Hello itch community and Resonance Games fans!

Kurin Laing here, founder, lead designer and current community/marketing manager (Oh- the hats we wear as indie developers!).
I wanted to quickly write an update to share with everyone where Resonance Games is as we approach the end of the year; what we've been up to, and what you can expect in the coming months.

First of all, if you were among those who played our 0.8 build, I just want to extend a warm thank you from myself and the Resonance team. It was a lot of work getting the game to that stage, and we really appreciate the community taking the time to play it.
If you haven't played it and want to experience a unique, heartfelt and fantastical rhythm-rpg, then I highly recommend you give it a shot!

Alright- first thing first: where are we as a studio?

The short-form answer: we are still a group of 10+ talented developers and artists trying to create something fun, daring and altogether ambitious. Whenever I think of the fact that Resonance Games is a team of (at the moment of writing this) 13 individuals - it boggles my mind. That's larger than some full-fledged indie companies out there! But there's a reason these talented folk have graciously volunteered their time and energy to the project, and I believe it shows in the demo we've been working on. Progress on the Vertical Slice of 'Resonance: Rhythm in You' - our first project - is still going strong, and I'm proud to announce we are almost at the end of the 6-milestone goal we set for ourselves back in 2021! It's been a long journey but we've executed on what we set out to do.

Alright, but what have we been doing to get there? Well we've picked up a few more incredible developers to add extra polish to the game. I hope we can share more of that soon - but what I can say now is it never gets old to see what even a small amount of polish can do for a project. We've been wrapping up the programming of new systems while developing original characters to drop into the world of Amz and Zephra. And I can't understate the hard work that's gone in to make the environment sing as beautifully as our pixel-art characters do!

Oh, did I mention we have an entirely new battle in the works, alongside its own new battle track? Players of the demo loved the battle system but one piece of feedback was loud and clear: "we want to see combat sooner!". And so we listened, and it absolutely seemed like a no-brainer to add something that would organically tie into the game's intro. It's a brand-new moment that helps tutorialize the gameplay and will be one of the first things you see opening 'Rhythm in You'. We can't wait for you to hear the music~

And lastly, where are we going as a studio? Well first and foremost, we've begun a community and marketing initiative spanning several social media platforms and... it's ambitious to say the least! We have a lot of lost ground to make up for - but we hope (with your help) we can crush our goals moving into 2024. We've launched ourselves on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, and have been continuing to build our incredible discord server, which we hope you'll come join us in! I'll leave all the relevant links down at the bottom of this post.

Something you may be immediately be curious of however, is our eventual 0.9 build release! Included in 0.9 is the aforementioned new battle, new musical pieces and a brand new coat of paint over the Zephra city zones (in addition to many bug fixes as well). It's really the best time to be getting your hands on the game and become a Resonance Games fan and we can't wait to share more.
Expect that build to arrive this month!

Now what about Resonance Games in 2024?

With community growth, we also need to start looking at the big-bad shadow looming over every prospective indie studio: funding.
I won't bog you down with the details, but the long short of it is that we have a handful of options: crowd-funding, grant/loans and publisher funding. There are also opportunities with Venture Capital funding - but in all honesty, with Resonance Games' core values, we want to avoid that route if possible. The trick will be juggling the other three options and hopefully landing somewhere comfortable. We're hoping we can launch a crowd-funding initiative around February of 2024 - so stay tuned for that announcement, but we're also not opposed to partnering with the right publisher if one comes along.
All in all, it's certainly the biggest hurdle of this journey - and we are incredibly appreciative of everyone's support of our team and project as we find our footing.

2024 will bring a coat of polish to our Vertical Slice - allowing us to launch the finished demo in-full to our community. We also hope we can continue to join in on events throughout the year and showcase the team's hard work to attendees - we love to watch people play and enjoy 'Rhythm in You'!

It's an exciting time to be a Resonance Games community member - and an even better time to join in on the fun and find out more about our game and the ways we want to shape our studio and the industry as a whole~

If you've gotten to the end here, I thank you for your precious time - and I look forward to sharing more soon.

Kurin Laing - Resonance Games founder

...can you hear the mus-... wait! I almost forgot the social media links!

Discord:
https://discord.gg/z6ScXGmfmp

Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/resonance_games/

TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@resonancegames

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/resonancegamescommunity/

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@resonancegamescommunity

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ResonanceGames_

Come join us and see where the music takes you~