Zefyr: A Thief's Melody News

Hello everyone,

The demo and prologue of Zefyr are now available in a new language: Spanish (from Spain)! I hope it’s also relevant for Latin American players too.
Of course, the full game will also be translated, but since this part is done, I decided to push the update to Steam right away!


By the way, it was my dad who localized the game! He's a retired Spanish professor. I hope everything is accurate, but don’t hesitate to let me know if you spot any typos or if certain words could be improved. He speaks Spanish very well, but since he's not a gamer, some terms might be a little off. Any feedback is welcome!

It was super nice working with him—it brought back memories of my old Spanish lessons at school!

On another note, the demo will be featured in Steam Next Fest next week (October, 14th). I really hope the game will reach a much larger audience. Fingers crossed! :)

And a piece of good news to wrap up this quick post: the full game has made it onto Steam's "Most Wishlisted Games" list, which is a huge milestone for a solo, unknown dev like me. Of course, I’m near the bottom of the charts, but it should still give me a bit more visibility for the full release.

Thanks so much for your continued support! Feel free to follow my dev page on Steam:
https://store.steampowered.com/developer/oneiricworlds

Have a great day, and take care.

Peace!

Hello everyone!

I hope you’re all doing well! July and August have flown by, and I’ve been working on Zefyr of course, but not exclusively. Here’s a recap of what’s been happening:




Over the last few weeks, my focus has been on polishing Zefyr and improving its overall functionality, especially for the demo and the upcoming full release:

• Detail Fixes: I’ve addressed various issues related to localization, narration, and dialogues. One major concern from players was the inconsistency with the protagonist—sometimes being completely silent (like Link) and other times unexpectedly chatty. I’ve worked to better balance this. There’s still more to refine, but it should already feel much more natural. I’ve also improved how important information is delivered to the player, while keeping character interactions and dialogue believable in a world where characters have already known each other for some time. In addition, I adjusted camera placement during specific dialogues to improve immersion.
  
• Missing Elements: The demo was missing some avatars, UI help, and sound effects, so I’ve added those in. I also fixed some minor UI input glitches to make the user experience smoother.
  
• Functional Maps: All maps are now fully functional! The goal was to keep them simple enough to be easily readable (the old ones were too cluttered, and players were struggling with them). While I still plan to add more visual details in the future, they are now much more user-friendly.
  

In early August, I took a little time off to work on a fun side project with my kids: a simple platformer game. It was a holiday project, and they had so much fun designing characters and biomes. It took just a week to develop, but it was a refreshing creative break from my main project.

The game is about searching for animals in a forest. Along the way, I coded mechanics like coyote jumps, buffered inputs (basic platformer stuff), and even a grapple mechanic! We used LDtk for level design, and the kids created the graphics for the biomes, designed the game rules, and built the levels. I also added a multiplayer mode—because, let’s face it, a family game needs to be played together! It was a really fun project to work on, and you can try it out here: Animal Chase. It’s a cozy, cooperative game, perfect for kids and families.

Here are a few screens:


And here’s a look at the level in LDtk (just simple pixels with an associated value (wall/tree/bush)) and the original graphics on a sketchbook:


Now my kids want to keep adding more things—new items, biomes, and levels. Let’s see if I can keep up with their enthusiasm!




As you might know, the demo will be featured in the Steam Next Fest in October. So, I’ve been pouring a lot of energy into marketing and promotion to get the word out:

• Reddit & Facebook Ads: I’ve been posting organically on Reddit and running ads on both Reddit and Facebook to build awareness. Every little bit helps when you’re a solo dev!
  
• Outreach to Streamers: I’ve sent out over 400 emails to streamers and content creators to prepare for the Steam Next Fest. The goal is to get as many eyes as possible on the demo during the event. By any chance, if you know some nice and cool streamer, don't hesitate to reach to him/her to tell about the game/demo.
  
• Updated Press Kit: I refreshed the press kit with new screenshots, descriptions, and improved assets, making it easier for the press and content creators to feature the game. Here are a few recent screens:
  

• Festival Applications: I’ve submitted Zefyr to several indie festivals, including Indie X, Adventure X, Save N Sound, and the OTK Winter Games. Fingers crossed I get some good news from these!
  
• Prologue Release: The prologue was launched at the end of July, and I think it brought around 800 additional wishlists to the full game! Right now, the game has a total of 5,800 wishlists, which is a decent number, but still not enough to make it into the “Popular Upcoming” titles on Steam. I’ll need to keep pushing the marketing to reach that level.
  

That’s it for now!

As always, thank you so much for your continued support—it truly means the world to me.

