on my end, nothing to show for MSPaint collectible creatures or horrors just yet, the steam sale did a number on my wallet so I'm waiting a few paychecks to get a perpetual license for Clip Studio Paint and Spine Animation. roughly about ~$150 combined, but both should certainly help ease the workload in creating the variants of each creature dependent on the amount of eugenics autism the player invests into them.
essentially, this first project - and whatever project comes next - will create the foundations of the mechanics and work pipeline needed to put together the dream Pokemon-style game later down the line. the first project, as stated earlier, is currently planned to be a horror game taking inspiration from the various playground rumors and creepypastas from the early 2000's - specifically Lavender Town Syndrome, the Pokegods, Glitch City. hopefully, this should give a better idea how I'm expanding on the premise of "two detectives extract survivors of a new-age cult". this will also allow me to build 2-3 of the major locations within the "region" that can later be repurposed and iterated on, as well as the monsters and characters surrounding them, with the long-term intention of offering bonuses in the main game for a completed save file of each project beforehand.
the first project aims to have a run time roughly 10-15 hours for the main story, obviously extended if the player becomes too invested in the mechanics and side-content, tentative price of $14.99. all of which could change through development, but I need to set these primary targets so that I have a finite end before getting to work on the second project, and that I don't fall into the same trap of others before me who attempted making their dream Pokemon-style game without anything beforehand. that, and I can take the feedback from these smaller projects to improve the big project, I don't need foresight to see that!
second project's focused on archeology, underwater exploration, and institute-sanctioned Research & Development (even more eugenics for the collectible creatures). nothing yet beyond that until the first one's winding down.