Hello everyone!

Thank you for dropping by this devlog! As you’ve seen, the new and improved demo for Demeter: The Harvest Dies With You is finally out!

There were a few hurdles along the way, but through the hard work of our team, we managed to get it done, and let me tell you, a lot has improved!

What’s New?

Art and GUI

• 3 new full CGs.
• New original GUI.
• New logo.
• A gallery to view your unlocked CGs.
• A main menu illustration that changes as you advance through the story.
• All old sprites and backgrounds have been polished.
• More Demeter variations (flower eyes, cloak and differences when flipped)
• Poseidon now has a sprite.
• Artemis’ silhouette has been polished.
• New VFX.
• The narcissus’ petal is now easier to find.

Narrative and Mechanics

• Improved narration and dialogue.
• A new outcome with Gaia may be triggered depending on your choices.
• You can now choose to fight Poseidon, unlocking a new scene.
• A new flashback scene with Persephone was added.
• Polished the “wrath” mechanics.
  • Options give you a hidden value of “wrath” points, or otherwise take them away. Certain parts of the story may change depending on these points.

Other

• New SFX.

What’s Next?

Now that we’ve released this new demo, our focus will be mainly on finishing the first part of the game, following our established plan.

The script for this part of the game is finished, as are the necessary sprites of Zeus and Helios. Our new background artist, Applesplosion, has been working on the backgrounds as well! We’re definitely already well on our way!

Once this is done, we’ll continue towards the rest of the game, though for the sake of transparency, I’ll say that there may be a small break in between for some of us to work on a smaller project before getting right back to Demeter!

We still need some funding to be able to complete the full game, though thanks to the She Got Game program we already got a big part of the base game funds covered! This actually helps us guarantee that no matter what, the most basic version of the game will be completed. Still, we do have some stretch goals to make the game even better, which I have shared in the past but want to re-analyze and properly share with you once again in the future! Think voice acting, more art, original music and more!

If you’d like to help, our demo is set up as pay-what-you-want, so you can donate even a bit for the project directly on itch! Otherwise, you can also help through Ko-fi donations or memberships. But even if you can’t support us that way, just sharing the game and getting the word out already goes a long way into making Demeter: The Harvest Dies With You grow!

With everything said, I will leave it here for now. I hope you enjoy the demo, and please let me know your thoughts! I’m eager to read and see how everyone is liking it.

Remember you can also follow me on my socials to get more updates (and memes) of my games! I’m on Bluesky, Instagram and TikTok!

See you soon!