Adventures of Ari changelog

Ari's safe village has six people now, and they don't all look the same. A roof and a bowl finally asks what it should - talk to three of them, then go to bed under the bakehouse eaves. The lanterns, the first spark and the scouts now start because someone tells her about them.

Ari now gets Spark by earning it - after the safe village there's a night at the standing stones, you hold block until they answer and then you fire. The miller's cart is in too, a small raider fight and three sacks to bring back. And there's a first real boss, a lance captain at the bridge with big hits you can see coming. So far only bots have fought him, so I honestly don't know yet if it's fun.

Adventures of Ari has its first side quest. You light three lanterns along the valley road, one for each family, and the last one at the stream shrine - it stays locked until the others are lit. Side quests now run next to the main quest, so the game can hold more than one at a time. I haven't played it end to end yet, only through the test and the captures.

I rebuilt the whole first level of Adventures of Ari to be somewhere you want to wander. There's real terrain with hills and ridges, a painted dusk sky, trees in blossom, grass that sways and parts around Ari, a glowing stream, drifting petals and motes of light, cottages with warm windows, and a soft soundscape with music underneath. Ari, the villagers and the dark mages are proper animated characters now.

There is a villager in the safe village now. I walk up, press F and we have a real conversation, and my answer starts a new quest. The ending waits until the talk is over.

The game opens on an Adventures of Ari title screen now - New game starts Passage I, Continue waits until saves exist. Beating dark mages and finishing quests gives Ari XP, and every level makes her a bit tougher and hit a bit harder. There's a level and XP bar above her health, with a small flourish when she levels up.

There's a marker now that points at your current objective, with the distance, and it sticks to the screen edge when it's behind you. Press J and you get a quest log with what you're on right now. Small thing, but the village finally feels like a place you're walking toward.

Adventures of Ari has a quest system with six kinds of objectives, and the HUD shows the current one. The first quest, getting out of the burning village, runs on it. Still missing: the quest log, rewards and a marker in the world.

The game now opens on a black title card that says Adventures of Ari, then fades into the burning village. Esc pauses everything and gives you Resume, Restart and Quit, and the crosshair doesn't sit in the middle of the menu anymore. Reaching the safe village is a real ending now - the camera pulls back over the lit village and you get Play again. I'd actually built the pause and ending a while ago but they got stuck on a side branch, so this is the first time they're really in the game.

The game opens on a title screen now, Esc pauses it, and quitting actually cleans up. Walking into the village is the ending of the slice, with a play again button. And fights look more like fights - punches throw an arm, and the mages raise and swing their weapons.

The game has a name now: Adventures of Ari. I planned the whole thing as a five-hour story in five passages of Ari's life, each ending with new gear, a new spell and a jump forward in time, with quests and XP but no loot. The burned-village escape is now the opening of the first passage.

The hero isn't a capsule anymore - she has legs, arms and hair, and she walks and puts her arms up when she blocks. The dark mages wear deep hoods with their eyes glowing inside. And the game finally makes noise: fires crackle, the wind blows, punches thump and the block chimes. All the sound is made in code, no audio files at all, which honestly surprised me a bit.

You can actually play the first bit of Mage now. You wake up in your burned village, sneak past the dark mages who are still sleeping off their victory party, and walk a long road up a valley to a village that's still standing. Fists and a little light-magic block, drunk mages who only notice you from the front, wisps that scatter and a dragon that swoops low over you. It's all greybox shapes so far, but it already feels like a place.

The fires in the burned village made the ground pulse - it honestly looked like a glitch. Now the firelight just breathes slowly, and the floor at the gate doesn't shimmer anymore when you walk through.