Well this is kind of embarrassing.

This is not the post I wanted to make. I wanted to be counting down the days until the game drops, not explaining why the Valentine's Day release might not be possible.

I've been in the middle of moving houses since early November. I've mentioned this once or twice on my BlueSky, but it's taken a lot more out of me than I expected. Long story short, I've been going back and forth between the two houses for 1-2 weeks at a time, and my current setup in the new place isn't optimal. Add that in with everything that comes with moving house on top of game dev, and it's kind of been a recipe for disaster regarding my release date.

When I first put VLT up on Steam back in June, I set the release date for what I thought was more than enough time to finish the writing, programming, CGs, and polish everything to my own standards. I've always been kind of picky about the visual novels I read - if VLT isn't something that I would gush over to my friends with minimal complaints, why am I subjecting the broader Steam audience to it?

This was before I realized "hey, wow, Chapters 3-5 are really lacking in meat and need to be expanded." This is before I realized the presentation for the chapters was kind of dull, and needed some punching up. And, of course, this was before we knew we'd be closing on the new house. The game's scope has expanded for the better since June, but so has my workload and real life situation.

Right now, in its current state, Veins Like Tapeworms has:

• Almost 100,000 words in total
  
• 150+ CGs at least sketched, if not fully rendered
  
• 6 endings going full speed ahead
  
• 5+ Bonus Scenes

...and so on and so forth. I never thought it'd get to be this in-depth, but I wouldn't change it for the world. It's just that, until further notice, I won't be able to get substantial work on the game done for at least half my time.

All this to say: I'm tentatively setting Veins Like Tapeworms' new release date to March 17th, 2025. It's not as thematically appropriate as the yearly day of love, but you'll probably need a stiff drink after some of the darker endings. I'm not going to make any promises and say this is definitely happening and no setbacks can stop me, but March the 17th is the new day I'm aiming for.

Thanks for sticking with me over the months. We actually hit my wishlist goal on January 15th; I couldn't be more grateful to all of you who stumbled across my first "big" visual novel and saw enough potential to put it on your wishlist.

Sorry for the delay. I hope you all understand why I'm doing this. I don't want to ship a half-baked product just to meet a goal, and if the shoe was on the other foot I'd rather wait a little longer for a perfect product.

This is an old devlog, ported over from itch.

Welcome to the 8th development week for Cosmic Construct. As usual if you aren't already following the development on bluesky, you should do that. This week was heavy on art. Art for the game, despite its simple appearance, takes a long time to create. Because each piece needs to be drawn 4 times for the game's squigglevision style.

Now, it is time to review the development goal for the previous week and see how the planning turned out.

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New Totem images for settlement levels 6-10 need to be finished.

This one was probably the most enjoyable thing I did this week when it comes to art. It's just fun to make upgraded versions of existing structures. Making animations like this are going to be so satisfying once all 50 settlement advancement levels are finished. I really wanted to get around to making more of these totem upgrade frames this week, but I got sucked into playing Path of Exile 2.



These totem frames aren't the only art I did for totems. I did the bases / platforms for all totems up to Rank 50, which was quite a bit more involved than you might think. I will save me a ton of work later. I have a path forward to work on the next set of frames.

New Dark Tree variants because the game only contains 2 trees.

This was quite the task. I expanded the number of procedural tree types from 2 to 8. Meaning there is now 4 times as much tree art now as there was last week. Something that I think doesn't matter much to the player, but does to me. I hated seeing the same two trees (and their x flipped versions). Now, I can hate noticing the same to trees next to each other slightly less often. I also changed the colors trees can generate with. They colors are slightly different and there are 3 of them. In all, there are 24 different way trees can appear. I think I am happy with it, for now.



Expanding the list of structures.

If you weren't aware, I have a complex tech tree for Cosmic Construct which is only about 20-25% of the way finished. I still need to work on expanding it to create game content up to the 50th settlement rank, which contains buildings up to tier 8. These buildings will perform complex tasks I don't quite want to reveal yet. They will require some new unique materials such as mana / spirit, rare minerals, special objects, and other prerequisites. I got a very small part of this done over the week, but nothing I am ready to show. An example I can give is a University, which generates research. What is this research used for? You'll find out when the game releases.



