Merry Christmas, everyone! …yes, it is a late Christmas. So what? You’d rather I say “belated” or something? At least I’m wishing you! Anyways, jokes aside, welcome to this year’s big final newsletter. I thought “why not end with a bang”?! So, here forward is the biggest newsletter TO DATE, jam-packed with loads of radical content for your enjoyment! (Maybe radical isn’t the right word…)

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Edit here: unfortunately, due to an unforeseen issue (I.e me being incredibly dumb), I accidentally released all of N8 alongside a couple of minor structural tweaks when hitting publish. Oops! I’m really sorry about that)! But, I’m also kind of lazy today. So I’ll leave it up. But I’ll also update the date to the 29th, and keep it unlinked. You can access it through direct link or the literal sitemap for all I care. Read it if you like. Don’t if it don’t. It’s really that simple. Enjoy this early Christmas gift from me, I guess…

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I’d like to start with Toytown, given that I have a whole bunch of things to say in that department! We’ll start with more lore on the mystery person. For now, I’ll refer to them as X for both of our convenience! Anyways, X has been a part of Toytown since day 1. The original idea for toytown and the characters were all conceived dually with X. Of course the current version is so incredibly different. And it took a long time of independent work, but coincidentally, after I began a major reworking phase for the show, X actually decided that they wanted some part in it. Now, I can’t 100% guarantee X’s long term involvement in the project, but I can say it’s decently likely!

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For Toytown’s lore, I’ll give a basic premise. A single dad, Marcellus, is moving to Toytown for his work as a propagandist. Inside the family, though, a ticking time bomb of inherited lies is coming closer and closer to blowing up. Fallout will ensue. And that’s just season 1! Through the series, you’ll get to watch growth, regression, insanity, and how the rot in the system might just be the hand that giveth to you. Does being on the “right side” of history make quiet evil justified, even if it’s truly worse than the big, prominent evil? This gets at Toytown’s core theme- moral greyness. At the end of the day, you can’t fix it all. Maybe learning to live with the rot is just as important as fighting back against it.

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In terms of timeline, I’d say we’re moving slower than expected. However, I also think this is at least 40% perception. The main goal for this next phase is to complete the show bible, which I suspect might take longer than expected. Maybe even until June. Who knows? But I’d say potentially early March. I won’t post it here, though, for spoilers sake!! However I do plan to improve the Toytown page, I promise! So yeah. You can probably expect more timely and reliable updates once we drop the discord. Did I mention that it’s going to be a full Spark ‘n Spin discord server? There’ll definitely be a channel for updates on Toytown. Anyways, the rest of the timeline is looking similar, maybe lightly delayed at most.

That’s mostly it regarding Toytown! Other than the very important person, I suppose. I’m hesitant to reveal more information about this person simply because it isn’t confirmed if they are long-term involved for sure or not. Next, I’ll give some more information about FewTileEffort!

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As you know, the demo is entirely finished, but since I’m on holiday, I won’t be able to release it until somewhere between the 27th and the 30th. Ideally, I’d like to release it before January. As soon as the demo releases, I’ll be able to officially start marketing for the game! Hopefully, I’ll be able to build a small community around the game! And yes, it will be 100% free on release, and the plan right now is to release the game for free on both Steam and Itch.io! Based on our budget, it’s possible we might run sponsorships on YouTube, run ads on Reddit / YouTube, and whatever else is possible. The goal is gaining as much actual players in the discord. 

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Speaking about the Discord, the plan is to launch with a focus on FewTileEffort, but with smaller subsections for DM and Toytown. We’ll host speedrunning leaderboards, challenges, and loads more. Additionally, at least for the first week, I’ll be very active on the discord! I do still have to implement Steam achievements, though… not sure how that’ll work, but we’ll just have to wait and see, I guess. The demo will not have any achievements, by the way. Sorry to say. This is because I’ve already built the demo and will probably have to struggle to publish it on Steam. I’d like to make the process as easy as possible for myself, but keep the game high quality… those objectives don’t really align, do they?

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Finally, Dungeon Mode. I’d like to take this time to actually talk a bit more about what the hell dungeon mode actually IS. Because I haven’t said much. Hex Gems: Dungeon Mode is a dungeon-crawler card turn-based rougelike (I don’t know if the meta-progression in the game qualifies it, but I’m calling it that). That name’s a real mouthful, isn’t it? The game itself takes loose inspiration from The Binding of Isaac, Stardew Valley, and Balatro, in order to form a unique and, to my knowledge, completely original game loop, where you must simultaneously manage three players, fighting monsters and clawing through the floors of the dungeon, as your tackle waves of enemies and monstrous bosses, descending through the dungeon with the ultimate goal of beating that 10th floor. Each run you beat (or don’t) earns you Dark Shards, a currency you can spend at the Keeper’s shop to expand the dungeon, or to unleash Nightmare Mode and its hellish bosses. 

The game itself, I believe, has huge potential to be as addictive as balatro. I know that’s quite the statement, but yeah. I’m really excited to see people try out the game. I’ve spent almost a year on the content of the game, so it’ll be really exciting to see people get genuinely hooked on the game. DM really feels like the game I was meant to create. It may have started off as a measly expansion to Hex Gems, but after borrowing the best parts, it became an entire sprawling game of its own. That said, there needs to be demand for it to work as a game. There also, at some point, needs to be art. I’ll need to figure out how to add an artist to our team, as a core partner, who’s as invested as I am in the games we create.

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That’s basically all I have to say. Don’t expect N9 until FTE kicks up a notch, so maybe sometime in January? Or I might get impatient and release it sooner, who knows? Have a great new year’s, and hope you all enjoy FewTileEffort when it’s out!

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- Rudra​​