The 2nd play testing of Guardian’s Guide is going well. As you can see in the screen shot above, I am halfway through the story. At this point in my life, I have a great deal of more free time so I can concentrate on finishing the play test.

I wanted to make this post to go over a few major changes I made to the game and the reason for those changes. If you’ve been following my updates on steam or recently played the game, then you’ve already seen these changes. This post will give you a behind the scenes explanation.

This game, is very long. Way longer than I anticipated when I first began making this game. It wasn’t my intention, but then again, I had never made a full fledged game before this so I really had no clue what to expect. Due to my decisions, the game goes on for nearly 100 hours and then some.

Part of this is because of the budgeting loop and another part is because of the exploration/battles. After thinking deeply about it for a few months and coming back to test the game again, I’ve made a few serious decisions that has effected the entire game flow.

First, I’ve decreased the stats (Hp, Defense, Resistance) of every enemy by 15%. The goal of this decision is to speed up every battle, especially the passive battles. I wanted people who use the Story Mode to easily get through battles so I further decreased enemy stats from 30% to 50%.
The funny thing about these changes is the Challenge Mode is still hard, especially against bosses. lol I may have to come back and rebalance each boss manually.

This game has a ridiculous amount of items. Way too many if I’m being honest. When I first began writing this game, like a true idea guy, I went overboard without considering what it would take to manage every item throughout the game. Because of that, It’s been a struggle trying to make all of the items available to the player without breaking balance.

At this point, I’m boarder line between, “Oh, well.” and “Fuck it!”. One of the major changes I’ve recently made was making all accessories, skills and talents relatively available to the player as early as year 1. This is through the changes made to the Game Of Risk as well as the door to door seller system.

I made these changes because I wanted the player to have access to build diversity as soon as possible. I’m not sure if this change will introduce broken builds but, well, fuck it. If I hadn’t done this, it would be extremely time consuming to get your hands on a specific item other wise.

On the subject of items, lets talk about budget items. The other big time consumer.
Personally, I don’t mind the shopping experience in this game. I rather enjoy it. But I understand it can get repetitive. And I had another major problem as I play test the game. I have to give some behind the scene info to properly explain myself.

I play test the game from inside the Unity game engine editor. I have to do this so I can make and test changes on the fly. You can see my two screen set up above. As I play test, I also record all my footage so I can have gameplay material for any future videos I make. The problem with this set up is play testing in Unity is demanding.

If I were to play test in the actual build, that is, the same build you play as the player, there would be no problem. But then I wouldn’t be able to quickly make changes and test those changes. It takes me about 15-20 minutes just to build the game into a new version.

So I play test from the editor, and fuck me, can it get slow. Now, I don’t mean the whole game gets slow, it actually runs fine 95% of the time. It’s the footage I use in all my recordings after all. But specifically in the shop menus, it gets slow. Really slow. And I can’t fix it. It’s some deep result of the framework I’m using and Unity’s Gui system while in the editor. It sucks, I hate it, but I have to deal with it.

With that said, I wasn’t considering making any major changes to the budgeting process until some user brought up a suggestion for Auto buying and Auto equipping.

At first, I scoffed at the idea. Images of auto playing smart phone games pop into my head. (I’m better than “those” games, I thought to myself lol) But then I thought about it some more. For one, plenty of console RPGs have auto/best equip buttons. Some even have recommended purchase notifications. A lot of games go out of their way to make their systems as easy as possible so the player doesn’t have to deal with the repetitive nature of menus over long hours of gameplay.

And then I began to brainstorm. If I wanted to introduce such a system, how would it fit into my game? First came the Auto Equip for budget items. It was the easiest to create since I could equip any item from script. Next, I needed to address the auto buying of budget items. This was by far the hardest to tackle. Buying items has a lot of variables involved, and I needed to address as many variables as I could without making too many assumptions about the player’s situation.

After a few days of thinking, I finally came up with a solution.

This system isn’t a “true” auto buy system because I can’t account for every variable, but it gives you the bare minimal of recommendations while giving the player the final say in what to buy. Since the selection is fixed to 9 choices and all of the information about the items are clearly visible, it’s very easy and fast to make a buying decisions.

This change, along with the auto equipping, should speed up the weekly budget loop. But MOST IMPORTANTLY, I no longer have to spend so much time in the shop menu while game testing. My custom recommendation menu is soooooooooooo much faster. I spent so much time creating it and it was worth it, BIG TIME.

