It's been a while, hasn't it? I'll try to keep things short.

Status Report

The latest Beta Preview was uploaded (and then updated a few times) a couple of days ago. It's still missing a bunch of stuff that I haven't finished porting from alpha to beta, but the new Magic chapter is done, which was incredibly fun to work on. The essence remains the same, but I completely rewrote the rules for each Arcane Discipline from the ground up, giving each of them a stronger identity and impact.

I think the Belongings chapter is also quite diferent since the last devlog, editing a whole bunch of stuff to fit a cleaner format. There's still some work to be done there, but it's too minor to compare to the many good things I did with that chapter, including expanded Weaponcraft and Armorcraft sections and just general QoL improvements across the chapter.

I also re-edited the Companies and Clans chapter to be much better without changing the contents all that much, and I think the whole Roving Band thing feels much better now.

Also, of course, a bunch of smaller edits and improvements across the board regarding characters, combat, and core mechanics.

Missing Stuff

The Journey chapter is outlined in my editable file--there's not a whole lot of changes to the actual rules save for the units of measurement I'll be using going forwards. Same with book 4, it's been ported and vaguely edited but it's still too rough to include in the beta previews. I wanna do some more improvements to the tech chapter, too (which right now is missing some things because I'm in the middle of editing) but I'm pretty happy with how the book as a whole is coming so far.

Roots of Wandrian?

Trail of the Vagrant Star has been, admittedly, a working title for the entire project, like Songs from Skyresh was before it. Roots of Wandrian is the latest working title, more or less a little push to help me keep things fresh and think of an actual title in the meantime. I'm moving away from the "vagrant" theme for characters for various reasons, and I sort of needed this as a stepping stone towards a better name.

We'll see how that goes.

Personal Stuff + The Future

As some of you may have heard, I've decided to drop game design to focus on writing, drawing and animation instead, making Vagrant/Wandrian my last, long venture in the world of game design. I won't pursue a formal publication, only leaving it here on itch and perhaps on drivethru as a digital product, and I plan to do the art myself instead of relying on a third party.

This means that once the game is done, it's done. I'll think of a way to leave it as open-ended as possible to allow others to create their own content, knowing that I won't be following up on my original plan of having a series of worlds or content zines to work with.

This might sound like a sour note in my career, but it's actually a breath of fresh air that I really, really needed. Now I get to give this game my all for one final push, and since I'm already quite happy with how it is at the moment, I can't wait to actually reach a release-ready version.

Feedback

I'm still collecting feedback on the Alpha/Beta content through this form right here (click me!), so if you could take a moment to fill it, it'd be super helpful. There's actually some really good feedback I've gotten through that form, and it's a good way to really read what people think about the current state of the game.

See you next time!