (right): old decibel (left) vs new (right): the issue is clearer on decibel's-- the way the feet are positioned ends up making a solid black line across the bottom of the sprite. on vero's, there is a one pixel notch, which i would consider better but still visually awkward. i'm not going to claim that the updated sprites are perfect, but i think we succeeded in refining the walk and run cycles to help silhouette the feet better in all frames of animation. here is another example, demonstrating a change in the animation style i mentioned before. in the above screen, pay attention to the relative placement of the sprites' hands. in each step frame, i wanted to increase the action of the movement by making the hands appear to move more widely. i think this helps 'running' vs 'walking' come across much clearer. for aspiring spriters: I find that starting with the positions of the hands is a great way to tackle these little bodies. it'll help you refine the silhouette early on. also look how much better alice looks! i haven't liked her very much in the past-- and with her OW sprite previously looking so different from her other graphics, it's no wonder! it looks like she had buns or something. i hope everyone enjoys the new hair-floof. i think i'll be using her more in the future myself. perhaps the most notable new detail of the animation overall is the hair animation. in the current set of sprites, most character's hair hardly animates at all. much as we love lucia, hers in particular has been very awkward in the past. bouncy hair is a nice way to add a lot of life to sprites, and it's also one of my favorite things to do in sprites now. it's fun to make it go swoowsh-swoosh-swoosh! here's some frames, and how i think of animating them: frames 1 and 3 are always identical in these sprites, the work is on 2 and 4. in either case, i choose a direction, either clockwise or counter clockwise to think of each 'tuft' of hair as moving. then it's just a matter of moving the pixels as little as possible while finding a shape for the points that looks nice in pixel form, and doesn't create awkward movement when applied to the height change (frames 2 and 4 bend at the knees, and thus the head sinks 1 pixel lower, which can make some animations look awkward. testing is important!) on a different note, did you notice from the first gifs that kuro is looking different? in my view, he's kind of been the least popular protagonist. originally, i imagined him having kind of a deliberately shaggy hair style, but i don't really like that as much these days, and more importantly it doesn't really seem to be a hit with players either. so i took the opportunity to kind of shore his hair up to a nicer shape in general. here's his updated VS sprite: we wouldn't want to change him tooooo much for the players that are used to him as he is, but i felt this would generally be received as an improvement. and hey, we finally got his sunglasses into his OW too! because of how many variations and alterations player OW sprites have, this ended up being a significant undertaking! there are many little pieces-- walking, running, biking, fishing, surfing, tauros-riding, minecart-riding, etcetcetc... i would not have had the stamina to do all of the animations over myself-- in the end, i just made the base walking and running sprites, and then others in the community initiative helped out with the finishing details. big shoutouts to moonpaw, nephilinite, meteors, not_aza, and inserobite102. in addition to the extra animations, they also helped refine some of the cross-sprite details... enu oversaw it and contributed some scripting to avoid having to make redundant graphics (surfing, fishing while surfing, diving were all very similar...) too! thank you all! speaking of diving... i think, but i'm not sure? that the main games are doing this these days too... but we also took the opportunity to answer the question of "how does the player breathe underwater when diving?" let's close out with some before-and-after references. for fun, i also included the original versions of Alice and Vero, back in the earliest episodes when they were the only protags. if you are looking to improve your spriting from others' example, i suggest studying the differences in these images and seeing how they changed over time. softer colors, flatter hair shading, brighter outlines... what else do you notice? this kind of analytic exercise is a good way to improve your own skills. by the way, for anyone still interested in the eventual postgame continuation of our dev let's play-- it is not forgotten. only life has been getting very in the way for a long time now, and at this point i would at least wait until 19.6 anyway. thank you all, as ever, for caring about the game at all stages of its lifecycle, and i hope you can look forward to the update

I don't have a witty joke to make here for this dev blog 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