Hy everyone !

First of all, I'd like to wish you a very happy 2026! I hope it brings you many good things, both professionally and personally.

As I do every month, I'm sharing the progress of Ellsydia, my casual and cozy little medieval city-building game. I want to show you what a solo developer can accomplish during his work weeks and describe all the creative steps involved in releasing a complete game.

I detail every working week with the total amount of time i spent in work, a quick view of my charge of work, tired level, motivation and respect of schedule delay. I represent it with this scale :

Good 🟢 🟡 🟠 🔴 Bad
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Calendar color meaning
🟩 Art
🟧 Development Work
🟪 Communication / Socials
🟦 Research / Documentation / Formation
🟨 Work management
🟥 Administrative Tasks
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🗓️ Week 1 (1-5 december)

🕙 Worktime: 42 h 35
Workload: 🟡 | Fatigue level: 🟢 | Motivation: 🟢 | Delay: 🟠

📣 Communication / Socials

• Read, awnsers, discuss
• Bluesky, X, Threads Posts, Discord, Instagram, TikTok
• Writing and translation of the November devlog

🎨 Art

• Scenery design and polish (parallax)
• Research and trials for villagers visuals

🚧 Development : Demo

• Demo tasks list updates
• Scenery integration in Godot engine (parallax)

💼 Other

• Administrative tasks

Weekly review

This week, the work was rich in graphic design and communication. I've finally found my rhythm for communication and socials tasks. In deed, I check my socials accounts in the morning before starting creative work to stay focused throughout the day.

On the graphics side, I've almost finished all my list of visual assets needed for the Steam Next Fest Demo. After a long time, I finally opened Godot to integrate all scenery assets for the parallax effect of the game.

At the end of week, I started working on villagers visuals. After several researches and trials, I finally found the syle I wished to represent villagers and I'll start drawing them next week!

🗓️ Week 2 (8-12 december)

🕙 Worktime: 38 h 00
Workload: 🟢 | Fatigue level: 🟡 | Motivation: 🟢 | Delay: 🟠

📣 Communication / Socials

• Read, awnsers, discuss
• Bluesky, X, Threads Posts, Discord, Instagram, TikTok

⚙️ Gamedesign

• Content adjustments proposed for the demo

🎨 Art

• Villager design
• Villager animation

Weekly review

This week, working hours were average and I mainly worked on the design and animation of the villagers. To speed up and optimize my animation work, I created different body parts of characters in separate files to import them all as a "File Layer" into a template image in Krita. This template contains all keyframes for the walking animation. Thanks to this feature, every modification I make on one of these body's layer is automaticaly reflected in the main template file which contains animations.

The deadline for the Steam Next Fest is fast approching and the delays on my development schedule are becoming too significant. It's the reason why I've again modified the content proposed for the Next Fest demo.

On the physical side, I felt a bout of fatigue in the middle of the week. Because I wasn't productive and I was literally falling asleep in front of my screen. I preferred to take a nap, which allowed me to rest completely and recharge my batteries! Little advice: Always listening his body and don't insist to work on fatigue effect because we are always less productive and efficiency, but above all, you will damage your physical and mental health!

🗓️ Week 3 (15-19 december)

🕙 Worktime: 44 h 15
Workload: 🟡 | Fatigue level: 🟡 | Motivation: 🟢 | Delay: 🟡

📣 Communication / Socials

• Read, awnsers, discuss
• Bluesky, X, Threads Posts, Discord, Instagram, TikTok

🎨 Art

• Villager design
• Villager animation
• Villager export

💼 Other

• Administrative tasks

Weekly review

Last work week dedicated to the villagers graphics design will be offered in the February's Steam Next Fest demo. I've initially plan to implement four variation of villagers clothes, but I finally decided to only design two variation to respect my developpement schedulle and to avoid excessive delay on my developement schedule. I'll see if these two variants will ultimately be sufficient for the complete game.

On end of week, I finished all assets exporting work thanks to a Krita's script I've made to accelerate this task which is not the most exciting part of development.

Next week, I'll integrate all these graphic elements into Godot engine and resume the code part of the game demo. I'll also update Steam capsules with all new graphics and prepare a press kit 😰 But most importantly, I'm going to take a break for holidays with my familly.

🗓️ Week 4 (22-26 december)

🕙 Worktime: 22 h 25
Workload: 🟢 | Fatigue level: 🟠 | Motivation: 🟡 | Delay: 🟡

📣 Communication / Socials

• Read, awnsers, discuss
• Bluesky, X, Threads Posts, Discord, Instagram, TikTok

🚧 Development : Demo

• Tools creation
• Villagers integration into Godot engine

Weekly review

Short week of work because I got sick! Nothing bad, a little flu that was hanging around there, but enough to annoy me to progress in my work correctly. I still took advantage on moment when I was at my best to working on villagers integration into Godot engine. I also took advantage to made a small tool which allow me to automatically rename, compress and export into PNG format, and finally place all files into Sprites Sheets with Free Texture Packer software. With the significant amount of game assets, the creation of this tool will avoid me to waste too much time in repetitive and fastidious tasks!

Little break in the middle of the week to celebrate Christmas! Even if the flu effects made me sleep on my feet for a good part of the evening, it was a great moment spent with my family. On the other hand, it really goes too quickly, and I regret don't have a "Slow Motion" feature to prolong this pleasure a little more!

🗓️ Week 5 (29 december-02 january)

🕙 Worktime: 41 h 00
Workload: 🟠 | Fatigue level: 🟡 | Motivation: 🟢 | Delay: 🟡

📣 Communication / Socials

• Read, awnsers, discuss
• Bluesky, X, Threads Posts, Discord, Instagram, TikTok

🚧 Development : Demo

• Buildings integration into Godot
• Creation of the building customization system
• Random generation of villagers types
• Change the game's default resolution to QHD

Weekly review

A busy week, almost entirely dedicated to integrating building assets. As I did the previous week with the villagers, I used a script that allowed me to automatically export everything and place it all into sprite sheets.

I also created the building customization system. Since the user interface had already been created, all I had to do was link the various interactions (choosing facade colors, etc.).

I also programmed the random generation of villagers, which provides visual variation and prevents monotony and eye strain for players.

I took advantage of this integration session to change the game's default resolution to QHD (2560x1440 pixels).

📈 December review

Workload: 🟡 | Fatigue level: 🟡 | Motivation: 🟢 | Delay: 🟡

This month has been packed with graphic work and allowed me to finish all the graphic elements that will be included in the demo for the February Steam Next Fest. The game is really starting to take shape. Of course, there's still a lot of work to do, but it feels great to see all these improvements. Now, I'll mainly be focusing on programming and implementing all the missing systems, like the recipe system I've planned for buildings such as the tavern and the inn. I hope everything will be ready in time for the February Next Fest so I can check off one of my goals set at the beginning of production.

A quick update on wishlists! Well, it's not huge yet, but the total number is increasing despite the first wishlist deletions 😢 I currently have 34 wishlists and 3 deletions. I hope the changes I'm going to make to the Steam page will boost things a bit!

We've reached the end of this December report/devlog.

See you next month for a new report, new information, new wishlist stats, and most importantly, a demo for the game if all goes well.

Also, if you haven't already, you can add Ellsydia to your wishlist! This will show Steam that people are interested in my little game 🥰

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4159160/Ellsydia

See you next month for a new report!

Thank you for reading 🙏