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We've been busy! This week we worked a lot behind the scenes doing all the IT stuff game developers don't really want to do: invisible infrastructure that supports our creative endeavors to actually build a game. Here's what happened on this side of the screen:

• Fine tuning our backup tooling systems and automation scripts that include: Git/Gitlab, Planka, more automation via Rsync and workstation imaging with Timeshift. If you are interested in how we are using these tools, let us know and well considering writing a few articles on how you can use them too!
   
• Exploratory tests of our main digital drawing and painting program from MyPaint over to Krita, to enable animation time-lapses to be shared more efficiently with our followers.
   
• More musical research and outreach for our culturally authentic soundtrack. We're looking very hard for musicians that play instruments that are sensible to an ancient Egyptian context. We're doing our best to avoid what Farya Faraji addresses in his phenomenal video Orientalism: Desert Level Music vs Actual Middle-Eastern Music. With 1.1M views this is a must watch!
   
• And probably most obvious, this newsletter (and some privacy-representing analytics)! We're going to plan sending out the newsletter about once a month. Please share it around with your friends by using http://goingforthbyday.com#subscribe. 💌 
   

Of course at this early stage if you are still interested in being part of our select alpha testing group I want to know what platforms you are willing play test (e.g. Steam, Windows, Linux, etc.). The easiest way is to just reply to this newsletter.

Speaking of social media, here's a random sampling of what we posted over on Bluesky at: https://bsky.app/profile/gripfastgame.works.

We finalized some water effects and started testing destructible objects such as this lamp from the tomb of tomb of Kha and Merit. Hope to see you there, moots! Enjoy! 🎞️

Did you know we have taken the Specialità Tradizionale Garantita️ Digitale pledge? Its our promise to you, our customer, that we have refused to use exploitative generative "AI" for all graphical, sound design and authorship for our studio! Feel free to use our open-source logos and explainer texts for your own website and projects. Support human creatives! Learn more at: http://gripfastgameworks#STGD 

There's going to be a lot more coming soon so get ready to enter the world of the Du'at, face the gods, their divine judgement, gain their favor and powers, past the gates and caverns of hell, surviving the depths of the chaotic waters of Nun...

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SECRETS OF THE BOOK OF THE DEV: II
There are now tens of us! 🤯

You golden few! We've seen a subscriber increase of 67% over the past 3 months. Numerically, this is grain of sand standing before the Great Marketing Pyramid (we'll need millions and millions) but emotionally for us, this is HUGE. Thank you! 🫶

YOU, are the inspiration to keep going forth on this project. In the name Amenemhet, please share the newsletter everywhere you can, so fellow gamers, nerds, and even academics know we exist. Word of mouth is our secret power. Help us grow by forwarding this email to EVERYONE you can, or using this link to the archive and sign-up form in your social medias. 𓀚

So what's been happening?

• BUGS: More features can always introduce hilarious developer "opportunities." Still trying to nail slopes vs. sprite animations. Read on to see what we mean in the gifs section, below. 𓁲 
   
• CONTROL PRECISION: Added a more gracious "coyote timer" near ledges, chasms, and jumps. This means you don't immediately fall off a cliff into the deadly waters of Nun or other terrible, wicked places if you get too close. Its basically falling forgiveness to keep things flowing. 𓃥
   
• DARK MODE: Yes, the newsletter now opposite the Blinding Light of Aten. 🔴
   
• JUMP CONTROLS: We are hard at work refactoring our jump inputs for player control so they are smooth as butter. Originally, we planned a jumping penalty that offered a more realistic physical play style but without being annoying. However, fun is still king. Jump physics and some gravity variables were completely rebuilt (for a third time). Players now have a variable jump providing a dynamic range of height and distance based how on long the jump key is pressed or held. 𓃚
   
• MIDDLE EGYPTIAN: We've been teasing some ancient language audio tests on our social media and have been consulting linguists. Not going to lie, its been rough going. Come check it out if you dare. 𓂈
   
