Zefyr: A Thief's Melody News

Hello everyone!
Here’s the monthly update about the game! So, what’s new since last time? Two big things:

• All gameplay content is finished.
• The game is FINALLY in beta test!

All the details below!




A lot has been added since the last update:

• All gameplay content is now complete! Just yesterday, I finished adding everything: all the rewards, paintings, animals, flowers, quests, hearts, and maps.
  
• However, I still have some work to do on the narration. I’ve added dialogues for the endgame, but I still need to work on a few more NPCs.
  
• I’ve also started adding some missing music for certain levels: Green Island, Pirate Island, The Quack Shack, as well as tracks for the flute and combat scenes.
  
• We now have Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese translations, thanks to the amazing work of my dad (Spanish) and Rinaldo Alípio Bueno (Portuguese).
  
• And I’ve added tons of small details to enhance storytelling in the world.
  

Thanks to beta testing, I was able to improve the game’s flow to ensure everything reads smoothly. I’ve adjusted element positioning, contrast, dialogues, timing, puzzle designs, clues, and even reworked some enemies and bosses.

Now there's a little restaurant on the pirate island.

A big moon with auroras.

• New feature: An auto-backup save system to prevent save losses due to crashes. Huge thanks to the beta testers who (unfortunately) experienced this issue firsthand.
  
• Improved snow particles, laser feedback, letter shake effects, hit stops, and sand shader dithering.
  
• Small particles on hidden interactable objects for better visual feedback.
  
• Adjusted sound volumes for a better experience.
  
• Map rendering improvements: Floors now appear in the correct order for better readability, fixed draw calls and multi-render issues.
  
• Another pass on unification, sky/atmosphere improvements, particle adjustments, and navigation meshes.
  
• Tons of bug fixes related to gameplay, rendering, dynamic loading, and various edge cases.
  

Small white stars indicate some hidden object, but you'll have to watch closely to spot them.



This month, I submitted the game to 7 festivals:

• MIX Spring
  
• The Days of Ramadan ✅ (I got accepted! Yay 🎉)
  
• Sci Game Show
  
• Minimal & Chill Steam Fest
  
• Six One Indie Showcase
  
• Games Made in France
  
• Wholesome Direct
  

I usually don’t get accepted, but this time, the Days of Ramadan welcomed the game! 😊




And the biggest news: Beta testing is happening RIGHT NOW! 🎉
I’m gradually opening it to more people as I fix bugs.

If you’d like to join, hop into the Discord server and check the rules:
[h3]👉 https://discord.gg/8CfrMJVSeb[/h3]

Huge thanks to all beta testers! Your feedback has been amazing. 🙌
I also tested the game on Steam Deck—I could finish it, but it still needs a few optimizations.

And you might have guessed it, but the game won’t release in Q1 2025. I’m behind schedule, so the release is now pushed to Q2 2025.




Recently, I noticed my blog was laggy and hard to maintain. So, I looked for alternatives to WordPress... but wasn’t satisfied.

So I coded my own static site generator (SSG), as a test! 🎉
For those unfamiliar, an SSG generates a bunch of static HTML pages from simple text-based articles. It was super fun to build—but (as always) more complicated than expected.

I also took the time to draw a banner for the new blog! 🎨


For the curious, here’s a temporary version: https://www.oneiricworlds.com/blog/en
It's still a work in progress, but it should be MUCH faster and lighter than my current blog. We’ll see how this evolves!


Thank you all for your support!
I’m getting closer to the finish line now.

Take care, peace, and see you on Discord! ✌️😊

Hello everyone, and Happy New Year! So what's new for this month of January? Quite a lot actually!




As mentioned in the last post, I started a 1st beta test with a small group of lucky (or not so lucky?) friends, players, and designers. The feedback has been incredibly helpful. So, over the past month, I’ve been primarily improving the "flow" of the game. By flow, I mean: Do players understand what to do? Where to go? Is it clear enough? Are they getting lost? Is it too difficult or too boring? These are "high-level" improvements that can only be tackled once the "low-level" aspects are stable enough (no bugs, stable mechanics, understandable UI, etc.).

