So, it’s been a while since I’ve given any time to my other hobby: game development. Well, Legionwood 2 has been sitting on my hard drive abandoned while I’ve been focusing on the release of my book, and it’s been mocking me with its incompleteness. Depending on when I can find a few hours and how much I procrastinate, I’ll be picking it up again either today or tomorrow, and from this point I intend to devote as much of my spare time as possible to working on it. Since I’m taking a short break from writing at the moment, my current plan is to get at least one map done each day (a typical Legionwood map generally takes me between 2 and 3 hours) and, while this isn’t exactly rapid development, it’ll allow me to make steady progress, which is what the project really needs at the moment.

The next release of Legionwood 2 will be Beta 4, which will include the entire first half of the game (and perhaps a little more, as well), as well as various bug fixes and engine tweaks over previous versions. At the moment, I’m looking at late March/early April for the release date (don’t hold me to that). Beta 4 is to conclude Chapter 2 of the game, and will see the party venturing into the barbarian nation of Entoban, where they’ll attempt to forge an alliance with an old enemy and finally uncover the identity and motives of the one responsible for opening the Eternal Gates, as well as the true nature of the Darkness itself. At the end of this chapter, one of the party members will die (because you guys know how much I love killing off characters). You’ll also get the chance to recruit a new friend (Khan) and unlock new classes and Techs.

I’m also happy to announce that Legionwood 2 is to benefit from a custom soundtrack created by a talented composer who has offered his services to the project. Several tracks have already been completed (including a new boss battle theme), and you’ll get to see some of them for yourself in the next release.

As I stated in my last update, I’ve decided to keep Legionwood 2 a non-commercial game, and all future releases will be freely playable as they’ve always been. This decision was made mainly because the original Legionwood was a freeware game and I’d love for fans of the first game to be able to follow the story through into the sequel. If you’d still like to pledge your support to the project though, please consider buying a copy of my book, as I intend to use a percentage of my royalties to purchase additional assets for the project.

That’s it for now. Stay tuned for more news closer to the release date!