Hi Everyone, it’s been a while since our last devlog post in January. Lots of things had happened since then but the main reason why the devlog stop is just that, there is nothing left about the development to be written about. What we are doing right now is polishing the game further and preparing the game for release, which is at the roughest estimate, it will be ready at Q3 this year. If you haven’t following our twitter, facebook, or read the latest kickstarter post, here is the roundup of what we have been doing until now:
1. Completing The Development of The Game
The development is finished and the game is confirmed to be playable to the end all that is left is to keep polishing it further and weed out all the possible bugs with rigorous QA testing.
2. Preparing Kickstarter Rewards
Such as Artbook and Backer exclusive Items, also Backer name for the game credit roll!
3.Preparing for Nintendo Switch Release
Switch button config
Yes, the game will be released in Nintendo Switch. More detail will be revealed later.
4. Preparing Achievements For The Game
Some of the Achievement Icons, can you guess what they represent?
Both for Steam and Switch release, who doesn’t like Achievements?
5. Artworks
For various promotional purpose, I have been drawing some new illustration for Ciel Fledge, something like this unfinished one (and unused but maybe will present in the Artbook)
And that’s about sum up what we are doing right now. There is honestly not much I can write in this devlog and for the next if there is any, so I’ve decided that this will be the last devlog entry for Ciel Fledge. But do not worry, you can still get in touch to us directly on our discord server here: https://discord.gg/studionamaapa , in fact I encourage you to do so!
Lastly, Thank you for all the readers who have spent their time reading the devlogs. I know my English isn’t perfect and sometimes the devlog entry is not interesting or exciting at all. I hope you forgive my mistakes and if any words I type somehow being offensive to someone. Thank you and see you in our next game devlog! Oh, and Ciel Fledge release too.
Heya, wltr3565 here. Yeah, the game missed its 2018 target. We apologize for that. This game is thick, so it’s not easy to clean up its insides. Without further ado, this is this month’s devlog.
The Game is Clearable Now, At Last The game is in its clean up phase at the moment, especially for the story bits. We have confirmed that the main story of the game is stable. This game has many possibilities in the main story depending on how you tackle things, so making sure those won’t make the game crumble is very important.
For the things that get the visual uplift… Well, we want to keep it a surprise to you guys. We’re currently working on very spoiler-prone sections, after all. Look forward to it! Those involve a good amount of animations, though, so it will take some time.
It’s a super spoiler so this is as far as I can present any screenshot here.
Other Things Last but not least we’re currently arranging how the ending is presented. Again, let’s keep the surprise fresh, okay?
In the middle of the check up we did some adjustments to the game. Simple number adjustments and all that.
Well, this post feels sparse, isn’t it? In exchange, let me explain you guys about the newly added features of the Schedule Menu.
The position is switched compared to before. The Activity selection is on the right side now, close to the Schedule button.
Making the Schedule Menu more Intuitive If you haven’t noticed, the position of the inputted Schedule and where you get to select the Activities have been swapped. We found out the input is tiring both for one’s eyes and hands to swap back and forth from the right side of the screen to the left side many times. This new design is to reduce the need to pay much attention to the left side of the screen, making navigation and input more intuitive and less tiring.
Just press the green button there. It will switch the Activity list between List mode and Grid mode.
Options to Navigate the List For those who prefer to see the list in a grid, here you go. You will be able to see more Activities in 1 screen! The view mode can be changed anytime by pressing he View button at the top of the Category buttons.
Can’t have her collapse in the middle of the Week. Gotta give her a rest before it happens.
Status Preview We have added a preview to see the expected result for her Stamina, Discipline, Mood and Stress. With this, you don’t have to manually calculate the total Stamina your daughter will require. At the moment, it’s still very basic. We’re planning to have it actually factor in other things like your Job and so on. We will make it to tell you at which point she will collapse too when the Stamina shows 0.
Hi everyone, it’s time for another devlog entry. Probably this is the last devlog of 2018, it’s been almost two years since the first entry of Ciel Fledge Devlog…
Development Status
What’s going on with the game? Is it still being developed? When is the release date? Me and the team understand that these are probably the questions you have been thinking regards to Ciel Fledge. Rest assured that the game right now is in the final stage of its development. We are reaching the 95% mark. By the end of the December, it will be done. Minus the rigorous bug testing and quality assurance.
The 5% Left of the Development
Are CG images and endings. Ciel Fledge has a lot of endings, and it takes quite a bit of time to create and draw the possibilities. At this point, any images and illustrations I share are in the spoiler territory, since everything that is not, stuff seen in the demo releases, are already exhausted. So, I apologize for the lack of substantial screenshots.
