Weekly Vlog 7/9/23

Hey all, time for another blog. I have some updates regarding videos and streams, but be sure to check out the Dawn of Djinn section if you have had any questions regarding the completion of Dawn of Djinn and/or the differences between Version 1 and 2 as I do my best to clear up the confusion I've noticed as of late. Gotten a lot of "Is Dawn of Djinn completed" questions as of late and with the way I treat version 1 and 2 as separate projects, I understand why there is confusion.

It's not an easy "yes or no" question because of that, so I hope the information I provide clarifies that confusion. If you still have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Discord, Twitter, or Youtube and I'll clear up any confusion that still remains.

Regarding Streams

This week I finally got to show of Pokemon Emerald Rouge, and while the mod was as enjoyable as ever, I feel kind of mixed with the stream itself. Didn't do as good as I was hoping with killing the down time of building up a team and that with commentary, but the actions in the battle themselves helped make up for it. But all that low time makes me feel conflicted if it makes "a good stream game" for me, despite my enjoyment of it on my down time.

That stream though, I think I've showcased all of the mis mods and games I wanted to do one offs for so what my next stream will be is still up in the air. With how drained I was feeling going into yesterday's stream, I'm tempted to just take next week off and rest. Maybe I can reinvest that time in building up my backlog of Pokemon XG recordings. I do want to get back into not only uploading that series constantly, but have it upload at least twice a week instead of once a week.

Not going to totally rule out streaming next week, in case I really have the desire to, but for right now I plan to skip a week to focus on other things or maybe just relax

Videos

It feels like it's been a good week for video work. All the videos for this month are set and I'm even getting started on next month's stuff. Biggest change to the schedule is that I decided to release the Pikmin 2 portion of my latest Pikmin stream as it's own video on the 20th, a day right before the release of Pikmin 4.

I was going to save it to help fill up uploads with August, but I'm making fair pace with editing the Pikmin 1 streams into videos. Enough of a pace that I feel like those can carry the Wednesday uploads for August. That being said, I really got to sit down and record/edit Pokemon XG videos if I want that series to take on a Monday/Friday upload schedule, but I still have a few weeks to get that sorted out.

That being said, I wouldn't expect a new editorial this month. Still working on the script of my next one. It is something I do eventually want to do monthly, but I wouldn't be shocked if it took me a couple months before it got that consistently. Probably will have a more clear plan on all that going into August.

Dawn of Djinn

Still slowly working my way through Dawn of Djinn V2. I keep thinking I should make videos some day to show off my progress for those who haven't played the demo. But I keep running into the mindset of "why not just spend that time progressing Dawn of Djinn instead". Plus there's already a lot of work going on making videos fast enough to keep up with my current upload schedule as is, especially if I want to eventually squeeze editorials into that schedule somehow.

As for the mod itself, I think I've finally got those classes I wanted to readjust balanced... at least balanced enough that I can resume my normal playtesting and make tweaks if I notice anything off along the way.

With occasionally getting questions regarding Dawn of Djinn's progress, especially on version 1 videos I figured now is a good time to remind people.

First of all, Dawn of Djinn Version 1, as it stands is complete. Any future updates will be exclusive to version 2. If you want to play Dawn of Djinn, you can play Version 1 right now and have a full experience from beginning to end. Featuring new moves, Djinn, and enemies. Golden Sun: Dawn of Djinn by JackitK (itch.io)

That being said, version 2 is being built from the ground up, with enough changes from the original mod that you could play both version 1 and 2 had have a different experience with each. This only way to get the dialogue to work due to the mistakes with development, I made back in version 1. I decided to take advantage of that by taking the extra time to add in features to help Dawn of Djinn to give it an identity as it's own mod rather than just being a "hard mod".

I'm also making version 2 with the intent of being "less sloppy" than version 1. Some of that includes sacrificing the "Tret backtracking quality of life feature" in order to make Mia skip inaccessible, or at least back to the level it was in the original games. Another major change is the intent to make actual "Easy" and "Challenge" versions of the mod, rather than hastily throw in items that artificially did that with stats boosts, like the Casual and Brutal Keys. Focus on development will be on the "Easy" and "Normal" ones, though I do plan to eventually make a brutal mode to replace the brutal key once everything else is complete. That said, I have heard the concerns people have of losing the keys, so I am considering adding them in a fourth version.

But I have to empathize to players that even if the keys don't come back, I am dedicated to assuring Dawn of Djinn is accessible and enjoyable to players of as many skill levels as possible. With Easy mode more so matching the difficulty of original Golden Sun for the casual fans (just like the casual key), Normal/Challenge mode for players already accustomed to the difficulty level of Version 1, and some way to replicate the challenge of the brutal keys for those fans as well, whether it be with it's own patch or through adding back the keys.

Mis

Ended up talking about content a lot longer than expecting so I'm keeping this section short this week.

Garden is coming along great, Zucchini is coming in really fast and even some of the other vegetables are coming in as well. Constantly caring for it is time consuming, but it's worth it for what I get out of it.

Still working through the Pokémon cards I got last week. Though I did get a nice pull the other day that I think would make a great way to close the blog. Just when I was getting to the point where I didn't think I was going to get any new cards from the Pokemon Go set. This one just popped into my hands. (And now I have to decide if it's worth it to keep going all over again.)

Also was pretty happy with this pack as I finally got a Hisuian starter from it so I'll share this photo as well.