Sorry for another long gap in updates! We’ve been doing work on many different smaller parts of the game in preparation for the demo’s release. Elden Ring was also released so that sucked me in. Here’s a look at some of the stuff that’s happening

New Character Reveal

If you’ve been following my Twitter, then you might have seen a post revealing the newest character in the game. The powerjack medic (tentatively named “General Eric”) only shows up for a short second in Eltorro64Rus’ RED: Shadow Maggots video, but we’ll be making him a playable character with unique animations, art, and gameplay!

General Eric will be the last character to be included in the demo, which is fitting as he is currently the only playable Support-class character. If I were to give an estimate on his development progress, he’s about 40% complete, some animations and some of his skill logic are in, but there’s still a large number of man-hours left before he gets his own Maggot Showcase video.

Multi-Hit Quick-Time Events

Noticed how every enemy only hits you once every attack? That will soon no longer be the case! Work is currently being done on the back-end to support multiple quick-time events for every attack. No better way to keep your turn-based RPG engaging than to encourage you to perfect block a whole string of attacks! Why yes, I’m a big fan of Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, how did you know?

All that’s left is to create animations that use this feature. There are currently no plans to have playable characters require multiple inputs per attack quick-time event, but that may change as we receive feedback on the game.

Work on Mobile Build

To preface, when I say “mobile” I refer to the Android and (potentially) the HTML5 in-browser version of the game, because they’re the most accessible platforms to develop for. I’ll eventually write another FAQ detailing the specifics of why we can’t target iOS since people keep asking for it.

Work on the mobile version of RED: Shadow Maggots is proceeding smoothly. I thought optimizing all the 3D stuff would be a nightmare, but it’s been pretty smooth sailing after I discovered the major elements preventing us from reaching the 60FPS standard. To that end, we’ve now added the ability to change the graphics quality in the settings menu.

If you’re on a mid-range phone, we recommend disabling Post-Processing effects and Anti-Aliasing for a major boost to performance.

Update on Gunslinger Pyro

The Gunslinger Pyro (tentatively named “Deadeye Dutch”) is almost ready to be featured in his own Maggot Showcase video! His development has been a bit rough due to some scheduling issues among our team, but our character artist Ten has gotten the character portrait finalized!

(Left side portrait was done in a few hours and was coloured by a previous artist who has since left the team)

He’s definitely come a long way since their original depiction from the 72-hour prototype, but there is still more to be done. The final step will be handled by our new artist Alinda, who’ll be setting up the Pyro’s portrait to be animated in-game.

That’s all for now, remember to follow me on Itch and Twitter to be notified of future development updates!