Yay! First DT3 Demo is out!

Edit: (March 29, 2012) Here's a patch (Version 1.1) that changes a few things based on feedback for the DT3 demo. For now, it'll just be through dropbox and it's a direct .exe download. Simply put it with the other exe and you're set.

Edit: (March 28, 2012) Based on the responses to the demo, there will be some adjustments released most likely tomorrow. It'll be just the executable for now. It addresses a few issues that people have had. :) Surprisingly, even though it has only been 3 days, no crash bugs reported. (I'm just used to at least 1 crash bug report with big content releases.) I'm glad people have been enjoying it.

The first demo is finally out! The downloads are on the side as always, and are packed in a .rar. I hope you guys enjoy it as much or more than I did making it.

A few notes; The demo ends at the end of Chapter 6, though you may play as much as you want afterwards. There's no notification of it being over, but the end of Chapter 6 (End of Gate 3) is pretty clear. Keep your save data as I will most likely release Chapter 7 in the coming months since it showcases something specific that the earlier chapters don't really touch on, which is gameplay using both characters. That being the bulk of what the game is about. With that said, this will not be as the first game was released, where every major area marked an update, this and the Chapter 7 update will be the only major releases to the game until it is finished. There may be a small enclosed scenario or two that I might release in the future, but that's about it as far as content releases.

Lots of things are subject to change, as this is still pretty early on in the project. Shop prices, enemy spawns, etc...

One last note before I hand you over to the game. This does not use the new method of loading in resources that DT1 now uses. If you suffer from the game crashing at start up due to an uninitialized variable, please let me know as I'll have that changed right away. No one had that loading issue for DT2, (None that were reported anyway) which loaded fairly quick. This loads even faster, so I don't foresee an issue, but yeah... The issue with DT1 was the game skipping over code due to resources loading in too slow, not sure how/why that would happen, but that seemed to be the problem.

Aaaaand... have fun! OH! I seem to have a new window spider! :D

Be my Magical Girl

Edit: (March 25, 2012) The demo goes out tomorrow! :D

Edit: (March 21, 2012) The content for the demo is all done. Now the testers and myself are just running through and finding as many problems as we can. A few sound changes are still being made, but that's part of my run through the content, which is almost done. I'm somewhat letting the testers decide when it's done.

Edit: (March 17, 2012) I'm back, much later than I expected. I still need a few days though. Everyone has been really patient, even though I keep pushing the date back.

DT1 has an update. 1.0.2.7 fixes some issues that people may have been having when loading up the game as well as saving due to this loading issue. The game now loads the external resources in before the title screen appears. If you can start the game and save with no issues, skip the update.

My roommate got me a joking V-Day card that says "Happy Valentine's Day" on the top and "Be my Magical Girl" on the bottom. With a pink background, pink hearts, and a weird anime cat thingy...

So anyway, I'll be out of town on Monday - Wednesday. I'm going to guess that I'll have the demo done by next weekend. If so, it's 'only' a month later than I predicted way back. Not too bad I guess, considering it was a slightly random guess. (Plus a bit of me knowing how fast I get things done for DT.)

A Humorous Question
This has been asked on more occasions than one would think... I guess... or not considering how many times this has been asked.
The question being, "Will there be any pony references in DT3?". I'm guessing this is due to my random outbursts to the show on this blog. The answer, good for some, and bad for the rest, is yes and no. There are no ponies or anything like that, there ARE however, a few subtle things. The arrow at the bottom-right of dialogue boxes that signifies that you need to press the confirm key to continue, animates through the colors of Rainbow Dash's tail and mane. The dialogue box colors, or at least the primary color, are also based on the same thing. Jerry still has green for him, Claire has purple, etc. That's as far as any pony references will go. The whole friendship thing between Jerry and Jeremy was in the first game already, which was finished before I even heard about the show. Any 'magic of friendship' lines are purely coincidental.

There's a few things I'd like to say about the demo, but I'll wait till the day it is released so it's all fresh in everyone's mind at the time.

Anyway, I'm gonna get back to it. After I finish this last thing, I'll be polishing up a few things before it is released. Sound... may wait. There's sound in it, but it's about as much as the first game had.

March Madness

Edit: (March 9, 2012) 2/3 tasks completed. Almost there.

Edit: (March 3, 2012) 1/3 tasks completed.

Spar... So we're getting very very close to the demo. There are 3 tasks left to do. None of which are TOO taxing. March 10th??? Shh, I didn't announce a date. I'm never going to reach that. This week isn't going to allow me much time to work on DT. Then again, strange things have happened before. I definitely didn't expect Gate 3 to take so long to make, but you'll all see why.

I'm hesitant to release too many screenshots right now, as I don't want to give away too many scenarios. I do want to allude to a few things, hmm...
Here's one, take note that this is not on the main story path, this is optional. This map in particular drove my testers nuts.

No dashing for this entire level.

I'll try to reach that date, but I'm not going to rush it. I've seen what happens when I try to rush things out, and unfortunately, so have some of you. Luckily I've never accidentally divided by zero... yet.