First of all, and most importantly: bnuuy

Thank you to all 58 of you who played Rotschwert's early jam version and for all the kind comments! In this post I'd like to share my plans and a more or less spoiler-free roadmap as to what you can expect from the full version of the game, as well as some other things.

Yes, that's right, there has been enough positive feedback and self-validation to continue working and to finish the game!

...It's not that huge of a project anyways, unlike Nullschwert, its parent game. Part of the reason for starting Rotschwert was to experiment, learn a few skills and get out of a creative block so that my main game's development could continue unimpeded, and all of those objectives were fulfilled.

I could jump back to Nullschwert here and now but it makes no sense to use the creative momentum and leave Rotschwert in the dust, when I could very well use that momentum to finish Rotschwert, release it publicly, and then gain even more acceleration for Nullschwert.

So yes - I, Winged Fox Aru, the self-proclaimed #1 bnuuy enthusiast, am going to finish what was started and release Rotschwert - Full Version very soon (when it's ready). Here's what to expect out of a full release:

• 2 more stages than in the jam version, with their own twists, turns, challenges and decisions to make.
• A proper finale to the Blue Rabbit's little crusade.
• A new, friendly and relaxed game mode where the bullet hell is slightly less hell.
• Current modes, except for the secret mode, will be kept. That means a certain bone enthusiast will have to beat the entire game in AlterEgo now, not just the first 2 stages... heheheHe...
• Duelist mode will either be rebalanced or replaced with something else. It was mostly added as a way to address playtester feedback - "the game may become boring due to the powerful ranged options" - but since then I rebalanced the ranged attacks and otherwise gave reasons to use Melee more.
• More modes may be added, but right now I cannot say which ones and whether they will be added or not.
• Bigfixes (not an intentional typo but kinda fitting), such as the secondary attack shooting up when no enemies are present, and a proper fix for a softlock during tutorial instead of that lazy fix I did last minute.
• 信頼できる友人DeepLの助けによる日本語訳
• More secrets and hidden stuff that no one will ever find in a million years, which will once again make me question if I should be adding it at all.

A sneak peek at the 3rd Segment of the game, Alley of-- wait, who dis?

There is also a recent issue I became aware of where the amount of melee damage the player deals depends on their game's framerate. The game supports uncapped framerate, and every enemy engagement was tested and balanced at around 110-144 fps. That means the game may have become unintentionally harder for players who played at 60 fps, a lot harder for those with weaker PCs at 60fps or lower, and impossible to play for score on both. I cannot promise a fix as it's an engine-side issue (I'm using SHMUP Creator), but I'm already discussing it with the engine's developer. Hopefully something can be done. 

This about sums up my plans for the game. The full release will be put onto a separate itch page, I'll make sure to link to it on the Jam version as well. The Jam version page and download will stay up until the end of time, or until I take it down for one reason or the other.

Lastly - if you're interested in helping me playtest the full version, leave a comment to this post! Or reach out to me if we know each other. I value equally both the testers who aren't used to bullet hell, as well as those who can 1cc touhou/dodonpachi/suguri/hellsinker. hardest difficulty in their sleep. Please let me know if you're interested!

As always - thank you for playing my games! And don't forget to wishlist Nullschwert. Or else...

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