Hello everyone!

I hope you’re all doing well. This month has been packed with updates and improvements to Zefyr, and I’m excited to share them with you. Here’s what we’ve been working on:

I – Steam Builds

Now there are Steam Achievements for the prologue, the demo, and the full game. I’ve built and deployed the prologue version on Steam, and updated the demo with the latest fixes. I’ve also written a Steam post stating the Deck Compatibility.

And here’s the big announcement:

the prologue will release on July 22nd!

Check it out here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2320250/Zefyr_Prologue/

In case you don’t know, the prologue is a free version of a game. In my case, it’s the exact same thing as the demo but it reaches a different audience on Steam. If you want to help me, the best way is to play the (free) prologue on the release day and leave a review! This helps a lot for the visibility of my game.

II – Polish & Content

I’ve mainly polished the 3rd chapter:

• Villa Level: I’ve added details to the kitchen, bathroom, and more cushions and furniture. There’s also a cute cat roaming around now!
• Green Island: added towers, rocks, stone walls, and hidden rewards.
• Mines: Designed a specific font for text and used it on screens and panels. I’ve also added buckets, picks, and wires to enrich the environment.
• Robot Factory: Enhanced with stencils, screens, wires, and improved ambiance to give it a more industrial feel.
• Aeolia Island: more flowers to make the world vibrant and colorful, better stone placement, more vegetation.

A few screens:

To balance gameplay, eating 3 chocolates now grants 1 additional heart. This allows to place more rewards in levels without overpowering the player. Plus it gives a good feeling of progression.

III – New Link UI

I’ve been wanting to redesign the link UI for a while now, (some people have been asking for it). So here it is:

• UI Overhaul: There’s now a new, more intuitive tab-based navigation.
• Status Page: Added a new status page that shows the game main items to unlock.
• Help Update: Improved the help section for better player guidance.
• Animal Descriptions: Added detailed descriptions for all animals in the game.
• I’ve also updated the rendering of maps, with shaders and outlines to ensure visual consistency and readability. It took quite some time to fix all the rendering bugs due to projection maths for the clip planes.
• The flute avatar has been tweaked to distinguish it from the bo staff, and avatars for certain bosses have been updated.

Here’s how it look like:

IV – Mesh Generator Tool

I’ve developed a new mesh generator tool to speed up the creation of vegetation. This tool allows me to generate detailed and varied plant life much faster, enhancing the level design processing significantly (from 20 mn to 10 s on some levels). Plus it’s lighter on memory so it doesn’t crash anymore on super dense levels. What a breeze!

V – Bugs & Fixes

Lots of bug fixes, among which:

• Resolved issues with instantiating two map cameras
• Fixed lots of glitched click and select functions
• Optimized the UI for better performance and resolved button overlap issues
• Tested the UI from 5:4 screen ratio to 21:9 to ensure compatibility across different screen sizes
• Level Design: made numerous small fixes to improve overall level design

That’s all for this month! Thank you for your continued support and patience. Stay tuned for more updates, and take care!

Peace!