(Sorry - I actually posted this on my website a bit under a week ago, but forgot to do so over here on Itch.io! Apologies, and I'll not to make the same mistake next month!)

Hello! We’re already a month into the new year, and is it just me or does that feel a bit weird? In spite of the fact that I’ve had a few things going on in my personal life over the last few weeks, it still feels like the new year was being celebrated like…a week ago? Does anyone else feel like this has been a really fast January?  

Possibly the reason it’s felt like such a fast month is that I’ve spent most of my time continuing to work on Artificial Nexus, which is of course the main reason that you’re here. Things are still moving forwards at a good pace, and if things continue to match a timeline that’s been drafted up, the game should be out no later than the end of April. Of course, if there are significant delays, I’ll let people know as soon as possible.  

Some of the things that have been worked on this month are:  

• Voice Acting: I’ll be honest, this was the largest asset that still had to be produced, and I’d been a bit worried about how much it might stretch out development time. My fears have turned out to be pretty unfounded, however - about half of the voice acting has been completed so far, at a really outstanding pace. While I can’t guarantee that the remainder will be produced as fast, I’m nevertheless very impressed by how it’s gone so far.
• Demo: The full game has a lot of quality of life changes and upgrades, in addition to new background art, as mentioned in last month’s devlog. Since the demo should obviously reflect the main game as much as possible, I’ve been working on moving a lot of the relevant upgrades to the demo. The demo will likely be updated within the next week or two.
• New endings: An overwhelming piece of feedback from playtesters was that the game’s multiple endings and the means to unlock them didn’t feel distinct enough. It was pretty damn valid, and a good reason why you should get other people to look over your work, since I was definitely looking at the endings from the wrong perspective. As such, the endings have been rewritten to be more distinctive and the ways to unlock them are (somewhat) more complex than previously.
• Backgrounds: All new background art has been finished, and implemented into the game. Some dialogue still has to be updated to reflect the new art.
• Miscellaneous: Various bugs that have been discovered have been fixed, and some visual updates have been made.

Over the next month, the plan is to release the updated demo, finish off the voice acting, and make a few script updates in response to playtesting feedback and updated art. Tune in a month from now to hear how it’s all going!