As I was finishing up on the recommendation menu, I came up with another wicked idea. Vitality Bank.

There are 3 major things I regret after making this game. One, I made it too big. There are too many things happening at once, too many characters and the game is split between a daughter raising sim and RPG. If I could make a sequel, I’d want to directly address this issue at it’s core.
Two, I shouldn’t have removed levels. Making the progress focused on equipment was a terrible idea as it removes familiarity and easily manageable growth.
And three, the reliability on Vitality.

I introduced Vitality as a sort of control mechanism for the week to week activities. The problem being, I didn’t account for just how much would be needed as you progress further into the game. Basically, I designed the later maps with little regard for the required Vitality.

This became a problem and the players realized it way before I did. The thing is, since I pretty much created everything and know where everything is and how to exploit the game, I didn’t consider the perspective of someone going in blind. From their eyes, reaching 0 Vitality in the middle of a map feels damn right awful.

So I began to brainstorm a method to address this issue I carelessly created. The idea for a Bank just popped into my head as I was working on the auto systems. The Vitality Bank stores all your excess Vitality you gain from any source after you’ve maxed out your normal Vitality. Also, any remaining Vitality at the end of the week is stored. My goal was to make sure the player keeps ALL of the Vitality they gain throughout the game. This way, you can use it when you need it instead of running out in the middle of a map.

I’ve also introduced more access to a lot of the powerful items thanks to things like the Door to Door system.

Lastly, I’ve been fixing various issues with game mechanics and dialogue. Thank god there hasn’t been any real game stopping bugs. Boy am I glad that shit show is over. (crosses fingers)

There are many dialogue events I’d like to add to the game but I really don’t want to make the game any longer. (100+ hours is long enough lol) From this point on, I don’t expect I’ll be making any more major changes. I’ll just continue game testing and fixing issues until I reach the end again.

At that point, I may consider this game officially done.

Well, that’s all I have to say for this update. We’ll talk again in the next update. Peace!

So with half a year pass since the release of Guardian’s Guide, I’ve finally decided to start playing the game again from the beginning in order to address any issues I might have missed while adding/changing things I feel would be beneficial in the long run.

I have many things I wish to say about the release, about the reception, about the results, about my life and the future of this website, but I’m going to leave that for another time. Perhaps in a future video.

As for now, I plan to slowly play through the game and release fixes I feel are necessary whenever I get the time.

With this latest release (1.25), I’ve added support for a Budget and Equipment preview window while shopping. I fount myself cycling back and forth between the shop menu and budget menu in order to keep track of what I need to buy and making sure I didn’t buy the same thing twice. With this update, you can now check your equipment while still in the shopping menu.

There has also been a series of small fixes I’ve done and will continue to do. This will continue until I reach the end of the game once again. At that point, I hope to gather a deeper understanding of where the game stands and perhaps make some drastic changes in order to make the game more balanced.

At the current moment, I’m at the start of  the second year.

Lastly, if you’ve reported an issue and I haven’t got to it recently, I apologize. I’ve been away from game development for most of the year as I felt I needed a serious break after +5 years of it. If you’ve run into any game stopping bugs, please message me directly using the Contact Us page and I’ll address it. Other wise, just leave a post on the Steam forum and I’ll get around to it eventually.

There won’t be a dedicated update scheduled for the time being. I’ll just be casually playing through the game and fixing issues I feel need immediate attention.

That’s all I have to say for now. Later.

After 5+ years of development, Guardian’s Guide is finally complete.
What an incredible journey it’s been. I still remember day dreaming about this game. About how it would play, how the daughter would grow and the different routes she would have. It’s such a joy to see everything I imagined actually exist as a playable game.

There were many times when I thought the game may never be complete. Or that the work required was far too much for one person. But I persevered. Seeing this project to completion became my number one goal in life. And now, that goal has been reached.

After the release, I’ve had some time to think about my next goal, what’s next for Allugic and what’s next for me in my personal life.

I have decided to put Guardian’s Guide on maintenance mode.

Every update will be purely for fixing or correcting any problems. This is to avoid introducing any new problems to the complete game.

The reason for this decision is because I need to shift focus to improving my personal life. I’m not going to get into any details, but I have personal life goals and issues that need my attention at this time. This will take all the time I’d normally use for developing the game. (and then some)

This doesn’t mean I will be abandoning the game. As I stated above, I’ll continue to fix any problems. (as long as it doesn’t involve changing entire systems)

I have ideas for additional content for the game, but that will be put on hold for the time being.

