We're Back! An update from Elston Studios, and some exciting news!

Hello again, and welcome to another Elston Studios development blog! Wow, it's been a minute, but it's good to be back writing one of these. There's some exciting some exciting stuff on the horizon, and I'm eager to share!

What's been happening?

I imagine if you're reading this, you're likely wondering what I've been up to. Life has had its ups and downs, but I was fortunate enough to spend a couple of years working with the lovely folks over at Tin Man Games here in Melbourne. I learned a lot, and had the opportunity to work with some truly brilliant developers. As the end of my contract drew nearer though, I knew I wanted to get back into developing projects for Elston Studios full time.

Trying Something New

Developing Guile & Glory in GameMaker: Studio was an incredibly rewarding experience, and GameMaker will forever be one of my favourite development tools, but the project also took me over 5 years to complete. Jumping back into (mostly) solo indie development after working with a bigger team for a few years, I was hesitant to take on another project of the same scope right away. I've always wanted to try developing a game in RPG Maker, and I was curious to see if could use it to build a quality project within a shorter timeframe.

I also wanted to challenge myself to try and push the engine in a slightly different direction to a lot of what's already out there, and I'm a sucker for soulslikes and creature-collectors, so I settled on trying to capture some of those soulslike vibes in a turn-based monster-collector. Weird, I know, but the project came together surprisingly quickly. Which brings us to...

Drowning Ashes

So, there you have it! A new RPG by Elston Studios is on the horizon, with a demo due to drop very soon, and an Early Access release coming not long after (you can wishlist here for updates!).

The project is still a little a little rough around the edges, but so was Guile & Glory when we first entered Early Access, and the incredible feedback from the community helped shape the game into something I'm enormously proud of. I hope we can do the same with Drowning Ashes!

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this Elston Studios development blog! I'll see you next time with a proper breakdown of what to expect from the Drowning Ashes Early Access release.