• MUSIC: We've been collaborating with a professional composer for the past three months, working hard to create GFBD's original soundtrack. We're going to keep this under wraps (pun intended) for awhile yet, but its getting awesome and we can't wait to share more. The OST uses real instruments from the Middle East, specifically authentic and historically probable sounds from ancient Egypt. 𓇘𓀾
   
• POLISH: Non-visual stuff happened...refactored lighting in the main hub level, added more contrast and range to the Light of Ra effect, more modular code blocks for scaling, a shader or two, optimized collision platforms, Hathor level rough drafts.
   
• RSS FEED: This newsletter is now also available via old-school feed, just point your reader at: https://goingforthbyday.com/newsletter/feed.xml or visit the goingforthbyday.com website to trigger those millennial subscriptions from beyond the western horizon. 💌
   
• UX: We have created a simple, in-house dialog system (still in testing) for basic environmental informational events. This will be used for factual interactions to the player, not narrative story. We have second, robust system for interactive story-telling, stay tuned. 𓏛
   
• VISUALS + SFX: We've created animations and randomized sound effects for ledges, cliffs, and pits using a mixture of Blender and hand-drawn frames from Krita, along with tons of varied sound events. The world breathes life! 𓋹𓋹𓋹
   
• YOUTUBE: We've finally opened up our YouTube channel as a place to put higher-quality video and teasers. 📹
  
   

We want to know what platforms you can play test a demo on (e.g. Steam, Windows, Linux, etc.). The test group will probably be limited to about 25 people initially. Just reply to this email and you can mark your place in the group. We will be sending a form in the near future once we reach critical mass. 📝 

Obligatory gifs for this chapter of the Book of the Dev: II. As always, these are pre-alpha tests with severe compression for email. Our pipeline exports and optimizes down. The final game will target 4K as one possible resolution. 𓁽 

That was quite a bit of a dev dump; there are many more wonderful things to see! However, we really need to balance meaningful updates vs. frequency of the newsletter. If you want more updates, in near real time, in smaller chunks, follow us on Bluesky at: https://bsky.app/profile/gripfastgame.works. And don't forget to tell your friends!

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SECRETS OF THE BOOK OF THE DEV: III
Ammit Devourer of the Dead Hungers 🐊

Brothers and sisters, who love me and whom I love, your brother! So says the letter from Amenhotep III to Mittani and now from me to you. It has been 5 months since our last newsletter! 📜

So what's been happening?

• STEAM: We have been drafting our Steam game page (there's tons of work in this area you will all eventually see), visibility tags and back-end stuff that is required on the business side of things. More importantly, we now have a Steam creator/studio page and of course this provides future specific platform launch notifications about GFBD for PC, Mac and Linux. You can check it now using the image link below. 🎮
   

• PLAYER 2 START: Last issue, we talked about reworking our player controls so things are buttery smooth but we didn't reveal why: Going Forth By Day will have a local co-op feature for drop-in/drop-out for Player 2. Yes, you read that correctly: you will be able to play with your friend locally in-game as a support character. If you ever played the wonderful game Child of Light by Ubisoft, the role will be similar. We'll reveal more about Player 2 in future updates. 🐈
   
• STATE MACHINES: Related, we have segmented code for Player 1 controls after the significant rework back in April into a dedicated State Machine. As character actions get more complex, this allows us to create more character features faster, such as character classes... 📦
   
• CHARACTER CLASSES: Historicity is very important to our project. Although magical, the setting is still based in real-life archeological foundations. For Player 1 we have planned 3 distinct character classes for different play-styles that offer variety but also present their own advantages and disadvantages while traveling through the duat. You will be faced with choices as you adventure:
  
