Horn of Balance

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• Announcements·9 Sept 2026Official

  42. Tough choices and more progress!

  Hello everybody, Time for another update. There is a lot of good news to report with regard to the overworld town, the shops, ancient beings and a ton of new NPCs. But first I have to comment on the project's overall timeline and scope. The timeline and scope I'm sorry to say that development has been going slower than expected for a little while now, and there is a limit to how much further I can push myself to compensate for it. So I've made a few tough choices: - The release is delayed from Q1 2027 to 2027 in general. My apologies! - The French translations are dropped (at least for now - depending on the game's success) - No dungeons or other content is being cut (!) I apologise to my French-only-speaking backers in particular. Finding a good enough translator last year proved dreadful (and failed). Having looked again, it has only become harder with all the AI scammers out there. Aside from that it also easily cuts half a month of my dev time, including the searching and reviewing parts. Plus that there are still only 29 French language wishlists on Steam right now, making the whole effort a big net loss no matter how you look at it. This was expected, but since cuts have to be made this is the first option. I will take another crack at the translations if the game is successful enough upon release. (There is a portion already translated after all). And I am open to making the text files (+translation bible) available for fan translations, if there is a credible interest for it. This offer is also open for other unsupported languages btw. Also for added context: I have been working on this game full-time for months straight now (even though that was not initially planned and brings it's own challenges), and the more I try to push myself further, the slower things are going. So a limit has been reached. With these measures I can at least exhale a bit again... Town progress Time to shift into the progress that has been made. First up is the town, which is nearing...
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• Announcements·2 Aug 2026Official

  41. Entering the Jungle dungeon!

  Hello everybody, It's the start of a new month, so let's go over the latest progress. Starting with: the latest dungeon is now build and playable for alpha backers! The jungle dungeon A playable build has just now been shared with alpha backers and I eagerly await their feedback. This marks the 6th dungeon that is ready for alpha backers, so we are past half the planned areas.Expect a non-linear dungeon that will leave you stumped, if you just try to blaze through on autopilot. This place is also fully optional in-game, so I held back less in terms of navigational challenge and puzzle design. In fact, playtesters even got stuck a few times (so I might need to tone it down slightly for the mid-game), but also described it as their favourite dungeon so far because of that. I'm extra curious to get feedback, so I can take some lessons into the next dungeon designs. Three late-game dungeons (incl the mines) will be more combat focused regardless, but I might sneak in extra navigational challenges in those as well, if this one also lands well with others. We'll see. NPC's, town and shops It has been too long since more backer rewards got locked in, so I spent time mapping out all of the game's remaining NPCs, shops, shop prices, houses, secret counts and (the rare few) quest lines in detail. And work on actually implementing it all is now ongoing. This little shop in the woods has been completed, including: - One backer reward. Lore on The Lichfinder can be read in the book on the table - One special NPC questline (not shown here) as a thank you for the game's German translator. - The shop logic. (= You will need the bring the witch elementals to have her expand her wares). As for the rest: - The town's exterior has been mostly tiled. The logic, NPC's and beautification are still left to go. I hope to have a functional town ready in a month or so, with stuff like secrets, roadblocks, custom spritework and special NPC logic to be added later on. - I'm partway done writing...
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• Announcements·5 Jul 2026Official

  40. Story intro progress

  Hello everybody, I mentioned last time that these updates would shift more towards the start of the month, so here we are. Let's dive in. Intro sequence progress Kohari is going strong with 3 out 5 special intro scenes now fully drawn. Work on the 4th image will start a few weeks from now (after a small detour to create the last Jungle dungeon assets). I have been debating with myself whether or not to include all the results in these public updates, but they look SO good. Surely just one more couldn't hurt. And they make for such a nice teaser into the world lore.Latest result: The intro story is just 5 frames long, but it goes some places Jungle dungeon progress The next dungeon is nearly ready for private testing! There are just a few more loose ends left to wrap up. I had actually hoped I could get it done by today, but some extra last minute surprises ended up cropping up. Such is the way of (game)development sometimes I suppose. Still, it shouldn't take more than a few more days now, to get it all done. (I've been keeping a little countdown action list over on the Discord for those interested). Once it's ready I'll do a few personal runs first, to catch the most blatant bugs. Next friends/family/etc will be asked to help test. And once it's nice and stable the alpha backers will be invited. More on that in the next update!As you can see on the left, dungeons are actually built using a great many (visual) layers. Other developmentsThe 2 music tracks from last month has been completed and implemented. All that's left is a few more bonus tracks and the credits music. Which are planned for the end of the year.The German translations have been chugging along, and all text for in another dungeon has been complete. The translations will soon catch up to the English state.The bestiary has also been chugging along, with just over a dozen oddball enemies left to name. And that's it for now. Time for me to go finish that dungeon! Till next time, Martijn
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• Patch Notes·15 Jun 2026Official

  39. A small bonus update

  Hello everybody, This is a short bonus update. The timing of the regular updates will shift more towards the start of the month and I did not want to leave anybody hanging for too long in the meantime. So here we are with a sneak peak of the upcoming dungeon: As you can see it is occupied by strange enemies called the Maskari. Do not be fooled by their looks or behaviour though. While at first you might think that these creatures are just shy, hiding their faces as they do, it is actually a sign of bravery. On the one hand they wear their masks to protect from frontal attacks, but more importantly is that it denotes their social standing. Each type is believed to channel the power of a different animal. And by mastering that animal's behaviour one can prove their warrior skill and move up on to the next class. Needless to say you do not want to take them lightly. I'll leave it there for now. Till next time. Greetings, Martijn
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• Announcements·25 May 2026Official

  38. Intro page reveal

  Hello everybody,It's time for the latest monthly devblog:https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hornofbalance/horn-of-balance/posts/4698237The highlights:Work on dungeon #7 is underway and going wellThe first of the game's intro screenshots is finished. (As teased below)The bestiary is about 70% completed Greetings, Martijn
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