Hello everyone! Sorry for the radio silence since the initial demo release. We've both been super occupied, both in real life and with continuing our work on Eldritch Estate. But now I'd love to share some updates!

First off, right after the demo was released, I started running into some frustrating game development issues. The current demo is built on TyranoBuilder, which is an engine that is supposed to be great for beginners because it's mostly drag-and-drop and doesn't require much coding. The unfortunate drawback is that the more complicated your game gets, the less effective TyranoBuilder is as a program. Simply put, I wanted to do a whole bunch of things that were way more complicated than they needed to be (or nearly impossible) with Tyranobuilder. So, I decided to take the leap into learning proper coding and have just finished the process of porting the entire game so far into Ren'Py. It's way easier than I thought it would be! I wish I'd just started off with it in the first place, but you live and learn. I still have some loose ends to tie up, including finishing off designing a brand new CUSTOM GUI for the game, but once everything is complete, I'll be releasing a Demo V2! The story and script will remain more or less the same from the first demo, but I'm hoping that going forward, changing to Ren'Py will allow us to make things way more detailed. 

Otherwise, we're currently just working on scripts for each route. The writing is a long process, and although we had a general layout of the plot at the time of Demo V1's release, we've already made some changes and additions and gotten a better vision of a more detailed version of the layout before proceeding into the in-depth script writing. I'm very optimistic about the direction the story is taking!

I appreciate your patience. The projected release window of 2025 hasn't changed, I don't think the engine change has really set us back by much! I can't wait to share further updates on the game's progress and the release date for Demo V2! 

Thanks to everyone who's downloaded, followed, and played the Eldritch Estate demo. We are SO thankful for your support!

- Liz