Welcome to the second devlog of Whispers in the Moss, the textmode JRPG currently in development by Uncultured Games! As mentioned in the last devlog, the game engine is fully finished so the development of the game consists of expanding the game and its story by creating new areas, script, monsters, NPCs et cetera. That's precisely what we've been doing for the past month, and here's a rundown of what's new!

NEW ENVIRONMENTS

Since the last update we've created several new areas, maps and environments. The Ulgum Marshlands are a unique and challenging dungeon-like area that our party must pass through on their way east. The area is inhabited by dark, creepy creatures, and an archaeologist willing to inspect the ancient shrines found all over the marshlands might uncover an optional secret.

After the darkness of Ulgum, our party can seek comfort in Greenmoon Haven, a peaceful outpost where traveling merchants converge. It is also the home of Ciddah and Saturn, an eccentric inventor couple, who are in the process of building a hot air balloon! By helping them out you just might gain access to a new fast travel method (if you think fast travel with a hot air balloon doesn't make sense, your approach to RPGs and fantasy worlds is weird!). Close to Greenmoon there are two optional dungeon-like areas with side-quests to complete: Mount Erelis and Ruegrove, an old forest overtaken by poisonous fungi.

NEW MONSTERS

The new areas have obviously been filled with new, unique monsters. Since the last update we've created 9 new common monsters and 7 new boss/hunt/rare monsters. We've also taken the time to update some of the older enemy sprites that were... not very good. This is a constant issue: since the development of the game started almost a decade ago, some of the earlier decisions and visual choices are outdated even by our old-school standards. Surprisingly one of the most challenging additions to the game has been to design new enemy attacks. Thanks to the inflexible way the battle engine was coded years ago, adding new types of attacks is very complicated, but we've still managed to add some new attacks and enemy actions, including some stat-boosting actions (Attack Up, etc.) and for example the infamous instant death spell. Despite the hurdles, we'll continue to add more in order to spice up the battles.

NEW NPCS, SCRIPT AND LORE

Some NPCs are always going to be generic, but we're always trying to give as many of the NPCs as possible unique personalities and backstories to make the encounters seem more meaningful. And that takes a bit of work. Since we've been working on more dungeon-like areas, not many new NPCs were created this month, and we've mainly focused on developing the characters of Ciddah and Saturn, the inventors living in Greenmoon Haven.

They're a good example of how we approach lore and references in the game: once we had created the characters, we went back and added various references to them to earlier parts of the game. You'll encounter some of their weird machines and inventions long before you get a chance to meet them. This is where many RPGs and even ambitious triple-A RPGs go wrong: the worlds don't feel interconnected. In most RPG worlds there's trade, wars and migration going on, but all the towns and communities still seem incredibly inbred and introverted. The towns often don't seem linked in any way, news don't travel, and, in the midst of massive political upheavals, the villagers are rarely interested in anything happening outside their village borders. I like to create worlds that feel connected.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

We've also focused on character development, for example adding new scripted events to get to know the lead characters better. This is something that we'll need to keep doing since it was largely neglected during the earlier development phase. We've also drawn new ANSI portraits of our main party and incorporated them into the menu system.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Next up is more of the same: creating new areas and expanding the story towards its ending. There's not a massive amount left, to be honest. We're possibly looking at two more towns (one of them is the empire's massive capital Armand, though), a few dungeons, some filler maps and a few optional endgame areas. Later in November we'll be taking a small break and joining the Lost Cartridge Jam. Looking forward to our first game jam in many years.

Have a nice November, y'all!

PS. In case you missed it, our textmode action game CODENAME DESPERADO is now available for Linux in addition to the Windows build that was released a few months ago. Go check it out!