Course Correction

Thank you very much to everyone that voted in the Early Access poll and double thanks for those that left more detailed feedback! It gave me a lot to think about the past few weeks.

Initially the polls had a negative slant against EA and I was surprised but after giving it some time, the vote is heavily in favor of EA. There were a few valid concerns brought up but the benefits appear to outweigh the limited negatives. 

EA makes sense to me as well with a few important caveats. Early access is an extra commitment. Sentimental Penguin brought up a year deadline from EA launch. I think this is reasonable and makes a lot of sense. Having a firm deadline is helpful but only if it is achievable. I produced a lot of Transfigure’s content in the last days of a given month during the first ~4 years of the project. I did creative work and whatever I wanted early on and then crunched at the end.

Without EA I was just going to live very frugally this year and work on the game as much as I can to build it out scene by scene while working down the task lists I made (dividing complicated and daunting tasks into smaller pieces). Then I expected to crunch mega hard the last few months to get to a late 2025 release or at least to the stage where a release is possible within say a quarter max. This probably means that early scenes get say 10+ CG per scene and later ones get 2-5. That isn’t by design, it’s just realistically how I think it would end given the time and large number of tasks.

This is the same reason many big games will have two cool cities and then a third final one is a barren shell. This is because they ran out of time and crunched at the end. The areas at the start of the game had more resources dedicated to it. This also makes sense because most players will only see the early content statistically in many games. 

I don’t really want to do it this way but without EA that seems like what is most likely to happen. Despite my best efforts, I suspect the game will be bottom-heavy and I would be at max-stress for a long time. The final product will be good but probably not as good as with more EA feedback and resources. If I was really crunched a few endings could be potentially chopped off and some sacrifices could be made to speed up development but alternatively if the response is positive it would mean a better final product for everyone. For example, I’d love to have some help with animations and a talented voice actor or two would be nice.

I am willing to commit to deadlines, especially if I have taken what is essentially pre-sales through EA but I want to be able finish the game out to the minimum standard I establish in the demo. I also want to finish the game this year or at least get to the point where it needs a bit of extra final polish and I can focus on marketing and other non dev specific tasks for a period before launch. 

The majority of work that remains to be done is graphical. Even with detailed task lists and a bit more experience, I don’t know how long it will take to finish the graphics. 

For example I recently did probably 10+ graphic changes in a day but I added the same amount of new tasks to the list. As I get more production experience my rates will definitely improve and then I can probably make a better estimate. Everything I am doing is already much faster than the first time around. Editing existing scenes is easier than making everything from scratch again and the amount of stuff that needs replacement is dwindling. 

I am already trying out a new development process structured around what is called an MVP. This is a minimally viable product and it is a strategy designed to mitigate that bottom-heavy dilemma I mentioned earlier. 

Since I started making 3D art I’ve been building out scene assets. A lot of them are very incremental. For example I setup scene1, shoot scene 1, adjust, setup scene 2 and 3 over say scene 4 and 5, prioritized in order of use. I do my best and then move on or jump to a similar roadblock. This is the max quality and max time route. This is how bottom heavy games are made. I can even see the same principle in action on a daily basis. The renders earlier in the day take longer and look slightly better, the others at the end of the day are more rushed as I glance at the clock and try to bang out higher numbers to keep up productivity.

The other potentially better option is I do the MVP. Under this path, I rush to complete the game as quickly as possible (with less CG per area for example) and then fill it in afterwards if there is time and budget. Each part of the game will have a more average number of CG, ensuring the game stays within scope, and it also ensures the game is semi-complete earlier. 

At the end it becomes a matter of polish and budget. If the donations or sales are strong, then it gets more renders and potentially animations per area. If not, the game releases finished but not glowing with polish. I’d be happy but I’d always probably wonder what would happen if I had just a couple more months to make it shine?

The main issue with EA is the question: can I fully commit to a ~1 year deadline to make the best game possible? Yes. It will be hard but if there is a proven incentive to do so, ie the demo reaction is very positive and results in extra resources then that is motivating and awesome. I could probably finish the game in three months but it would suck and I would be in rough shape. 

So I need to finish the game to that minimally acceptable level within one year.

In order to do that, it essentially amounts to the same development strategy, just more prep work, more continued game building beyond the demo as I’ve done the past year. That past year’s work is what makes a release even remotely possible this year. If the script was not at parity I would probably have too much to finish this year unless I scale down. The UI stuff is imperfect looking but the features are there. The extra R & D has taken a lot of time but I think it will show.

There are nuances to this as well. Can I for certain finish the game in all its glory by the end of December 2025 without EA? I don’t know. Possible but potentially doubtful. Even with EA it might take 12-14 months or longer from that launch. With mainly new graphics needed I can focus on that area so I am sure my rates will rise so maybe it will take less time than anticipated. However, Transfigure is so large even a low number of renders per area is still many thousands of renders and is equivalent in scale to several of the biggest VNs combined.

To survive EA the game needs to be advanced enough I can be certain it is near completion. Right now the story of the game has its end in sight. The UI, feature code etc is all complete. I need mucho graphics so I am mainly an artist this year. Sound is mostly finished except voice stuff, and that gets lower priority than graphics. There are a lot of loose ends but they are all pretty minor compared to how advanced the project is.

So essentially all I need to do to finish the game this year or ASAP is to make graphics. That is of course a dramatic oversimplification since I seem to have hundreds of tasks on the to do list and a lot of them have nothing to do with graphics. I have a few weeks of writing and editing for sure, but that only connects more scenes requiring even more graphics. 

This is why I spent hundreds of hours sorting assets and doing a whole assload of prep work.  Some EA bucks would also mean more dev hours over the course of the year. I intend to just max out on full time development on Transfigure this year but if I need less other work on top of that then that’s awesome and can only help.

The general game plan is essentially unchanged: keep developing and finish a nice chonky EA/Demo thing. I am excited to go beyond the demo because there is a lot of Transfigure’s best content that has yet to be shown.

To address the ones that were against EA, the main points were that it looks bad and can negatively impact a creator’s reputation if they run off with the EA loot or abandon it if they see low interest. 

Those are valid concerns but not really applicable in my case. There are people mad at me now that I don’t produce enough even though my production relative to income rates are enormous. Customers only care about products. The only thing the general audience cares about is getting a finished game that’s good. EA is a means to that end. So if another small percentage of the audience gets mad that I am trying to finish the game and make it good then that is not really productive.

If I test the waters and get almost nothing in EA sales from the huge Steam audience that means I have serious issues. I can’t really see that happening. I’ve done a lot of market research and I have sales data for a lot of VNs so I know Transfigure should be worth something that justifies the time it took to create, especially if I put in the proper amount of effort to make it presentable. 

This year money is more important but I’m still not willing to compromise creativity much. I’m getting older, things are changing etc and the short version is that I need to decide what I am doing with my life. Is game dev a job I can support myself with, a hobby, or is it something I should drop and go make a bunch of money doing a corporate job I dislike instead?

Those are personal questions with a lot of nuance but they will be decided largely by financial answers.

All I can do for the sake of myself, my audience, and my patrons, is finish the game. And I will do my best to make it good. That I can promise for sure!

Tango