Dev-log #18 - New year, new goals - 17/01/2026
Hi folks, Alex here.
We're back on the road! The holidays are over and we're back to our routines. Today's post is a little later than usual, unfortunately there's been some real-life setbacks, nothing to worry about.
So, I guess the question some are asking is: did the Iron Leaf team take a break during these holidays? The answer is no, we rested but we didn't stop.
These holidays were an opportunity for us to redefine some of the goals we had set for ourselves, take stock of the year 2025, now over, and give ourselves some deadlines for 2026.
We had to take a few steps back, redefining some things that were present in the game in the pre-alpha but didn't satisfy us. Unfortunately, some elements needed to be rethought from scratch, like the Sex Framework, which didn't satisfy us at all.
We've reworked many things about Valmora, and this has allowed us to do other things much better.
All this to say that, compared to what we had set out to do, we've fallen a bit behind. But that's acceptable; we're novices, we're learning a lot, and to do so, we know we have to make a lot of mistakes.
So, all the fuss aside, what did we work on this holiday season?
We've revamped the stats, lowering them all and speeding up combat. Health is lower, and stamina is lower, both for enemies and the player. This should make each encounter less "grindy", but also more dangerous.
We're expanding the roster of enemies and NPCs (not just humans). We want to make the world of Valmora feel alive, in every aspect, so it's important to us to have citizens in villages, animals in forests, and monsters around corners. We will therefore take care of optimising it as best as possible to have a lively screen.
We are expanding weapons, armor, clothing, world collectibles, crafting materials, and vendors. Clearly, everything is evolving, but variety doesn't hurt.
We are putting a lot of attention into the map, to make it aesthetically pleasing right from the start, not only to the eyes but also for your GPU. It's a longer and more complicated job than we thought at the beginning, but we're working hard on it.
Sorry if today's post is a little longer than usual, but thanks for reading this far.
Additionally, we've decided to leave the Noble of Valmora open for now, at least until we reach the 12 spots we'd set ourselves, so the tier's rewards will also remain available and administered in the same way as before. We thank everyone who has taken advantage of the Tier Noble program to support us further so far!
See you next time and have a nice day!