  
  • Soldier: Melee focused warrior armed with axe and shield. Tankier but slower speed. Loud, but brutal at close ranges. 🪓
  • Archer: Sniper, ranged play-style, fastest movement but glass cannon at close ranges. 🎯
  • Stealth player: Silent, slowest methodical speed, lethal attacks using a certain meteoric knife owned by a boy-king. 🗡️
     
• TIME: We've all heard how Cleopatra lived closer in time to modernity than she lived to the Old Kingdom, and we also understand that Eternity presents an interesting concept of non-time. This is an integral game mechanic in Going Forth By Day we are exploring. We are testing concepts how to use the powers of Khonsu to move through time while maintaining place. You can see some of the eye-candy effects we've been creating for the Osireion. We'll be teasing this on our social media, uh, in time. 😅
   

• RA AND THE AMDUAT: This will be a short tease (you can read between the lines in the two bullets above), but the sun-god didn't exactly relax on the solar boat to be reborn as Khepri each morning. You will face temporal stress in your journey to reach the Field of Reeds. 🌾
   
• MORE MUSIC: We've had great responses to our original soundtrack teaser compilation (you can now hear 4 snippets). But we need to double the playtime of our score and we have an on-going fundraising drive to make this happen. We are passing all music funds directly to our composer Efe Tozan to expand the OST into a masterpiece. Please consider donating here: https://ko-fi.com/gripfastgameworks 🪘
   

• CALL FOR VOICE ACTORS: We are now searching for individuals who would like to donate their voice to the game as a character. We are looking for serious-minded folks with audio set-ups (such as a podcast microphone and at least some basic audio experience) that are willing do readings for parts. We are not looking for uber professionals, but would like our community to join in on the fun and be a part of the game's development.
  
  If that sounds exciting to you and want to audition for a part, we have a special consent link below that will connect you directly with our script writer (aka me):
  
  VOICE ACTING SIGN UP FORM🎙️
  *don't be afraid of the http warning, this is our website's virtual systems infrastructure 
  
  MORE YOUTUBE: We've expanded our YouTube channel now exhibiting some tools we've built to help Going Forth By Day's development and we are currently planning a limited series on gaming vs. art history. This series will not effect the timeline for the game but bring more attention to our studio and gain more support. 🎥
   
• WEBSITE: We've done some significant upgrades to our studio website to show our current range of projects and you can now get the newsletter archive there as well (links fixed). Feedback is always welcome. Check it out at: https://gripfastgame.works 🌐
   

Teaser images for this chapter of the Secrets of the Book of the Dev: III show off some of the other things we've been working on that include literally tens of millions of sand particles for loading scenes, some other games market research, shader effects and some physical business cards we hope to share with some fans in person at an upcoming event TBA. As always, these images are pre-alpha tests with severe compression for email.

If you know someone who might like our game whether it be an archeologist, a historian, students or generally just someone who loves games, please share the newsletter; its how we can grow and sustain our efforts. Scribes can help you sign up here: https://goingforthbyday.com/#subscribe

As always, if you want a inundation from the Nile's source, you can always follow us on Bluesky at: https://bsky.app/profile/gripfastgame.works

Recently had a fun exchange about Ammit and Spinosaurus Egypticus, and what we're thinking of using as concept material for its animation. The image on the left is of course the skull of Spinosaurus. The Spino was first discovered in 1912 near the Black Desert in Egypt. Ammit can be seen center inset.

Notice how chibi Ammit is depicted in the Book of the Dead. This soft representation of Ammit was a magical and artistic safety feature for the deceased. Our in-game version will honor Ammit's horrific reality. The "Devourer of the Dead" will stalk you over the course of the game, as will other monsters and deities. You will confront your heart and the beast upon Thoth's scales! ⚖️🐊

The gif is of course from Jurassic Park III in all its dino-glory. Its the perfect illustration of our reaction to not having 50,000 new subscribers this week. 😆
 

In our next newsletter we hope to show you some very big animation progress we are focused and a very special announcement. Stay tuned and let your life be filled with ma'at!

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