15/06/2026 - Things
Hello, again. How's it going?
Winter's fallen on the southern hemisphere again, and I'm very cold. I never used to mind Winter, but now that I'm living in a building with such poor insulation, I've realized it's because I've never experienced the true cold. When the wind blows strongly enough outside, I can feel the air shift inside...
Major SBH Developments
Scarred By Heaven's development has been going slow and steady, as always. I feel as if I write that exact sentence in every one of these posts lately, but it's the best way to describe it.
I'm well into making Chapter 5 now, with about 60% of the cutscenes done, and the boss mostly finished. Unfortunately, I can't share this boss at all for spoiler reasons... (^^;)
Most of the work I've done lately is cutscene coding, which is as grueling as ever. GMLive has been a godsend, and I have a lot of small in-game tools to help the 'directing' like camera and character movement debugging, but it still feels like it takes me much longer than it should. It tires me out so quickly that I don't usually get more than one or two scenes done per day... but maybe the slow process is for the best. I use this step to refine the script a lot.
Small SBH Things
I've also made it so that you can now read the bulletin board in West Jadewater to learn some recent local rumors. I think 'urban legends' are a very fun form of worldbuilding. And who knows, maybe some of them have some truth to them...?
Unfortunately, I still don't have much else new I can show gameplay-wise... I've made a few new 'elite' variants of existing enemies who use new attacks. A classic, sneaky way to get around drawing more assets, but I still think it's a little cool.
I also added Friday as an Assist Partner for some story fights. She's a fair bit stronger than Livio in this role... but maybe it comes at a cost.
Right now, I feel pretty confident that I'll be able to get Part 1 fully finished and released by the end of the year. Admittedly, I've also been reconsidering if I want to try merging Part 1 and Part 2 into two acts of one single game again, now that GMLive has made compile times so much less of a problem... but that's something to worry about on another day.
Personal Notes
Tired... my job has been rather hard on me lately, and morale is poor over there. But I'm trying my best...
I've gotten really into iced coffee in the last month or so. I never really used to like coffee, but slowly got accustomed to it through borderline-dessert drinks at a nearby shop, and have since started making my own concoctions at home. Maybe it sounds a bit more mature if I say I enjoy it because of the conflicting mix of sweetness and bitterness.
I've also tried to relax a little by writing some small non-SBH stories as a wind-down activity, since it's been a long while since I wrote anything that didn't involve Saki. None of them have really gone anywhere, but I like the characters I've been coming up with and have drawn them a little, so maybe they'll be used somewhere some day.
...Though I did end up making another duo of an abrasive and aloof tall one, and a meek but well-meaning short green one, so maybe I've just forgotten how to write anything else.
But regardless, thank you for reading!
- HSTopaz
11/05/2026 - Fourth Boss
Hello again. Another short update post, today.
Chapter 4 of the story is almost complete! At the time of writing, all that's left is the very last cutscene. After that, it'll just be Chapter 5 left for Part 1.
The fourth boss, Friday, is also complete. She's by far the fastest and most aggressive opponent in this part, and uses combos that are more 'random' than other bosses, thoughthe attacks themselves are pretty simple and weak for the most part.I want her to feel intimidating at first, but relatively straightforwardonce you're able to match her suffocating 'rhythm'. She's also the only boss who doesn't rely on any powers to fight, so it's a pretty straightforward brawl in that sense...
Here's a small preview of her moves, and her theme.
I'm getting into the true 'weeds' of the story now, finally making a lot of the big scenes and fights I've been day dreaming about since the early days. It's all very exciting...
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I'm moving a bit slower with development than I'd like, but that's always the case. I'm feeling a bit more invigorated than I have been for the past months, so I'm hoping to channel that into getting more done. Some more defined scheduling in my free time might do me good.
Regardless, thank you for reading, and a large thank you to everyone who's supported the game so far.I'll continue to work hard to meet your expectations!
As this post's small bonus, a preview of a new character who appears late in Part 1.
- HSTopaz
13/04/2026 - Writing Talk
Hello. A short update today, as I realized it's been a while since I wrote.
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Scarred By Heaven development has almost all been slow but steady script-writing, lately. I've just about finished writing the latest draft of Part 1's remaining story cutscenes. I'm excited to finally get back into working on the actual game, soon...
I've been making quite a lot of changes from earlier drafts, but I'm feeling happy with it. I've started to wonder if leaving more room for 'spontaneity' in how I write is more enjoyable?
It sounds a little bad--planning a story out thoroughly is important, obviously--but a lot of the things I most like about this latest draft have been things I've only come up with in the last few months. It might be a case of newer things simply being more exciting to my short-sighted mind, but with SBH in particular, I've been working on it for such a long time that I feel as if some of the older ideas no longer resonate with the current me.
If I don't enjoy writing something, then people probably won't enjoy reading it, so I think it's best just to discard such things, and focus on what I like right now.
I think I've been getting better at overcoming perfectionism in the script-writing process as well. In the past I've spent entire days agonizing over trying to get certain scenes 'just right', only to take one look at them now and say "Oh, most of that could probably be cut". I now realize I'm too fickle to stay happy with any piece I wrote forever, so it's better just to get it done, and hope that my heart knows what it's talking about.
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On the technical side of things, I've also had a big upgrade in terms of work flow by discovering the GMLive plugin by YellowAfterLife. I am honestly pretty ashamed I didn't know about it sooner, because it's an unbelievable improvement with how long compile times have become for SBH. It should make all the finicky work of coding cutscenes a lot more bearable..
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...But that's all for now. Hopefully I'll have a bit more to talk about next time. Given the infrequency with which I'm writing these days, I'm going to try reformatting the blog slightly be broken into yearly quarters/seasons rather than months.
Here's some future sprite sneak peaks before I go, at least... :)
- HSTopaz