Summer Game Updates

This summer has been a busy season for The Violets of Amicus team, but we’ve made major strides in both art and functionality. From the murky swamps of Tenebris to tuning inventory controls, here’s everything we’ve been working on lately:

The Swamp Province – Tenebris

Our biggest highlight this season is the addition of Tenebris, a murky, mysterious swamp province in the upper left corner of the world map. This area introduces new enemy types, improved environmental logic, and lots of moody atmosphere.

• New Reflection Algorithm: Reflections now behave more naturally, appearing only on water and no longer showing on solid ground.

• Swamp Assets: From trees to ruins, we’ve fleshed out the entire biome with lush and eerie new sprites.

• Throwable Objects: We added swamp-themed throwables to make environmental interaction more immersive.

• New Enemy: Swamp Snake: This foe lurks within water and leaps toward the player when threatened.

Horse Combat Improvements

To prep for future mounted combat, we’ve updated our position tool so Asteric dynamically aligns with the horse’s motion, even while swinging weapons. This will allow smoother transitions and more responsive combat animations once the final horse-riding sprites are in.

Forest Maze, Trap Saps, and Palette Polish

• We’ve darkened the color of the grass to give the world a more-polished feel. In addition, we adjusted the color palettes for our new biomes.  The first image is the starting area grass lands. The second image shows the forest color palette. And lastly, we have the darker color palette in the swamp biome.

• New Forest Area (1×4): Features a bridge between cliffs and denser forest design.

• New Enemy – Trap Saps: A sneaky threat hiding among the foliage.

• Forest Maze Concept: Early layout work underway.

Centaur Combat Updates

These additions bring the Centaur enemies closer to their final forms, making encounters more varied and strategic:

Centaur Bow Pull Right

Feature Fixes & Gameplay Upgrades

We’ve been actively responding to player feedback. Here are some quality-of-life updates:

• Keyboard support: Basic keyboard functionality is now fully supported for smoother play and accessibility. (This applies to the demo as well!)
• Inventory Navigation Option: Players can now close inventory menus with the B button, aligning with common game conventions. This was a frequently requested tweak, so we’re happy to make this game more accessible to all gaming preferences.

Optimization, Lighting Tweaks & Deeper Polish

• Loading Optimization: We continued to refine the loading pipeline from last season. It’s smoother, faster, and more stable. We’re also diving into garbage collection research, which could become its own update.
• Ambient Lighting Adjustments: Alpha values were toned down in response to feedback that the lighting was too intense.

Swamp Music (And more!)

The swamp area now has its own custom track to help set the mood for adventures in Tenebris. We’re still working on polishing the themes, but we’re excited to give each region a distinctive signature.

Enemy Base

This area marks the origin of the Monster Scourge. Expect a mix of stealth and high-stakes combat:

• The first third is a required stealth mission.
• The final two-thirds are optional endgame gauntlets, designed to be among the hardest encounters in the game.

Path Updates (Goodbye Squares!!)

Path tiles got a long-overdue upgrade. After hearing that our paths looked a bit too “square,” we’ve reshaped and redrawn many of them for more organic trails and better flow.

Conventions & Our Team

Earlier this summer, we’ve been attending conventions here in our home base of Ohio. So far, we’ve attended TORG in Sandusky, Ohio and GameCon at Northwest State University. Our story artist, Kennedy, snapped these photos from both of them. Thank you to everyone who came out!

Dan also got to meet our pixel artist, Tony, in person for the first time, along with Tony’s brother. They had a blast playing video games and hanging out for the weekend.

And to all of you, thank you as always for your support and feedback. Each update, big or small, is helping The Violets of Amicus become the game we know it can be.

Until next time!

– The Violets of Amicus Team