Here are some of the changes I made:

• Added points of interest in various levels to guide the player’s eye, such as lanterns near important doors, contrasting plants (e.g., salads!), or floating particles.
  
• Adjusted the placement of key items to make them more visible (e.g., the pianist in the bar); removing surrounding grass, adding lights, or creating distinct shapes to draw attention.
  
• Enhanced readability by adding more contrast, such as larger cracks to hint at hidden secret walls, avoiding similar colors around important items, etc.
  
• Tweaked colors to avoid confusion between different key badges, laser beams, or other items.
  
• Added text bubbles that appear over distant important NPCs.
  
• Made bigger cannonballs for improved readability.
  
• Adjusted when new quests appear to better capture the player’s attention and fixed potential soft locks.
  
• Added auto-save zones for overly challenging levels.
  
• Updated maps with useful additional information.
  
• Added nav-island posts on visited islands (expanding the game’s teleport system to make ocean exploration smoother).
  
• Improved text and dialogue, adding emphasis by highlighting key words in different colors.
  

A more visible spot for the pianist

Turtles hang out around water salads and occasionnally "speak" to draw player's attention.

A few more info on the map.




One of the main pieces of feedback from the beta test was that the world felt "too big and empty." So, I rescaled 4 of the largest and most annoying levels, as well as the world map. This was a huge task because I had to re-test all the levels to ensure that mechanics like jumps, projectiles, and distances still worked well—it wasn’t as simple as applying a global scale. Some elements had to remain their original size.

This scaling process corrupted previous save files (from beta testers and players who tried the demo), so I had to code a save porting system to ensure no progress was lost.

Rescaling the world also meant revisiting all the loading and activation zones for each island to avoid conflicts. Additionally, I had to rework the ocean textures to make them visually cohesive and compatible with the new world tiling.

For reference, the world is now 6x6km, still mostly water, with 18 zones/islands to explore. A few more zones are planned.

Lots of islands to discover.




I also took the opportunity to add some new content to the game:

• A new level: the Aqualums Library.
  
• A painting shop on Aqualums.
  
• A zoom/dezoom feature for the map.
  
• Unrevealed areas on the map now show as "???" if you don’t have the local map.
  
• Added aiming animations for the character when jumping or falling.
  

And a few new upgrades for the player to discover:

• Focus Band: Slows time when aiming.
  
• Lightness Ring: Enables smooth landings (without noise) near guards.
  
• Pepper Salad: A boost for turtles, allowing them to travel faster and reducing journey time (this works well with the scaled-down world).
  
• Magnetic Core: An upgrade for one of the weapons.
  
• There are also now 4 outfits to collect, each with unique properties designed to be useful in different levels and situations.
  

An outfit to go faster.




Finally, I’ve polished and improved several aspects of the game:

• Updated the final cutscene.
  
• Refactored weather zones code. Weather effects are now continuous in the open world, with sound effects and the ability to handle rain, thunder, pollen, snow, grass blades, and more. It’s also fully compatible with the world tiling.
  
• My father has started working on the Spanish translation.
  
• Fixed respawn zones (the zones that prevent falling into chasms) in all levels. Some were poorly designed and caused conflicts with cutscenes and dialogues, leading to soft locks.
  
• Cleaned up old components and unused code.
  
• Improved production tools: I can now generate all outside levels with a single click and perform better pre-release automated checks.
  
• Tons of minor fixes and improvements.
  

Now the rain appears and disappears smoothly.

In the end, as a result of the beta test (which is still ongoing), I’ve built and released 6 more versions of the game, taking it from 1.0.6 to 1.0.12.




This month, I didn’t do much marketing for the game, but I applied to 6 festivals: Storyteller, LudoNarraCon, Precision Platformer, Sportacular (for "Slide," my other game), BIG LATAM, and Cozy & Family-Friendly Games Celebration. Fingers crossed!






