It’s been a while since we looked in on the development of Chronicles of Ellusus: The Dark Unknown, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least mention the poll that Goldenflame Dragon recently put up on the game’s Facebook page:

A poll! (But not an _actual_ poll, because I can’t make a poll here.)
You find your way to an inn. Paying the innkeeper the very fair price for a room, you stagger to bed and fall asleep. When you awake, you will be fully healed. When do you expect to awaken?

* In 8 hours.
* At 8am the following morning.
* At 8am the following morning unless that’s under 5 hours from now, in which case, in 8 hours.

Answer in comments. 🙂 Currently the game goes with the first option, but I’m increasingly considering rewriting that.

You can give Goldenflame your thoughts on this on Facebook, as he asks. Personally, I’d probably go with the second option.

At any rate, since we last checked in with The Dark Unknown in May, it’s worth noting that the project has seen a few notable developments since then.

An “About” page was added to the game’s official website, whereat a brief summary of the game — and several of Goldenflame’s design diary entries — can be found. June saw Goldenflame working on the intermission portion of the game’s narrative, a story that puts a bit of space between Act 1 and Act 2 of The Dark Unknown. By late June, however, work on Act 2 proper was well underway; Goldenflame added numerous new side quests and caves to the game in the final days of the month.

July saw him undertaking an effort to give the art style of the game a more unified look and feel, which he called “The Great De-Rezzifying“. This work was done in parallel with more work on the actual Act 2 plot; more castles, quests, and other such things were also added to the game. Goldenflame also identified a fairly significant bug in the transition from Act 1 to Act 2, which he worked hard to squash after nearly breaking the game entirely.

August was a less-productive month, as Goldenflame’s day job kept him rather busy. However, in early September, he announced that artist John Henderson — who has also been working on SKALD: Against the Black Priory — had joined The Dark Unknown, and had produced some new tile graphics for it. The game does — I agree with what appears to be a general consensus here — look a little less like Ultima, but it does look very good even so.

Since then, Goldenflame has been working on the title screen for the game, and on more of the Act 2 plot. And, of course, he’s still looking for feedback in the poll above. So, click on over to the game’s Facebook page and chime in to the discussion there!