The Release Plan
If everything goes well, it will be in the first quarter of 2019.
I hope that answers all your questions. Sorry for the lack of technicality in this devlog. To end this devlog, here is a very early draft concept of Ciel Fledge’s interface. Thank you for reading and see you in the next devlog!
Early draft of the “Ark”. It was a magical floating island, which later scraped to a more “logically sound” future technology flying platform powered by fusion reactor. The draft for the “End turn” phase. the phase used to be monthly rather than weekly as it is now. Also the cluttered, huge UI is now simplified.The home screen used to looked like this, and Ciel is more chibi looking.
Heya, wltr3565 here. The game’s progress right now is pretty close to the game’s conclusion. If things go well, the game will be clearable by December. By that point, the game will only require several tweaks and balance adjustments until the game can be considered gold. For now, let’s have this devlog explain the current state of the game.
The Dilemma of Simplification
Firstly, as the game’s programmer I wish we never have to reduce the game’s skill ceiling. It must be admitted that the streamlining we have done to the game reduces your options to push the game’s boundaries. The game is designed from the very start for each Day to be detailed. The 5+2 recipe is already good too. In the long run being fixed with 4+3 (or 2+5, 6+1, etc) recipe will feel suffocating. Your daughter’s Max Stamina can increase, after all. She will be able to handle things better as time goes on.
Simplifications have its own price.
Although in the end, maybe this is a necessary sacrifice. Inputting 7 unique decisions in a row instead of 4 might be too intimidating. It reduces the number of button presses up to 3 presses to complete 1 Schedule as well. Still, I’m concerned about this. I hope you guys can give us feedback if this simplification is worth it or not. For this game, the sky is the one that decides the allowed limit. Either way, it’s our job to make your decision-making in the game as comfortable and meaningful as possible.
Also, the game’s long playtime estimation is because of the slow max animation speed of the Week Progress. No simplification can drastically reduce the game’s actual speed. We still need to test this by playing through this game. We’re targeting to have the game clearable under 5 – 6 hours with full-speed skips from start to finish. That means the game have to be able to make 1 Week to be over within 37 seconds. I do believe the game can do better than that. We will adjust the game’s speed further when the team is done clearing the game multiple times.
By the way, regarding the Grid and List mode of the Schedule interface, we’re still figuring out how can you guys choose between the two. We will tell you guys when it got properly implemented. One of the reasons why the game’s Schedule interface got a facelift is to make the process more comfortable, especially when you’re using a touch screen.
Ciel’s Hidden Power…?
The thing that doesn’t get simplified? The Battles. It has returned to its original form. Your daughter deserves to have her capabilities to be tested to her limits on various situations, after all.
The Battle, fully featured again.
The Technique Slots returned to become 3 again. You can put in any kind of Techniques as you wish too. No restrictions because of differing types! Put any of them as you wish and experiment with them to your heart’s contents! Social norms still apply, though, so please be careful. You can use the the ones marked with the caution mark, of course, but you will get penalized. Oh, do you feel like the Techniques are useless? We have made the game more difficult and designed more around the Techniques, so please look forward to many challenges the game will provide!
Too close for comfort.
Your daughter’s Power Up (Wish we have a cooler and more accurate name for this one) is still available. This is tied to her SPI now. The details? Let’s just say the better her SPI the better this power will work for now. When she uses this it she will get so focused it’s as if the time has stopped. Yes, you can stop the time with this. Great for when you’re in a pinch, huh? The cards will turn into rainbow too. Setting them up will give her Rainbow Power Stock. It will substitute any color for the Techniques!
Now she can’t use her Power Up anymore.
This will strain her, however, so she will only be able to use it once per Battle. Use it wisely!
Oh, the Card list on the right will tell you which Card will appear when you Draw one. This is available when she has enough SPI. A great ability to have to be able to plan ahead!
The Supports’ Arsenal
Oh, it’s time to talk about the weapons.
Bat, SMG and dual-pistols.
To be frank, the weapons for the Supports are just cosmetic. But hey, those do tell how they will do their job, don’t they? Especially Becky and her indispensable dual-pistols.
Exciting Explorations
About the Exploration, this part of the game is 5 Zones away to be completed. I can’t share much, but I can share with you some stuff that you can encounter early on:
Don’t underestimate the Sparrows. They’re out for blood.
The team will encounter hazards like this. If she has enough SPI maybe she can do something about it…
Hey, what’s inside?
We have adjusted the game to only have 1 Node per Day in Explorations. In other words, you will only encounter 7 things at most within 1 Week of Exploring. We have to reduce it to ensure the 5 – 6 hours playtime target achievable. At least the amount of Years you have to dedicate to be able to clear all of them stays the same.