Structure art for the Binder, Forge, Loom, and Mint

Not only is the art done, they are partially implemented with their crafting recipes and build costs ready for settlement ranks 11-20.

The Binder binds paper stacks into signatures, which are used to make blank books. These blank books will be used at the Scriptorium to create written books for the Library.

The Forge makes metal parts of different shapes. Currently it just processes precious metals into blanks for the Mint.

The Loom is the most important crafting structure here. Which produces cloth, to upgrade the player and pawn cloaks. This is used to increase stats and inventory capacity.

The Mint takes coin blanks and stamps them into coins to be used at the Market and Treasury. They will be used to convert items from one kind into another at a cost.



Set up pawn aspiration system, to return pawns to their primary assigned job.

Pawns are highly complex state machines. Each time I implement a new feature, their capabilities expand rapidly. With the introduction of pawn aspirations the pawns now have the capability to return to jobs in an intelligent way. For example, if a pawn is set to the Carpentry job they will check the settlement storage for logs to process at the Lumber Mill. If they find some, they will process the Logs into Lumber and Planks. However, if they do not find Logs in the storage, they will automatically go get Logs to process. This will change their job to "Chopping Logs". In the background, they still remember their assignment of processing the logs into other materials.

With these changes in place, the pawns can nest a queue of tasks at any scale. Allowing a researcher, to go all of they way down to making paper if there is nothing to write research on. Should I implement this chain of reasoning that is.



Structure art for the Sericulture, Tailor, Market, and Scriptorium. (maybe)

Nope, did not get to this. :P

North and South direction bow firing animation. (maybe)

I got this finished just before making this post. Both the player and pawns now fire bows in directions that make more logical sense. The side on animation was good enough for testing, but got a little weird directly above and below the hunter. Now those animations are mostly fixed. Might require some tuning later, but it works enough for testing.



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Iron

For some inexplicable reason, I neglected to add iron to my tech tree. I started to run into structures like the Forge which would required iron to build (for the anvil). So this created extra work of needing to add a new ore to the game. I decided to hide it in normal rocks. Mostly because I didn't want to add more rock variants. There are now regular sources of iron as hematite, which can be smelted into iron ingots.



Gameplay Recording

Because of the demo being released on the 3rd of January, I am polishing some of the bigger pain points of the game as it currently stands. The plan is to Implement quality of life features that will make it easier for players to test the game.

This means having a review video to help testers out, to guide them on what they need to do, should they get stuck somewhere.

I went ahead and recorded 80 minutes of settlement rank 1-5 gameplay, which will go live at 7pm ET today. (It was replaced with a new video on the youtube channel.)



---

As for this upcoming list of work. Most of it will be refining what is already in the game, to make sure the game is ready for testing before I add additional content.

+ Additional Tudi Messages, Reviewing Quest Objectives, Crafting and Demo locks for objects, and bug catching.

+ Streamline storage management for the player, adding features for auto filling the inventory with an item, and bulk processing.

+ Art for additional tiers of storage and housing.

+ Art for future item icons, which require tech tree planning.

+ Structure art for higher tier structures (Sericulture, Tailor, Market, and Scriptorium, etc...). (maybe)

+ Art for additional settlement advancement ranks. (maybe)

+ Art for primary HUD elements, which track player advancement. (maybe)

That is all for this week. Thank you.

Hello, everyone!

We’re excited to announce that, starting now, the price of Bleak has dropped from €3.99 to €0.99. We want more players to enjoy this experience, and we hope this change makes it more accessible to everyone.

We also want to address the lack of new chapters. Bleak is a project developed by just one person, which has led to some complications and delays in the development process. We truly appreciate your patience and support during this time.

The next update will include chapters 4 and 5, expanding the story even further. Additionally, you can expect three more chapters in future periodic updates.

Thank you for your continued support and for being part of this journey. Your feedback and encouragement are essential to keep us going.

See you soon with more new content!

This week marks the release of the long-anticipated Legacy of Sir Lanceler Questline. Head over to the Battleon Scholar District and initiate the quest by speaking with Roderick Lanceler. Prove your worth through a series of trials set by Sir Arthur Lanceler. I sincerely hope you enjoy this questline, which was crafted with love and inspired by the original AdventureQuest.


