Hey Pals,

It's been a HUGE year and a half of development since version 1.1, which barely had half the content that's in the current build. A few honourable mentions...

• Added an entire dungeon experience and boss in the Ohrenstead Foothills and Mountainside scenes.
  
• Big increase in character animation, and general storytelling through character quests and cutscenes.
  
• Huge changes to the graphical presentation of environments, as well as particle effects, lighting and colour changes.
  
• Leaps and bounds in introducing the systems of the game to the player, and providing interesting ways of putting them in practice over the experience.
  
• Added countless system features to ensure the player has a good experience on any monitor, on Windows and Mac, across versions of the game and with an array of input devices.
  

The game has really taken shape from a narrative and mechanics standpoint, as well as production polish. I'm very proud of the game that Insignia has become, comparing it to games made by bigger and more experienced teams; I've come a long way all on my own. That said, I don't think I could be here at in any capacity without you, the players, viewers, patrons and supporters of the game and its development.

Let's do a little Q&A about what's going to happen from here, shall we?

So, what's 1.5.2 and why is it no longer a "demo beta". What does this mean for the project at large?

Insignia 1.5.2 marks the first version of the demo that I consider "complete" from a feature / content standpoint. For the first time, I think the demo holds its own as a true vertical slice for a polished project, and does a good job of demonstrating the kind of game that I'm making. Indeed, with some further QA, I think this "demo" could easily be release-quality, though it's not my plan to do so. Currently, the goal is to release all five chapters as a single game.

Will you continue to update the demo with content from other chapters?

Officially, and publicly... No. This build is where the journey ends for the demo as far as story content goes, though I'm looking into how to reward patrons and subscribers of the stream with access to work-in-progress beta content in the near future. This content may or may not be a part of the itch.io build, and will be obviously restricted to those players who support the project directly. The nature of this content would mostly be mechanics-driven, to test new enemies and abilities rather than story or environment. I believe the story to be an important part of the game's appeal, so I'd prefer to keep it unspoiled, even for players who are involved with Insignia on a daily basis.

With the demo complete, does this mean there will be no more changes to Chapter One before release? 

No, I expect certain changes to be made before the final release, based on what comes of the next four chapters, but I won't know what they are until we're close to final date.

Speaking of release dates... Have you got one?

Not currently. I've made the mistake of projecting the development of the game a number of times, so I'd rather not put my foot in my mouth. I will say, it's my goal to create a 6-month development cycle for each subsequent chapter, though I can't speak for how long it will take to produce end-game content, balancing, QA etc. Most of that would be dependent on external factors related to funding and opportunity.

So Insignia is unfunded? Will you be running a Kickstarter or anything like that?

It's true, Insignia has no explicit financial backing, and is developed out-of-pocket. Right now, my plan is to use this demo as a way to attract publishers to fund the game's release, although I don't think I would rule out crowd-funding at this stage. I'd like to make it clear, though, that at present (February 2020), the game does not have a big enough following for me to have confidence in the success of a Kickstarter campaign. If you really enjoyed the demo and you'd like to change my mind about crowd-funding, please consider following me on Twitter or joining the Insignia Discord. During the coming weeks I'm going to do what I can to create clear paths for interested players to express their support for the project.

Of course, if you're someone who thinks they might have an opportunity to offer me, or advice on how to best ship this game, feel free to contact me at the links above; my door is always open.

What can I do to get more Insignia content, or just more content from you?

Insignia is a fully active project, run by a team of just me: Adam Younis. This means that progress will be steady, though slow at times. I'll continue to stream Insignia development, weekdays on Twitch . For the near future, I'll be working on fleshing out the rest of the game world and story in low-fidelity "grey-boxing" style, filling in new enemy types and scenarios until I have the full game blocked out. I'll then focus on developing the late-game economy and systems and working backwards from there before polishing it to release quality. During this time, I'll still be committing time to animation and pixel art in general. You'll be able to find regular content from me on Youtube, which will include content and development updates from Insignia as well as more general tutorial style content. I'll be producing these videos under the label Indie Tales for this reason. 

Thanks again for all of your support, and I'll see you soon!

Adam | Uppon Hill