Journey to the West News

This week, we made significant strides in the development of Faithful Devil. We updated some draft card assets for testing purposes and incorporated Achievements and English localization to enhance the user experience. We plan to release 2 Faithful Devil companions next week. Additionally, we continued to refine the Faithful Devil's cards and mechanics, making necessary adjustments to ensure optimal gameplay. Overall, we are excited about the progress we have made and look forward to sharing our continued success with our dedicated community.
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[h2]Adjustment[/h2]

• Flood the Holy Mountain does not cost HP.
  
• High Buddha will not remove allies before summoning Sarira.
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fix a potential bug of Righteousness.
  
• Fix High Buddha Sarira effect in Compendium.
  
• Snow dance description fix.
  

Thank you all for your support for the past year! This week, we made significant progress on the development of Faithful Devil, completed all animations, and added several new story endings. Additionally, we have been hard at work creating new art assets for the game, which will improve the game's overall visual appeal.

During our development process, we also encountered a few bugs, but we were able to fix them quickly, ensuring a smoother gaming experience for players. Overall, we are pleased with the progress we have made this week and feel that we are on track to deliver the new character as planned.

Check out the new design for Five Element Spirits!



Check out Faithful Devil's new animation!



[h2]Enhancement[/h2]

• Divine Light Bomb can now clear all blocks and evil barrier from the target before dealing 50 damage to all enemies.
  
  
  
  
• Life Stealer can now convert the excessive HP absorbed into Evil Barrier.
  
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

• Fix new card frame star position for level 2 cards.
  
• Fix deflect effect.
  
• Fix a energy problem caused by Tie You Up on spirit shifting card.
  
• Fix a description bug of made in abyss.
  
• Swap talent tree localization。
  
• Fix Emperors Command length issue with Goddess of the Moon.
  
• Fix a crash caused by Two Birds One Stone.
  

Hello everyone!

I'm Dr. Z. It has been a year since the launch of Journey to the West EA. Thank you all for your continuous support, encouragement, and urging. On this special day, I want to chat with you all about the status of the project and studio, and our plans for 2023.

Journey to the West is our first commercial product at Z Studio, which consists of only 2 people. For nearly 3.5 years now, we have been pouring our hearts and souls into this game, self-funding every step of the way. We haven't taken a salary, and have even had to spend nearly RMB 2 million on outsourcing expenses. We made plenty of mistakes along the way, especially with our lack of experience in gameplay and art, which unfortunately resulted in sales not being proportionate to our effort.

But despite all of this, we've never given up. I personally have been working 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, trying to make this game the best it can be. The journey has been tough, but there's nothing more enjoyable or fulfilling to us than developing games. And even though sales have been poor, we're not going to let that discourage us. We're determined to keep improving the game so that we can bring everyone out there a high-quality, enjoyable experience.


We plan to release the official version in May. The last character, Faithful Devil, is now available for closed beta testing, while there are still balance, bug, and art improvements needed. After that, we hope to develop three or more DLCs and adjust the development period based on funding.

Developing DLCs still requires a lot of outsourcing for art, so we plan to launch crowdfunding campaigns on both Momo and Kickstarter in May 1st, the same day the official version launches. We hope that players who are capable and enjoy the game can provide more support.

Yours,
Dr.Z

Please see our regular weekly update below:

Faithful Devil is now available for beta testing! Please switch to: [h3] “FaithfulDevil2023” [/h3]branch to play and test! Currently, Faithful Devil’s card assets, initial artifacts, and talent icons are still being designed, and some text is being localized. During the beta testing period, we will constantly optimize the card logic, adjust values, and fix bugs. Please provide us with your feedback and opinions!



We have also made many art optimizations:

1. we have replaced the card frames of Wukong, White Dragon, and Holy Monk with more exquisite new ones
   
   
   
   
2. optimized the card art of Wukong's Shapeshifting
   
   
   
   
3. updated the battle background of the combat with Hell Emperor.
   
   
   
   
4. added special effects to the game-over screen
   
   

Thanks for everyone's feedback, we have done a round of concentrated strengthening of Goku's attack power:

1. Monkey King’s bar: The original attack bonus of 50% under the heavy status is changed to an additional 100% damage.
   
   
   
2. Talent: The "Advance Fighting Method Vol. I" now adds extra defense.
   
   
   
3. Talent: The "Advance Fighting Method Vol. II" now adds an additional 100% attack power.
   
   
   
4. Purple Gold Crown: An additional 100% damage, up to a maximum of 400% damage.
   
   

[h2]Other Optimizations[/h2]

1. Star Dart applies 3 Vulnerable at start of combat.
   
2. Lowered the requirement of experience points needed for redeem a trial level.
   

[h2]Bug fixes[/h2]

1. Fix a bug where Omen will summon player killed companion.
   
2. A lot of Faithful Devil related bug fixes.
   

This week, we completed the implementation of all the card logic, effects, audio, and plot for the Faithful Devil, and are now gearing up to commence beta testing next week. Additionally, we made some adjustments to certain relics and introduced a new feature that allows players to trade their experience points for trial levels.

At the character selection page, players now have the option to redeem their earned scores (experience points obtained after each play) for trial levels by simply clicking on the Trial Furnace. The higher level, the more score needed.



We made adjustments to these relics:


[h2]Bug fix[/h2]

• Fix a potential bug related to No Gluttony.
  

This week, we made significant progress in Faithful Devil, optimized card art assets and a couple of UI optimization, and added dialogs for allies in the player’s team to help the combat be more immersive.

We optimized the art assets for neutral, curse, special, and companion cards, improving performance and consistency. While these changes are currently only visible for the Swine King, we plan to continue optimizing our UI and assets step by step to ensure art style consistency.


We added dialogs for allies to make the game more lively.


We added map nodes color for better differentiation between node types on map.


Finally, we added a shortcut to credits on the main theme title for quicker access to the credits music video.


[h2]Other changes[/h2]

• Add confirmation dialog for quitting the game.
  
• Living wood tripod can target your minion at enemy side.
  
• Transmutation of the Listener caused Evil will not reduce by after right after applying to the enemy.
  

[h2]Bug fixes[/h2]

• Fix a bug that little monkey produced by Monkey King's Hoop is not player's minion.
  
• Fix block by Monkey King's Belt can be affected by constitution.
  
• Fix a combat audio exception issue.
  
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