Lower City is a good choice to quickly raise her STR.
Also, the game now tells you what are the Stats that will be raised from Exploring the Zone. If you feel that Training feels sluggish at raising her Main Stats, maybe it’s time for her to take some strolls below.
That’s all for now. For those of you who want to try the latest experimental build you can find the download link and the changelogs on our Discord server:
Why on the Discord? As explained by the illustrator, the experimental builds are very fresh from the oven, both in stability and design. You can also give us your feedback as soon as possible via Discord too. We don’t recommend the build, though. Some stuff are still missing and haven’t been ironed out yet like design oversight and lack of any explanation in-game. For first time players, please download the stable version instead:
Hi, back again to another Ciel Fledge devlog! In the past two weeks there have been a quite a lull from the development team, since we are working hard to fix an unseen but apparent problem of the game, which is pacing and play through time. Ciel Fledge is designed with having a multiple ending in mind, but… a complete play through with the current build may take around 20 – 35 hours of play time from the beginning to ending. Imagine that with a multiple ending of more than a 10 with other variants, it would be super tedious for those among us who are a completionist player. Which is why we decided to take a drastic measure to streamline the game. Rest easy that this is by no means dumbing down the game but making it more accessible and cutting down unnecessary hog in the play time. Alright, before we continue detailing what are getting streamlined in the game so far, here is some artwork of Becky (apparently she is quite popular with the players, everybody loves hoodie girl)
Streamlining The Scheduling Process
The “main engine” of the game is the scheduling window. This is where the player decide Ciel’s schedule and hone her potential in the future. So much have been put into detail here, but then again, sometime, too much detail is not always equal of being good. After rigorous testing, we decided that the 7 day slots + 2 auxiliary (player activity and meal) slots configuration is too complex for its own good to the point of making the game unnecessarily tedious. For that very reason, we overhauled the slots configuration to 3+1 “day” slots and 2 auxiliary slots configuration. You can see how it looks like in the screenshot below:
New schedule window with Grid icons configuration
With the new “3+1” day, all activities, training, and jobs now take 2 day slots on the weekday. You can not do miscellaneous activities such as shopping, social on weekdays. There is now a dedicated “weekend” slot (bottom slot, with blue button and no.4) where you can do miscellaneous activities freely and training/jobs with weekend penalties to simulate the disdain of working and go to school in weekend.
New schedule window with List icons configuration
Aside from the change of how scheduling works, its visual get an overhaul too. You can already notice by comparing the first and second screenshots, that you can now freely choose between “grid view” and “list view” for all the activities. Sort buttons, which rarely utilized now completely gone. All information of the activities now is in the center, displayed in some sort of “trading card” view for more complete and concise information, including stamina cost and such. Probably the biggest addition is the “forecast” information on top of the “trading card” view, displaying the four stats, Stamina, Discipline, Mood, Stress which immediately get “simulated” depending on what activities you pick. This way you can prepare and plan your adopted daughter weekly activities better.
Battle and Techniques
Another in line for the streamlining ax is how battle and techniques works. Battle still works the same but it is now more consistent with each activities. Technique on the other hand, previously near to necessary and useless, now may prove helpful and may be the one to save you in a losing battle. Technique slots gone from three to two, in exchange, there is now a “Power Up” technique that Ciel can always use in every type of battle. Technique now is also more specific to the type of battle, you can no longer use them everywhere. Fight Battle Technique only work on Fight Battle, Score Battle Technique only work on Score battle and so on. Aside from all those adjustment, there is also under the hood balancing adjustment and enhancement to make battle more enjoyable, fair, and rewarding to the player. You can see how “Power Up” works in the video below:
Experimental Demo
With the major streamlining changes detailed above, another aspect of the game that will get streamlining is Exploration, but let’s leave the detail about it in the next devlog. For those of you who want to try the newest, experimental build, you can find the download link and the changelogs on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/KywHrWV.
Why should the download link be on the discord server? Because considering the experimental nature of this demo build, it may not be stable and prone to bugs/crash and everything may be changed depending on the feedbacks from the players. Report about bugs/crash, feedbacks, and critiques can be delivered quickly to us on our discord server. Also with all the streamline changes, a new tutorial explaining what they do haven’t been made yet, so for new player, it’s advisable that you try the stable demo build instead, which can be downloaded here: http://studionamaapa.com/2018/09/demo-release-ciel-fledge-alpha-6-demo/
That’s all for this devlog, thank you for reading and see you in the next devlog!
