OK! Fingers crossed.... this might be the LAST week that the weekly update is called "GAME UPDATE" instead of using the actual title! The steam page review is underway as we speak and if all goes well, I might be able to do an OFFICIAL GAME ANNOUNCEMENT this week!
If so, I'll announce it on all the platforms I use, but I'll probably also post it here, just to be sure!

ANYWAY, onto the updates!

• STEAM STUFF - The BIG thing this week was setting up the Steam Page. It took a lot of time, so most of my efforts went there instead of actually coding the game. LUCKILY, once its done, its done and I won't have to mess with it anymore. Really excited for everyone to see it!

• GISELE SPRITES - It's not just 4 copies of the MC chasing each other around anymore! Now Gisele's sprite is in the game and frankly.... she looks a lot better than Vuota... I need to go back and make her sprite better.

• ANNOUNCEMENT TRAILER - I made an announcement trailer! It think it hits pretty hard... almost ENTIRELY because of the AWESOME music that Donutshoes wrote for it!! Have you heard his music? Go listen right now. He's incredible. Anyway, if the Steam Page is approved this week, I'll drop it on all the socials.

• REWORKING MOVEMENT - I wrote the movement code for the player during my like "How to Get Started with Godot" tutorials era.... so that code was OLD and BASIC and NOT VERY GOOD. So, I rewrote it all to be much more simple and utilize gdscript a lot better. It FEELS nicer too.

• REWORKING MAP FOLLOWERS - I've been calling the characters that run around behind the main character the "Map Followers" (cuz they follow you on the area maps, you see). I had an AWFUL, JANK system for setting them up previously... it was very awkward and very SPECIFIC. It created specific character instances based on who was in the party... but NOW it creates GENERIC character instances and just populates their graphics and movement afterwards. Speaking of movement, I also rewrote their movement to have a lil more trigonometry in it, yum yum.

• CONTROLLER SUPPORT - I can now confirm that the game works with keyboard, Xbox controllers and Playstation DualShock/DualSense controllers. How exciting.

• BUG FIXES - Oh bugs, my one true love. There was a bug where the game would crash on level up if you had a certain number of party members in certain party positions. Fixed that. There was another bug where incorrect animations would play when followers chased you around. Fixed that.

AND NOW, THE TO-DO PILE:

• F.I.T. MECHANIC - The F.I.T. Mechanic works but I don't have a lot of different F.I.T. effects... I need to program more of them and then start to test their effects in battle. There also isn't really a place IN battle to read those effects yet. Not sure how to put it together but.... I'll get there.

• MUSCLES, SCALTRA MAP SPRITES - This is my priority right now. I want to get their map sprites and running animations done so that the game LOOKS like its a whole game. It would be much better than just looking at 4 of the same character chasing each other around.

• CHANGE VUOTA SPRITE? - I've kinda gotten used to her now but.. I think her profile idle and run sprites could be a lot better. She does this weird chicken-neck-bobbing thing when she runs and.... idk. I don't like it.

• CUTSCENES - I think I have enough written to start scripting out the intro cutscene now. I gotta make some NPC sprites for it, but I can do it.

NON GAME RELATED STUFF

• I made more anime babe pixel art.

OK! THAT'S ALL FOR THIS WEEK FOLKS! Keep your eyes peeled on the ol' social media sites for a game announcement! (I mostly use Bluesky now, but I'll post it everywhere).