Hello everyone! First off, just wanted to let you know I made a short game for RMN's Pride Month Game Jam: Lesbian Card Battler GEMCARD! You can check it out here: https://unity.itch.io/gemcard

Before anything else, I would like to give a big shout-out to MakioKuta, who has been killing it with the character art! :D Seriously, look at some of her recent work on Izrand characters! :DDD

Character art by MakioKuta.  Sabriye (second from left) and Ceren (3rd from right) designed by the incredible Iasmin Omar Ata, the rest by me, Sooz and Maki! Mythril (second from right) is one of Maki's charas who is cameoing as a merchant :D

Thank you so much Maki! ^_^ Okay, now, on to me ranting about game work. I'll drop some screenshots as we go along.

Basically, I realize that once again I have gone forever without an update, and I just wanted to drop in and let everyone know that I'm still alive and still working on Izrand. I keep putting off making blogs to detail progress on this game, and someone near and dear to me asked "Have you considered exploring why you're having so much trouble with this?"

(hero battler sprites in these screenshots are placeholders)

I think the simple answer is that this project is just moving so slowly and I'm frustrated by that.  The scope is very large and I have to do a ton of unique pixel art work for basically everything, and sometimes I feel like I'm pushing a rock up a hill only to have it roll back down.

This was brought into sharp focus by GEMCARD. Finishing and releasing a game in a month really brought into focus how long I've been working on Izrand, and how I still don't even have a demo out.  (Though to be honest, a short game a month all the time isn't super feasible either, I really kicked my own butt and stressed myself out getting that done in time, and people don't seem to like my short games as much as my longer ones, haha)

All this is to say that I'm even more focused on wanting to get something done for 2025 (which is the ten year anniversary of Luxaren. Where did the freaking time go?). Will I get the whole game done by then? That might not be feasible unless I cut the scope down, we're about 60% done right now. But I have to put something out. A demo, something playable at least. So I'm going to work hard on that.

Anyway, I think the big takeaway is that I have got to get over whatever's made me shyer about putting out these progress reports. You all have been following this project forever, and I owe it to you to make more updates and share more about the project's progress. I'm sorry I keep dropping the ball on that, and a big thanks to everyone who has expressed wanting to see updates. I keep wanting to have "more to show" before I do a blog, but I keep saying that to myself, and before I know it, I have more screenshots to show off than I know what to do with ^^;;

A huge thank you again to everyone for following Izrand Allure's development, and thanks again for your patience! I will try to have the next update much, much soooner.