Thank you for following the development of Guardian’s Guide. If you purchased the game or are just interested, then thank you for your time and investment.

Until the next project, stay well everyone.

Happy new years! I hope your holiday has been joyful. As for me, I’ve been busy working hard to finalize the release build.

With only 2 days left before release, I’ll be pretty much working on it until the faithful moment. (Most likely even after release)

As mentioned in the previous update, I wanted to add one additional mini game to the overall game, but for a while I felt I might not have had enough time to do so.

Well, thankfully I fount the time and managed to get the mini game added. Check out the video below to see the game in action.

This mini game will supply access to items I felt that weren’t present enough throughout the overall game as I was play testing. It also makes these items much cheaper and give a nice Incentive to do a good job on this mini game. I hope people will enjoy it.

For the remainder of the week, I was just combing through the scripts trying to find bugs and other issues. I did manage to find a few, more than I wanted to find. I’m happy that I fixed them before release, but unhappy that they were even there to begin with.

I’m not sure if I can achieve a 100% perfect release, but I’ll continue to search for bugs up to and even after release.

I don’t have much more to say in this update. I’ve been working on the game almost everyday since I decided on the release a few months ago.

Years of hard work, planning, dedication and grit has led to this faithful moment.

I really hope you guys enjoy this passion project of mine. I would like to say more, but I’m going to wait some time after release to give my full thoughts.

As for now, I want to get back to work to make sure this release goes smoothly.

Hello again. I hope you guys had a very nice holiday. I enjoyed my time, but I also got a bit of work done in between.

I managed to incorporate a hard and easy settings. This settings first shows up when you start a new game. You can also change it at any time from the in game settings menu.

The purpose of this option is to help those that want an easier time getting through the story and help those that want to suffer getting through the exploration. I’ve created a video showing you the very first battle while in Challenge mode. This should give you an idea of what to expect.

Truthfully, I haven’t tested every battle under this mode. I’ve just gone through the first map and tested the final battle. (which was incredibly difficult) It’s possible that some story related battles could be impossible to beat. But I feel with the right potion bonuses, the player should be-able to over come. Otherwise, they can just switch over to normal or story mode and win the battle with no hassle.

Speaking again on the final battle, it is a pretty tough battle on normal mode, but I sorta went all out in challenge mode. I’ve made it so hard that I ended up introducing a new item with the goal of maxing out the players stats just so they can have a fighting chance. Even with that, I wonder if it will be enough. (I should fully test that battle just to be sure lol)

Up to this point, it was possible for the player to buy and use the same type of life items when it came to raising the daughter. Game wise, there was nothing wrong with this, but as far as a daughter raising sim goes, if you purchased only 3 bags of potatoes for the entire week, I believe she should become quite bothered by it.

So I implemented a system that randomly checks to see if you’re diversifying your purchasing properly. You might be able to get away with it once or twice, but if you get caught using 2-3 of the same life items for budgeting, your daughter will become annoyed and her mood/condition will be negatively effected.

The easiest way to avoid this mechanic is to just make sure you always buy 3 different items for food, hygiene, material and assortment. Of course, you can always risk it, as I mentioned above. The check is random.

With that complete, as well as the data entry for the records, I now have a full week of development ahead where I can focus on the littlest of things. But first, I believe I have enough time to implement one final feature I really want in the game before release.

It’s an archery game that is featured at the mid point of the story, but at the moment not actually in the game. I now have everything I need to make it fully functional, so I think I’m going to go a head and complete it next week.

Besides that, I will be methodically combing through all the scripts to check for any game stopping bugs I’ve missed, as well as any dialogue mistakes. I’m not sure if I can achieve a perfect release, but I’ll try.

The next update will pretty much be the last one for the (unreleased) development of Guardian’s Guide. I feel like I should make a video, but should I really use time for that? I guess we’ll see how the combing goes. If I feel I’ve done all I could, and I have the time, I might create a video.

We are officially in the pre-release stage and I spent all last week going through my list of bugs I wrote down as I was play testing the game. I originally expected this process would take half a week since most of it was just issues with dialogue, but it took the entire week. I guess I didn’t account for the non-dialogue issues requiring so much time.

