Quick reminder: You can follow development more closely on the Trello board.

TLDR;

• nuii is alive and recovering well after surgery!

• Build server updates

• Android is released!

• Let's talk about itch.io...

🏥 nuii pointer is good and alive

It's been a few weeks since surgery, and I'm recovering well. It was a minor/moderate corrective surgery that I've been planning for many years to help me with breathing. I'm approaching back to normal and almost back to myself again, and I've also been easing back into development. I'm alive and well! 🥰

Alright! Back to business!

✅ Progress Since Last Update

What I accomplished since the last update:

I'm not going to go over everything that I've been working on, simply because there's a whole list of things that I've done in the past couple of weeks while recovering. A full changelog of items will be included with the next patch release. But I'll still include a really brief summary here:

• Build Automation Revamp - Visit the Technical Corner below for more info!

• 📱Android! - The Android release is now public!

• Minor User Interface Updates - There were some tweaks and updates that were necessary to get Android optimized, but I also completed some bugfixes and some improvements. For example, now there's a new Preference for toggling "Scene Motion"; this is the extra camera transitions.

🛠️ Current Development

What I'm working on right now:

• Promo Render - Using this as a stepping off point for myself to get back into my groove again; after this, I'll be starting right where we left off: Chapter 1 Part 2!

🔮 Coming Soon

What I'm planning to work on next:

• Chapter 1 Scene 7 - Getting back into things, and this scene is going to be one of the next things to be worked on!

⚙️ Technical Corner

• Automated Build System Upgrades - As I've been recovering from surgery, I've been working on a huge rework on the "oversampling" code and also the automated build workflow. This was a huge undertaking; let me esplain: Echoes of The Cataclysm on the desktop should be a beautiful and highly detailed experience; that's why 4k is needed. Well, not completely "needed", but by my estimates once the game is finished, EoTC can be under 20GB in ~10 chapters at 4k (this is due to amazing compression with WEBM and WEBP).
  In addition, I also have been getting requests for Android. This is the beauty of having an automated workflow: once it's put into place, it's all automatic. Why's this important? Well, I wanted to deliver two (and maybe three in the future) experiences: Desktop (Windows/Mac/Linux) and Android (and web in the future). But with my brief test with my baseline Android phone (Moto G ~$100), the 4k experience caused extreme performance issues. The resolutions on images and videos HAD to be scaled down. This is where the automated workflow comes in. The automated workflow automatically scales the images and videos to these resolutions: 3840x2160, 1920x1080, and 960x540. This also conveniently reduces the file size of Android down to 140MB, while Desktop is sitting at 360MB.
  How this was accomplished: I split the code's repository into two separate pieces. One was the original game and the second is an asset repository. Every time something is added to the asset repository, it is automatically split into the three needed sizes. And every time the game is build, it grabs the images/videos from the asset repository and only uses what's needed.
  This way, Android gets 540p version of the game, web will get 1080p version of the game, and finally desktop will continue to have a 4k version of the game!

🎮 Let's Talk About itch.io

For anybody not aware, Visa & MasterCard have pressured Steam into tightening their rules on what's allowed on their storefront. This has caused some existing games on Steam to be removed.
Most likely in preparation to dealing with the payment processor's rules, itch.io may have shadow-banned ALL NSFW and adult games. This means, unless you have a direct URL to the itch.io listing, the game cannot be found via search. Every NSFW game on itch.io: Eternum, Moonlight, Law School, Westview Academy, and Echoes of The Cataclysm; all unavailable to find unless you have the direct link.

Given itch.io's complete absence of communication before taking action, I'll potentially withdrawing Echoes of The Cataclysm from the platform. The lack of visibility for affected games, combined with no timeline or explanation from itch.io's team, makes it difficult to justify maintaining a presence there.

More concerning is the broader pattern this represents. Without clear communication channels or accountability from platform operators, developers face significant uncertainty about their investment of time and resources. The risk of similar disruptions occurring without warning or recourse makes itch.io increasingly unreliable as a distribution platform.

While I appreciate what itch.io has historically offered to indie developers, platform stability and transparent communication are fundamental requirements for any serious development partnership. With these concerns, I'll be evaluating if we'll return to itch.io. 🫡

💬 Community Corner

What'd everyone think of the first release? Better/worse than what you thought? Any feedback? What are you most interested in for the next update?

Don't forget to check out the Trello board for detailed progress updates! ❤️