I hope everyone had a great 2023! While it has been quiet on my end for some time, a lot has been happening behind the scenes. In this post, I want to discuss what you can expect from Thylacine Studios in 2024 and beyond.
Siralim Ultimate Patch
Over two years after its full launch, Siralim Ultimate is more popular than ever. This is highly unusual for a video game, and it's all thanks to our amazing playerbase spreading the word about Siralim. A huge thanks to everyone for spreading the word!
I'm working on a big Siralim Ultimate patch. It doesn't add any new content to the game, but it fixes almost all known bugs and includes some small quality of life improvements that have been requested by the community.
In addition, this patch will enable the game to be translated into different languages. This is a massive undertaking, but I'm making good progress on it so far. Community members will be able to translate the game themselves, but I am also hoping to work with some publishers to add official translations for some languages as well (prioritizing Japanese and Chinese to start). Please note that the translation files are very far off from being ready, so I can't provide them to you just yet.
There's still a lot of work to be done on this patch, so I have no ETA for when it will be ready. It will also probably spend at least a few months on our Steam beta branch before it is fully released and available on other platforms because there are so many changes behind the scenes.
I know many of you have been waiting a long time for a patch like this, and I apologize for the delay, but I've needed to put the bulk of my focus on other things while I work on this patch on the side.
I am also aware that there are still a few outstanding issues on Android as a result of the most recent update. I have a new patch ready to go to solve these issues, but unfortunately, I am waiting on the Gamemaker developers (what a surprise...) to fix some things on their end that is causing the game to run at an abnormal frame rate on some devices. There are a lot of frustrated developers pushing them to fix this because it affects *all* Android games made with Gamemaker, so hopefully, they'll have a fix ready soon.
The Next Game
I wanted to reveal the new game I'm working on in this post, but it's not quite ready to show off yet and I don't want to spoil anything prematurely. I'm planning to announce it in the first quarter of 2024, and I hope to make regular blog posts after that to reveal all the game's mechanics. Here's what I can say about the game for now:
- It's a massive, turn-based RPG, and will probably release with more content than Siralim Ultimate. The budget is roughly 4x all the Siralim games combined, and it shows.
- To best summarize the game's mechanics, I'd say it's a cross between Siralim, Path of Exile, and something very new and unique altogether.
- It's meant to be an infinite game like Siralim, but also highly replayable like an ARPG (Diablo 2, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn, etc). Both the long-term playability and the replayability work together for a complete experience. It is not a roguelite or anything like that.
- The art is 2D, but instead of using pixel art, it uses skeletal animations. This means that the art will be much more animated and less static than Siralim.
- JC Malapit (who worked on parts of all the Siralim games) will handle all the art. He's not shackled by low-resolution pixel art anymore, and I'm constantly amazed at how great everything looks. You're going to be pleasantly surprised. I can't wait to show off some screenshots soon.
- Joshua Queen (who worked on Siralim 3 and Siralim Ultimate) will once again handle all the music and sound effects for the game. The music is already finished, and it's unbelievably good.
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I'm excited to reveal more details in the coming months!
My Communication
Currently, my communication is spread across several social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Discord, YouTube, and the Steam forums. Moving forward, I've decided to primarily focus on Discord, supplemented by Twitter and the Steam forums. As part of this shift, I will no longer post updates on Facebook.
Additionally, I'm considering transferring administrative rights for our subreddit (r/siralim) to community members in the near future. If you're an active member of the r/siralim community, please reach out to me on reddit (https://www.reddit.com/user/thylacinestudios) and let me know your interest. Please don't be offended if I don't respond to you - I anticipate a lot of interest in this position, so it may be difficult to reply to everyone.
Moving forward, Discord will be our primary channel for updates and interactions. I'm excited about enhancing our Discord experience and exploring new ways to [optionally] integrate it into our upcoming games.
I realize I've been very quiet over the last year, and that is a personal choice I've decided to make for a number of reasons I won't bore you with here. In the future, I am going to work on increasing communication at a macro level (blog posts, Discord announcements, etc). I have big plans for improving communication at a micro level (forum responses, casual Discord chatting, etc), and you'll learn the details about that soon enough.
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That's all for now. I want to thank everyone for their continued support, and I look forward to revealing more about our next game in early 2024! I wish everyone Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!
Zack