Sadie Gets a Life 0.2.3 Dev Log, 2025-10-16

Development is going pretty well for the 0.2.3 release. As I mentioned in the last dev log, I plan to include a walkthrough starting with the 0.2.3 release. Ironically, that's the one item that's taking the most time so far, simply due to needing to do a full playthrough of the game and capture relevant details. The plus side is that I've been fixing a few minor problems in Act I along the way (such as being able to climb the walls in the goblin cave), so this exercise will have some knock-on benefits as well as providing a "perfect play" guide for people who wish to have one.

To give you a feeling for the scope of the 0.2.3 release, there will be one guild quest but it's a big one that takes you through a significant part of town, including several new buildings. There will be one new diplomatic mission, in which you assist the foreign minister in the Eastern Duchy. In addition, the Den of Thieves will expand considerably and you'll have seven separate missions to handle. In total, I had to develop 16 new areas. Granted, some of these are small, and none of them are as big or complex as the outdoor districts in Svetlanda, but my plan over the next few releases is to flesh out the city even further. Players won't get free reign to enter any building at any time, but at least the town will feel a bit larger by having these other places available, even if it's just over the course of a mission. At least, that's what I tell myself as I design yet another building interior from scratch.

I'm also introducing a new game mechanic: stealth sequences. How will they work with our favorite off-the-hook psychopath protagonist? Hopefully well! Like the dungeon from 0.2.2, the initial stealth sequences will be fairly straightforward, but as I get more familiar with the game mechanics, expect to see more sophisticated examples of stealth sequences in later releases.