At this point, the game should be playable from start to finish with no glaring issues. (ideally) As much as I would like this to be true, I’m going to have to go back and look over as much of the scripts as I can. Any potential problem that could result in a game stopping bug has to be addressed before release. (I actually ran into a game stopping issue recently, I didn’t notice it while I was playing the game because it was related to an alternate route)

I’m going to keep focusing on bug fixing until release, as well as, finalizing some features. I plan to add a hard and easy mode. The hard mode will simply increase some stats and also make some of the boss battles tougher. The easy mode will lower stats, making it much easier to just get through the game. Lastly, I need to finish some data entry relating to the records menu. The records showcase all of the items, characters and game data for the daughter. It’s a slog of a process, which is why I saved it for last.

I might have time to add one feature I really want to get into the game. If I can take care of the game modes and records menu fast, I might have time. Since it’s the end of the year, I will be busy with life issues that need to be addressed. So I want to make sure I don’t create new issues so close to release.

Well, time will tell. Just 17 more days to go. Wow, so close.

After over 4 years of work, I am proud to announce the official release date for Guardian’s Guide. You can expect to play the game on January the 7th of 2025. Here is the release trailer for the game.

This date is a bit later than my planned 2024 release window, but I was convinced by a steam representative that a later date would be ideal to avoid losing exposure due to steam sale events.

With the extra time, I will use it to correct as many bugs as I can. My goal is a solid release so as many people as possible can enjoy the world I’ve crafted without interruptions.

This game is well over 60 hours long, it has both visual novel and rpg mechanics. It has multiple routes you can aim towards. It has exploration, battles, custom party building, a variety of items and equipment, as well as, alternate dialogue and hidden dialogue. AND to top it all off, I still have things I want to add after the release of the game.

Even toward the end of development, the work doesn’t end. I have many non-game related things that have to be done before the release. Since there is only one of me, I would like to ask everyone to be patient as I work through everything. This is my first time releasing something so massive.

Until the faithful day arrives, I will be busy making my final adjustments. Here’s hoping for a smooth first impression.

(This is the full map of the continent. This is the only post-game screenshot I can show with out spoiling anything. What is the location at the center? Well, you’ll just have to play the game to find out.)

And so finally, after months of testing, I’ve reach the end of the game. The real end, not just the story end. I’ve checked every item, participated in (most) battles and went through (most) events. I am officially 80% complete with the game.

This means, the game should be 100% playable from start to finish without any game stopping bugs or extreme balance issues. If a person were to play the game right now, they will experience the game as it was intended for release. (with bugs, small balance issues, and dialogue issues popping up here and there)

Man, what a wild ride this has been. I never knew I had it in me to sit and work on a project for so many years. I’ve literally watched this game go from an idea on a few sheets of paper into a fully functional program. What a blessing it has been to be able to work on my dream and see it come to life before my eyes.

It won’t be long before other people get to enjoy this game for the first time. (well, I hope they enjoy lol)

I say this game is 80% complete, but truthfully, it’s more like 90% to 95%. What I have left to do is mainly bug fixes, dialogue correction, boring data entry, and balance adjustments. I don’t have time to add any of the extra stuff I wanted to get to. I can’t risk introducing new problems to solve this close to release.

I have quite the laundry list of things to get to, but even with such a long list, it shouldn’t take me very long to clear it. Once it’s cleared, I will be using the remaining weeks to check every file, every event, and every object for problems. Sadly, this doesn’t leave a lot of time for 3rd party testing. The main reason being steam.

I STILL haven’t gotten the green light of approval from steam. There are two reasons for this. One, steam has specific criteria for what it means to be “controller compatible”. I had to stop my game testing and push my plans up to provide 100% controller support. (They demanded a virtual keyboard and I had to manually create it) Two, each time they fail me, that’s a minimal of 3 days before my project will be looked over again.

I’ve been failed twice so far. First time for not having the virtual keyboard, second time for being an idiot and not testing the virtual keyboard after building the game. (none of the keys worked because I implemented them using an unorthodox method, aka, worked in the editor but not the build) Hopefully I won’t be failed a third time. Not only have I fixed the keyboard, but I made so many other improvements and I’ve tested the build thoroughly. I don’t know what else they will be looking for but I hope it goes well this time.

As soon as I get the green light from steam, I will announce the release date.

That’s all I have for this week. Be on the look out for that announcement. It’s coming.

Okay, so there’s been a lot of different things happening this week. I knew a head of time some of these things were going to happen. Because of this, I haven’t done any real game testing for the post game. It sucks because I really want to get this game testing over with but due to time constraints, I had/have to refocus my attention.

