Faith in Despair has been updated to version Version 0.4.0, which now includes rare angels in shops, lacrima packs that appear at the start of a run, and over a hundred changes, fixes, and adjustments.

A lot of things are happening currently. I will hold a talk about fun in video games at Gamedev Days Graz on October 4th ("It's all Fun and Games"). From October 10th to October 13th, I'll showcase my game at Gamecity in Vienna (my game was mentioned in the local news). And the game will be a part of Steam Next Fest from October 13th to October 20th.

I have hired a new artist to help with the new angel images. His name is Lyfeu, and he's also streaming on Twitch if you want to see how he's making the angels.

I'm also working together with a marketing expert, and they're going to help me with overall messaging, Steam page, reaching out to press and influencers, and some general tips for the game.

Probably the biggest thing that happened since the last devlog was that I approached a publisher with a proposal for a bundle. They said that they were worried because my game cover was seemingly AI generated and many people were going to be thrown off by that.

I posted about this on reddit, instagram, youtube and tiktok. It resulted in some heated debates, but also some encouraging comments, great feedback and new contacts. The artist that I mentioned earlier also reached out to me because of that.

I've now added all artist names of the illustrations in my game to the title screen and directly on the Steam page. People might still think it's AI and not even click on the image to get to the store page, but that's okay.

In a recent gamedev event (Subotron) I also met Mario, the creator of KIDS. He was so chill and down to earth, despite all the success his games have had, and I really respect that. I asked him if all the memes and reactions to his games have changed his workflow, but he hadn't even thought about that. Yes, he enjoyed it when people posted jokes about his games, but it doesn't influence his approach to making games. He's currently working on a game where you manipulate graphs, and his animations always look so smooth and almost life-like. It was definitely an inspiring talk.

I've also locked in the launch date for Faith in Despair: November 12th. It was either March (after February Next Fest) or November (after October Next Fest), and when I thought about March, it felt like it was too far away in the future. The game is ready now. I'll polish a few things, add more music, but more content can be added after launch. Depending on reception, or on how I feel, I might take a little break and work on something else, and then return with an update.

Localization is also going well, the current languages are: Simplified Chinese (Horace Pan), Japanese (Toyoch), Russian (NikSynaly), Spanish (Alejandro), Swedish (Pao), French (Khimitsu), and German (by me). Also waiting for confirmation from possible translators for Polish and Brazilian Portuguese. More languages would be better of course, but I think that's a good start.

I keep streaming on twitch (and youtube) three times a week, and I feel like it helps me a lot in getting things done. People are supportive, and have some great tips and suggestions. Sometimes new people join and ask what the game is because they think it looks great. I'm so grateful whenever that happens, because for a long time I felt like the art style was not coming together.

The game now has 1443 wishlists. At a recent gamedev event, I spoke to another developer and he said that the number is too low and the "hype score" doesn't look great. I agree that it's too low to reach Steam's "popular upcoming" list, and it will probably not make me a millionaire (yet!). But it has the most amount of wishlists of any of my games before launch so far. And to me, that is already a success.

Faith in Despair has given me so much and opened so many doors. It allowed me to experience Gamescom last year, where I met so many incredible people. It gave me my first freelance job at a game studio, which made me confident to transition to freelance full-time. I learned so many invaluable lessons and made a lot of new friends.

And most importantly, some people already have fun playing it.

I think that is enough.