sierralee
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September 21 Update
🕑 Added 2025-09-21 17:00:10 +0000 UTCThere's a bit of a lull in my work, and I'm not happy about it. I knew there would be a lull, and I've put in serious effort over many months to try to prepare to keep myself happily busy during this time.
Instead, lots of wheels are spinning in place. DStP isn't moving as quickly as I'd like, though I hasten to say that Annikath has been doing consistently great. There's some book stuff that's still churning unproductively. I've been speaking to a programmer that could be promising for future work, but nothing is coming of that in the short term. Kali is doing good work for Slave Rehabilitator, but I'm not quite ready to launch into major development on that yet.
So this, which should be an ideal moment to pour energy into something that really inspires me, is instead unproductive time. =/ I'm not entirely idle, instead putting in a lot more work on TLS, getting it much closer to release. Seems like version 0.81.x will have almost my entire list of potential/considered changes, and then we're within sight of the 1.0.0 release.
That's exciting, but as I've said it's also scary to be moving beyond the project that has occupied so much of my time for so many years. I had hoped that more big things would be in place by now, but instead they idle mostly beyond my control.
DLC Questions
I've overcome the roadblocks for DLC. I've actually submitted an image pack DLC to Valve, hoping to get it solidly in place before the release. That is another major step to making the overall timing work out well, and gives TLS a second DLC.
As mentioned there will be another DLC as a capstone, several years in the future, but I'm considering if we need one more. On one hand, I worry about the "value" of each being diluted, but there are arguments to offer a lower price point as well as a different type of bonus content (and the technical side of it has been completely figured out).
I think the basic idea of "Broom DLC" for $5 is funny, even though it would be mostly pointless. I'm less certain about how it would actually affect the game, as I think the broom jokes work fine as they are. I had considered giving the player a broom item in the endgame and letting them hand it to people. Even more absurd, it could introduce "Broom-chan" as an optional harem member with no content.
I don't know, is $5 for a joke reasonable? My goal with the DLC is to offer Steam players optional ways to support the game, so they don't need to be "worth it" in a strict sense, but I want to maintain a good vibe overall.
For Your Consideration
Alright, let's take this in a moderately more positive direction. Being less productive does mean I've had some time to try other games, and I want to highlight one called Quartet:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1307960/Quartet/
The developers made a little game called Shadows of Adam that was fun but I never mentioned. They scaled up for their next game, which is a more ambitious RPG aiming for the FF6 era: it begins with four stories, each featuring two characters, that become increasingly intertwined. It's solid stuff, a classic-feeling plot with modern combat design. Also, there is an Oxford comma toggle in the options menu. ^-^
I don't want to make assumptions about the developers or their situation, but based on rough estimates, this game probably sold less than they had hoped. Me mentioning it won't do much good, but check it out if you're into this sort of thing. It isn't all that much like TLS, but I think there are a fair number of classic JRPG fans here.
Okay, that's all for this week. We get ever closer to the next TLS build and perhaps even the big release. Next weekend will be details of the next update, if it isn't the update itself. Could go either way right now.
Comments
AchtungNight
Personally I’m happy with [spoilers!] Ralph settling all the broom requests in the endgame.
Sierra Lee
Hello, thanks for your kind words! I'd appreciate a review on Steam if possible, but in any case it's great to have you here. The more people find TLS, the better the games I can keep producing, so everything helps. Regarding your fiance, that's a new one to me, but I'm glad for anyone else appreciating Qum. ^-^
Chris
I just wanna say, I got this game about 2 weeks ago on Steam and I haven't been able to put it down since. Thought it was gonna be a fun little gooner game and it turned into a whole ass 100hr+ adventure. I love everything about it and I'm so glad I saw TLS as a random recommendation on a random reddit post because it's confirmed my off time every day since. Already planning my next playthrough and everything. @Sierra you've done a spectacular job for far too little recognition from what you really deserve! Sidenote: My fiance is into Bambisl**p Hypnosis and according to her, Qum is very Bambi-coded. Which I think is hilarious.
Ark Tolei
Perfect timing on the recommendation. I just finished silksong and aethermancer on the same day so huge amounts of mental space available for a new RPG. I think a broom boss (or the villain who stole all the world's brooms, maybe a random chosen?) or broom harem member that are non-canonical would make for a fun side gag. Basically just a little side-bit that requires a bit of writing and finding a broom asset for either an enemy sprite or an NPC. I'm legitimately unsure if steam users would revolt at having a joke paywalled or not, gamers tend to be very weird. There is another option that just occurred to me as well, which is the broom DLC just replaces every reference to people looking for a broom, with an uninteractable broom as part of the background of the same room. The DLC literally adds brooms to the world and in so doing removes content from the game. I'll see myself out.
Sierra Lee
There are some differences to Ara Fell, but they're both quality retro RPGs, so if you liked that hopefully you'll enjoy Quartet too. ^-^
Abso Haram
Bought and downloaded. Adding to the existing pile, there's a game called AraFell on Steam for $15. Fun little JRPG, 20-25 hrs, uses the same engine as Quartet. DLC sounds like a way for someone to tip ya for making the game (since it's free,) so as long as it's not too much work I say go for it. Have some fun w/ it if ya want, no harm done. If ya have some extra time off now, enjoy it. It's nice to sleep in once in a while.
Sierra Lee
I can't say how similar it is to Treasure of the Rudras, because that's still on my list of games to play!
Rachnera
> FF6 [...] four stories Treasures of the Rudra? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasure_of_the_Rudras (to this day, only playable outside of Japan with an emulator and a fan translation; shame as it's a pretty good game)