Take care, peace! 😊

Hello everyone!

Today I've release the Prologue version of Zefyr.
As a reminder, the prologue is free and contains the first chapter of the game "Zefyr: A Thief's Melody". It's the same as the demo, but it reaches a different audience on Steam, so it's an opportunity to make more people discover the game. The full game is not released yet, but should arrive on Q4 2024 🤞.

As I'm a super small & totally unknown solo dev, I really need all the help I can get! If you want to support me you can:
[h2]👉 Play the prologue and leave a review[/h2]
You can check it out here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2320250/Zefyr_Prologue/
Even a simple review like "yes" will do the trick. The more reviews, the more visible the prologue will be steam, and hopefully more players will be interested in the full game.

[h3]🙏 Thanks A LOT for your help 🙏[/h3]

Happy gaming, take care, peace!

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 I’ve been working on:




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.

[h2]AND HERE’S THE BIG ANNOUNCEMENT:
THE PROLOGUE WILL RELEASE ON JULY 22ND![/h2]

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.




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.




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: Added a new status page that shows the game main items to unlock.
  
• Help: Improved the help section for better player guidance.
  
• Animals: Added detailed descriptions for all animals in the game.
  
• Maps: 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.
  
• Avatars: 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:




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!




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!

Hello everyone! I hope you’re doing well.
I’ve been working a lot to improve Zefyr, and this month’s update is pretty huge.




[h2]Levels[/h2]
First, I took some time to rework some pretty old levels. They were functional but a bit empty and rough around the edges. I mainly worked on a mansion, a snowy tower, and a pirate chase (no precise names to avoid spoilers). I added grass, trees, ivy, rocks, lights, benches, dialogues, paths, animals, and various other details. I also fixed lots of little bugs and reworked some cutscenes (positioning, behaviors, missing elements). I can’t describe everything, but here are a few screens:

Some improved environments…

[h2]Items & Gameplay Elements[/h2]
I improved the grapple and the magnetic bow. Now, there are little particles and nice sounds when you use them. I hope it’s easier to read and understand too. The magnetic bow now uses the climb/magnetic energy instead of separate ammo, which makes level design easier and is much more forgiving for the player. I added various FX & SFX (bosses, weapons, camera placement on explosions, rock breaks, …)

The magnetic arrows bounce off walls with many visual fxs.

The grapple now has this violet/purple translucent look which is consistent with all the magnetic item/weapons.

I had to design logos and visual identities for the game various events/enterprises.

Breaking rocks is not that easy to code; you have to take into account the volume and orientation of the base shape to generate smaller stones.

[h2]UI[/h2]
I integrated some UI effects, including particles and sounds when you gain life or money and when you move around the menus. There are also background particles to bring life to the interface and a custom cursor for the mouse.

[h2]Optimization & Steam Deck[/h2]
I spent quite some time optimizing dynamic loading times in the open world. It’s not perfect but much better than it was. This enabled me to re-test the game on Steam Deck, and it works pretty well with good quality! I also rechecked all the font sizes (not too small) so that I could ask Steam to get officially validated for Steam Deck. Sadly, it seems I’m too small for them to review and stamp the game.

[h2]Rewriting Code[/h2]
While optimizing, I also cleaned the tag system and integrated the localization of controls (which is a 3rd party library) into my main localization system. It’s much easier to support now!

[h2]Audio[/h2]
On top of working on various sound effects for items, characters, and gameplay elements, I set up a centralized audio system to avoid the annoying comb effect when the same sound is launched multiple times at the same moment (or too close in time). But this forced me to decouple sounds from the visual effects. Still a work in progress.

[h2]Options & Menus[/h2]
As I optimized the game, I added several options regarding performance and other aspects:

• FPS target
  
• Full screen vs. windowed support
  
• Changed the dropdown menus to simpler buttons, which are easier to navigate
  
• Controls now have 2 categories, with hopefully more intuitive settings regarding axis inversions
  
• Option to disable step echo
  
• The item wheel selection is now easier to navigate from both joypad and keyboard/mouse
  
• Better help display
  
• Menus are navigable with the d-pad
  

Various graphical options.

With all these new features, I updated the demo on Steam.


[h2]II – Marketing[/h2]

As usual, I still struggle with marketing. However, I applied to the Indie Cup, the OTK Pixel Pitch, and the Jump High festival. I also entered the Steam Autumn Festival with the Zefyr demo. Hopefully, these will bring some visibility to the game.

I also tried to post more often on my social media (Twitter, BlueSky, Threads, Discord) and even reached out to streamers/players on Twitter, but without any success for now.

And that’s it for now!