After playing through the 'newer' demo, if this is AI related and Caster/Castoria doesn't actually exist and it's some figment of the player's imagination, I'm going to punch a wall. Like, that'd genuinly ruin the entire thing for me. I really want it be magical and not some AI thing that can be taken away. Idgaf if he's/she's a fully sentient AI, it'd still be such a mood kill.
Don't get me wrong, love the game a lot!
Well, I'm pleased to say that walls will be safe from your wrath :D I wouldn't be as cruel as to turn the whole thing into a 'and it was all in MC' s head/just a dream/not real' type scenario :3
Funnily enough though, there will be an AI-type character, but they won't be messing with anything to do with Castor/ia. They're more like an optional helper that you can choose to have with you if you agree to be a tester during that phone call at the beginning of the game. Cos it's just a brief demo for now though, you only have the choices to ignore the call or say no thanks to participating >.<
Some of the other character routes I have planned involve characters who come from a more traditional magical background than Castor/ia as well, more from like folklore rather than a video game.
Anyways, I'm glad you like it so far :3
Well, that's good x3 I'm glad to hear it!
Honestly, I can't even make a rough guess >.< For the entire game, definitely over a year because I have so much planned. Heck, it may never be truly finished because I already have ideas for 10+ character routes at this point, haha. It's why I'm just working on it sort of episodically. That way, it has end points that can kind of be taken as endings, but can also be continued. If I try and think about it being 100% finished, it'll just make me run away from it cos it's too much, haha. Better to try and keep a smaller scope in my head so as not to demotivate myself x3
To be even more unhelpful though, I can't even say for sure when the next update will be out. I plan to have the next update add the start of the next character (Cana) route along with continuing Castor/ia's. And it's already written, just needs some edits here and there. Sprites for Cana are already done too. So mostly it's just a case of getting the code for it done! But there are other factors I have to consider too, like getting Cgs in there, what's going to happen with voice acting, do I introduce another feature at the same time >.<
And with my mental health being the way it is, I can never predict when I'll be able to be productive and when I'll just be a useless lump of meat x3 Plus I struggle to focus on just 1 project at a time. I find it easier to juggle a couple of different things at once, but that of course means slow progress across multiple things rather than faster progress on 1 thing >.< For example, because there's so much going on in my personal life at the moment with prepping for Christmas and other things, I've been winding down and not doing any project work that involves coding, but I haven't wanted to stop working on stuff entirely, so I've just been working on a video/audio-only side project (The Masked Marionette). Once the new year begins, I'll start juggling again, haha.
But yeah, I don't wanna give rough dates and then completely fail to meet them >.< I'm dreadful at estimating when I'll have stuff done by as well because things always take longer than I think they will! So many times during game jams where I try my best to make schedules, I'll tell myself, right, this part I can do in 2 days... 5 days later and I'm only just finishing it, haha.
So yeah, sorry about that >.< I just can't really say because it's a mystery even to me. When I've got an update that's close-ish to release though, I'll make posts and stuff ahead of time to say that it'll be probably be released around X date :3
Hope you get to have happy holidays + a happy new year!