Last but not least, for Christmas, I designed a small hidden object game where you search for family presents in my family’s house. I had previously made a similar game for my in-laws, but not for my own family. That’s been fixed now! You can play it for free here (in French, but you’ll figure it out):


That’s it! Actually, this turned into quite a big update. The beta test will gradually open to more people, so stay tuned!

As always, thank you so much for your continued support.
Take care, and peace!

Mathias

Hello everyone!

It’s time for another development update on Zefyr: A Thief’s Melody. Progress has been steady, with lots of improvements across the board. Let’s dive right in!



I’ve been testing the full game once again after all the latest updates, and while things are looking better, I found plenty more to refine. Here’s what I’ve been focusing on lately:

[h2]Content Updates[/h2]

• World Enhancements: Every level has been upgraded with added details like vegetation, stencils, rocks, grass, fog effects, set dressing, and other polish.
  
• Animal Additions: The world now features 35 unique animal species, with over 100 individual animals scattered throughout. Each one has its own avatar too!
  
• Collectible Quests: I’ve compiled a complete list of animals and flowers, so now the “collect” quests are officially finishable.
  
• Chocolate Placement: Three chocolates now grant you one additional heart, and you can finish the game with a total of 10 hearts.
  
• Key & Boss Updates: All key cards and bosses now have updated avatars.
  
• New SFX: A tiny but satisfying touch—slingshot sound effects are in!
  

[h2]Fixes[/h2]

• Graphics Issues: I’ve addressed glitches with lock FXs, transparency problems, and visual FX bugs.
  
• Character Faces: Some NPCs and guards got a facelift, literally! Improved skin textures and optimized imports make them more consistent.
  
• Grapple & Climb Bugs: Annoying issues with these mechanics in certain cases have been resolved.
  
• Save Fixes: Fixed saving problems with open-world bosses.
  
• Camera Consistency: Now the camera behaves uniformly when showing switches or doors being activated.
  

[h2]Optimizations[/h2]

• Merged plant objects for better performance.
  
• Cleaned up old, unused game objects.
  
• Refined and updated the world map.
  

With these changes, the main and side quests are now fully functional. There’s still a bit of content to add in certain zones, but overall, the game is graphically nearly as polished as the demo. Characters look more coherent, and here are a few new screenshots:



That said, there’s still plenty to do in terms of narration, cutscenes, music, and sound. Those will be the next big areas of focus!




[h2]Steam Next Fest[/h2]
I participated in the Steam Next Fest recently. The results were a mixed bag; +800 wishlists: Not as many as I had hoped, but the feedback was positive. Players enjoyed the demo, which is great reassurance for me as a solo dev!

[h2]GWB Awards Finalist[/h2]
I was thrilled to be a finalist in the GWB Awards (organized by Tencent). While I didn’t win, making it that far was already a big achievement—it’s the first time Zefyr has been selected for a festival with such high standards.

I also got a small visibility boost from being featured on the dedicated Steam page for a few days, which brought in +100 wishlists.

So I added this nice logo to the Steam page (the 1st of the reward section):


[h2]Social Media[/h2]
I’ve been trying to stay active on social media, with posts on Reddit (where I’m still running a few ads), X, and Bluesky. Speaking of Bluesky—it’s been blowing up lately! I gained over 1,000 followers in just a few weeks, thanks to being featured in a few “Game Dev" starter packs.

If you’d like to join me there (especially as X continues to lose active users), here’s the link: https://bsky.app/profile/oneiricworlds.bsky.social.




The full game is now in the hands of a few trusted friends for testing. And luckily... they’re not holding back 😅. They’ve pointed out a lot of issues, especially with the level flow in some critical areas. I’ll be addressing all their feedback to ensure future testers don’t have to suffer as much!

[h2]Private Beta in December[/h2]
The next step is the official private beta test, which I plan to launch in December. Think of it as a little Christmas present for some of you 🎄.

I’ll share the details on my social platforms, Patreon, and Discord, so stay tuned!

That’s it for now. Thanks so much for your continued support—it means the world to me.

Take care, and I’ll see you in the next update, hopefully a beta announcement!
Peace!

~ Mathias

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! 😊