Its been a little over two months sinc this project's most recent revival. So far, I've been the only one actively working on it, although others are still around and participating in design discussions. We've agreed that we need to start growing the team again and will be looking to fill a few empty seats. With that in mind and the end of the year approaching, here's a status update on where we are and what we need to see our next release happening.

Our Roadmap has been recently updated and organized to reflect the current state of our progress toward the next release. As you can see on this page, a large number of the tasks for the next release are already completed. The remaining work that needs to be completed include creating map files, artwork, and sound files. I expect that we'll be able to procure some of the media content that we still need from sources like OpenGameArt. There's a forum thread for discussing the roadmap and direction of this project if you are interested in the details.

The primary focus right now is map creation. We still have two small maps and one huge map to complete. Map creation has, thus far, been much more difficult than it should be. The maps that we already have completed for this release and past releases were difficult to produce, largely because our map editor tool was cumbersome and difficult to use. Our sister project Valyria Tear made a great number of improvements in their map editor and map design process in their recent Episode 1 release, so we decided to follow their example. I've spent the last six weeks on a major redesign of our editor. Our editor code hasn't gotten the amount of attention and love that it needs over the history of this project because it was never a high enough priority until now. Once we have a first draft of completed for each of our maps, we'll make a development release available for others to try out and give us feedback on. Getting to this point is our most immediate goal right now and will mark the completion of a huge milestone.

Its difficult to say when we will get to this point. It depends on how soon we can get the help that we need, and how much time that help has to dedicate to Allacrost. With that in mind, here are the positions that we are looking to fill before the end of 2014.

Map Designer (1)

Pixel Artist (1 or more)

C++/Lua Developer (1)

This is the first time we've sought to recruit someone to join our team whose primary role is map development. Even with the improvements that will be made to the editor, map design is still a very challenging and time consuming process. This position includes scripting the sprites and events on the map as well, so some Lua development will be required. We'd like to get at least one artist back on our team, but we'll take as many as we can find. There's only a small amount of development related tasks required to be completed for this release, hence why we're only seeking a single developer.

That's it for this update. I'm confident that if we keep our current pace, you'll see a new release from us in the first quarter or first half of 2015.