Looking to the Future

First things first: happy 2021 from all of us on the REM Cycles team! 2020 was pretty awful, but it was the year we started working on REM Cycles, so it can’t be all bad, right? In any case, we hope 2021 is better for everyone.

2021 is also important because it’s the year we plan on releasing the game! That’s right: REM Cycles now has a tentative release date of early-mid 2021! We’ve been making great progress over the holiday season and in the new year, so we’re hoping to share it with you very soon.

While we have been making a lot of progress, it’s not the kind of thing that can be expressed visually. A lot of our recent work has been focused on things like programming enemy AI, incorporating environments, tiles, and sprites into the game, and making sure that everything behaves the way it should. It’s not glamorous work, but it’s essential to making a great game! Since we don’t have much to show visually at the moment, this dev blog will focus on things we’re looking forward to doing in the near future. Read on to hear about some things we’re excited for!

Our beloved piggy mascot got festive for the holidays!

Expanding Testing

We started testing publicly several months ago, and we’ve already gotten some great feedback on the game so far. (If you’re interested in helping us test, you can join our Discord here!) However, the build we’re working on has a lot more in it than the build that’s currently available for testing. We’re not quite ready to release it for public testing yet, but we will be very soon, and there will be a lot of new material! Over the last few months, we’ve incorporated all 55 support conversation arcs (over 165 individual scenes!) and a handful of cutscenes, so there’s a lot more backstory to read. We’ve also finished all but the very last of the game’s areas and bosses, so many of those will be available to test in the next build. We’re still keeping some secrets for the game’s release, so don’t expect to see everything, but there will still be a ton of new content to try out!

In addition to expanding public testing, we’ll also be expanding internal testing. While most of the playable characters’ abilities have been implemented on a basic level, we’re not sure how well-balanced they are or how fun they are to play. We’ll be taking a lot of time to test those abilities ourselves so we can present something unified to public testers. If it’s not fun for us, chances are it won’t be fun for everyone else. We want to make REM Cycles as fun as possible for everyone!

Implementing Endings

REM Cycles, in true roguelike fashion, is designed to be played more than once. We have two different endings planned for the game. Since we’re still working on adding everything from the last area, we haven’t gotten to the ending yet, but it’s been planned and written out, so we have our road map. The goal is to make a game where the player needs to try lots of different combinations of characters to see what works best for them, which in turn would lead them to see lots of support conversations and learn the dynamic between all 10 characters. We hope that the endings we’re incorporating encourage exploration, learning, and thought!

Also included in the ending is the credits scene. Since we’re a team of four, it’ll be pretty short, but our wonderful composer Felix will be writing a brand-new tune to accompany all of our names. Since we don’t know exactly how long the credits will be yet, Felix hasn’t been able to start the song, but I’m hoping it’ll have the emotional impact of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon final theme. JK, I’d rather not sob all over my desk.

Watch out below!

Steam Page and Trailer

We’ve been getting lots of requests on Twitter recently for our Steam page so that people can wishlist the game early. We’re so happy that you’re interested in REM Cycles, and we can’t wait to share it with you…but we don’t have a Steam page quite yet. We’ve written out the descriptions and taken our screenshots for it, but we’re missing one last piece of the puzzle: a super-cool trailer.

Thankfully, we’ve got that taken care of! A friend of Danny’s who has experience making trailers is going to be putting one together for us. We’re in the process of capturing gameplay footage, choosing our music (if it’s not the bumpin’ Lavalands theme, I’m quitting), and getting the transitions put together, so as Nintendo would say, please look forward to that! Once the trailer is finished, we’ll have the last piece of the Steam page puzzle and everyone will be able to wishlist the game before its release.

Once we have all of these aspects figured out, we’ll be able to provide a more specific release date. The game will be available for PC and Mac through Steam - get hype! As always, we’ll be posting more previews and up-to-date information on our Twitter account, so follow us there if you want to see more. Until the next update, stay home, stay healthy, and stay sane!