The screenshot above is where I’m currently at in the game. It is the first map of the post game. There are 7 maps in total and all of them are huge. Once I get back to testing the maps, some time in the middle of next week, I plan to rush as much as I can so I can be completely done with testing.

With that said, let’s discuss the main topic of this update. Steam.

I uploaded my first build to steam last week. My goal was to get the green light from steam to validate my game. In order to do that, I had to finalize some things on my steam page. One of them being a gameplay trailer. Now, I was going to wait before I completed the trailer, but I realized, it would be better to upload a trailer showcasing purely gameplay.

You can view the trailer right now if you like. But I didn’t stop there, I also completed the main trailer for the game. Accompanied with the release date.

“Where is that trailer?” You might be asking.

Well, a few days ago, I got a reply from steam telling me my game has failed their review. Their reason? My game didn’t have 100% controller support, even though I stated it had Partial Controller Support. (based on their criteria) And my game didn’t have achievements like I listed it on the game page.

Both of these things I had planned to implement after I was done with the game testing, but since I didn’t have them in the build I submitted, they failed me. lol

So, starting next week, I need to get both of these features into the game, as well as some others, and resubmit the build asap. To put it bluntly, if they’re going to fail me again, then I need to focus on addressing all of the problems until I pass. And until I pass, I can’t give you guys a date with full confidence.

In between all of this chaos, I managed to complete a bit of bug fixing making game improvements. For example, some of the maps in the game have status effects that periodically get apply to the party. Before they were only visible during the exploration. Now they can be seen during battle as well.

I have a laundry list of things I need to fix or improve. But that stuff will have to wait as I finish up the major requirements for steam approval next week.

That’s all I have to say for this week. I’ll talk to you guys again in the next update. Hopefully, with better news.

I’ve finally done it. I’ve finally reached the end of the story portion of the game. I’m currently sitting at 112 hours from start to finish. I don’t think this time frame is a true reflection of what the player can expect since I spent a great deal of time checking every battle, event, treasure and object, but this amount of time is way more than I expected it to be.

My biggest concern with all the testing I’ve done is game stopping bugs and object/events/battles not working as they should. I BELIEVE I corrected all of them. But just to be sure, I’ll be going through and reviewing all of the scripts again to make sure no game stopping bugs are present.

Below, you can see the full map of all the major locations you will explore throughout the course of the game. I became really excited once I reached this point in the game. This was my first time seeing every location visible all at once. (In the game of course)

The final story boss battle was actually pretty hard. I died the first time I fought it, but managed to win the second time around. Truthfully, the final year of the game is pretty tough overall. I died multiple times at multiple bosses. Regardless, I hope people will enjoy the challenges and character customization I implemented in the game.

I might have reach the end of the story, but it’s not the end of the game. I still need to test the post game content. Hopefully, I can get that done in the next week. I wish to finish the testing completely so I can focus on completing the game for release.

December is going to be a busy month, I have a laundry list of things to do and it has to be done before the end of the year. With the entire month at my disposal, I should be able to complete everything with time to spare.

First and foremost, I plan to upload a copy of the game to steam so they can test and verify that Guardian’s Guide, is in fact, an actual game. I also plan to begin private testing. This should happen some time in the next week.

After that, I will hyper focus on finishing all the post-game testing. I need to get this out of the way since I have a few high priority features I need to add to the game asap.

Once that’s all done, it’s times to finish the remaining 20% of the game. Fixing bugs, correcting dialogue, making balance changes and completing the remaining parts of the game so it looks presentable for release.

Hopefully, by this point, I will either have plenty of time left or just a bit of time left to add additional content before release. If not, I won’t worry about it. Once I know the release is solid and the game sells well enough, I’ll just add it in afterward.

Since the game is currently about 75%-80% done, once I upload the first version to steam, even if something were to happen to me between now and then, you will still be able to enjoy the full (story) game. (with dialogue issues here and there) As I see it, it’ll be better than nothing. (But that’s a big IF! I’m not leaving before this game is done!!!)

It won’t be much longer now folks! I’m still debating on the exact date of release. I should probably just stop procrastinating and announce it next week, but I just don’t like making promises I might not be able to keep for whatever reason. But this is the nature of game development. People are used to having dates and setting their life around that date being met.

Okay, I’ll go a head and announce the date next week. So be it. I’ll work hard to deliver a solid release.