By the end of this questline, you will earn the fabled Vorpal Blade, the weapon of Sir Lanceler! Though powerful in its stats, you may notice it currently lacks any special effects. Hold on to it for future updates. Completing the quests also unlocks a new housing shop featuring long-requested items.


We’ve got two promo items for January. First, is the Sparking Bolt Bow, to get this shiny bow, just purchase any package in the upgrade shop, now with 50% extra Dragon Crystals on select packages. For those that have one of the Guardian upgrade packages, you will also get the Titanium Celebratory Bow at no additional cost.


⏰ Gaz's Last Chance shop
🧙‍♂️ Holiday Doddery
🎇 New Year Gifts (Artix)
💝 Beleen’s birthday shop


Home? Hamlet? Or something else humongous? Share your sandbox build with us for a chance to be featured on the Design Notes!


Do you think your guild has what it takes to steal the spotlight? Share your guild's stats, story, and screenshots with us!


🏆 You just HAVE to see the winners of our Mischievous Moglins Contest! Players poured their hearts (erm, HP Bars) into every entry. This was one of the BEST contests overflowing with so much creativity, passion, and... weirdness.
🌈 Color customization freedom in barber shop
🐍 Lunar New Year
💥 Server boost

Battle on,
Clarion, Artix, Beleen, and the AdventureQuest 3D Team

- Fixed a bug where NPCs lose their AI in Lake Kraiken
- Changed the controller shooting mechanism. How it works: when you hold LT to aim, and you lock unto a target, how far you hold down RT determines how "sticky" the lock on is on the target. When RT is held all the way down, the gun shoots; if you release RT a little bit, the gun stops shooting and will try to keep the lock on instead of moving the aim to another target. If you completely release RT, then it resumes normal aiming.

Development update time!
I hope you had a great start to 2025!

We progressed nicely with the game as usual! December had a slight slow down in development due to the holidays and new year, but we picked up the pace in the start of January.

Work is now mainly focused on a section of Sandlyn called Sandlyn City!
This section is large, and has a lot of content!

• SO MUCH TO BUY!

• Beware the Pizza Drink! (Very fun item!)

We also worked on new enemies! Some enemies in the full game have much more complex attacks that react to your position in combat, rather than scripted attacks.

I hope to show you a sneak peek of a boss soon.

For new followers who want to see a non-demo enemy, I showcased some animations of a new wild bacteria back in August's devlog:

• STOP.

• (Actobacter is sleeping. Please don't wake him up.)

Sandlyn City requires a lot of art to be made, and many scenes to be coded. This section is taking a good bit to make, but I'm excited to make it something truly special!

...




... I think you'll find this very... intriguing.

...

That's all for today's development update!
Thank you for supporting Astromeda, and I will see you on the next development update! ❤️

We have included a new revive system to the game!

Biomass has now become its own currency, and you use that at revive stations to revive fallen teammates.

Other Changes Include:

• Brightness slider
  
• Leeches are a bright green color now, and drip goo. You can see them much, much easier.
  
• Backrooms and platforming levels are now permanently accessible, each have their own special locations on every map. Try to find them!
  
• All enemies should now be brighter and easier to see.
  
• Flashlight is brighter and has an extended range.
  
• All platforming levels have been made easier.
  
• Default FPS has been set to 60.
  
• New highlight for the revive "soul item" when a player dies. You can find their bodies with the new waypoint marker.
  
• Map order has been changed, with markers for SMALL, MEDIUM, AND LARGE. New players should start on smaller maps!
  
• Emote system has been changed, you now have access to some funny emotes by default. Still a work in progress though.

Thank you for playing, and all your feedback. Please keep letting us know what you would like to see or added. We post our future patch content over in Discord so feel free to check that out too!

This one is a bigger patch than it looks like, a lot of new sound and visual effects. Beware!!! :D

- Roly Poly has been replaced with Zoom and Boom. Move faster and crash into someone to create an explosion!
- Lots more fanfare surrounding bosses!!
- Your doom baubles no longer push you
- Ice Aura is a little bigger

New Hats
* Pot
* Bishop
* Rubber Ducky
* The gifts on the Sky Platform finally do stuff! They're hats now!

New Stuff
* Added an Epilepsy Mode which removes lightning from the weather

Made prettier
Increased time per map