State of the Game - October 2022

Development looks a little different again in this stage. I'm not trying for some sweeping overhauls or wave of new features. v0.9 has been just a series of one liner changes and edits scattered across the entire game for story and dialog improvements. I've wanted to update the progress-log more, but most of my changes seem to have more description to what was actually changed in that one spot. 

There are still some things I want to and intend to overhaul. Encounters, character abilities in combat, more things to do out of combat exploring the map, more craftables, more benefits to crafting new weapons and armor, and the list goes on. But for this latest minor version, I see a very big benefit to improving the story and filling in a lot of gaps where gameplay was being completely blocked or just unclear with a puzzle or objectives needed to move forward. 

Development is also making progress, and I wanted to reflect on it. I see some other game efforts try to get in versions before the start of new patreon cycles or by very certain deadlines. When I was working on very clear cut features in the beginning, this was easier to do. Especially now, there is a lot of coloring in tiny gaps all over the place and so progress is scattered. I am trying to get new versions out to players, but I've found in the past that trying to do so while I am in the middle of efforts then the incomplete stuff that gets pushed causes bottlenecks in player's progress. Whether they come across a bug or some missing dialog makes progress unclear, those are the things that I'm trying to fix right now. I am trying to get another version out, and I can see it easily coming out this weekend. I'm also trying to be respectful of not introducing incomplete efforts.

This is also to help facilitate another theme that if finally coming in. After Blueberry and another theme's efforts fell through, CSMKynes has gladly picked up blueberry. v0.9 is also letting me find more places where I can put in what I call "theme gates" and it's essentially the feature of being able to have different expansion styles and their own stories. I really want more players to have something that they wanted, and this allows me to make a more unique story for each theme. having more gates allows me to change some dialog to be more specific. Once v0.9 is done, I should have all of the art finished and ready to start putting into my plans for v0.10, which will have blueberry unlocked as the next playable story.

One final subject for this; release. I've found out more about release keys for itchio  mainly, and I like how easy it is to generate keys there. Plus this is where the game is already being deployed for the general release. So when it does happen, I am making the plan to provide a release key for patreon supporters. That's also easy to track, and it allows me to not require supporters to be constantly supporting in order to get this. If you didn't already know, Patreon gives me a list of every supporter, and how many times (months) they've supported. 

I'm thinking of making the plan that Patron and Esteemed Patron supporters will all get a key, and any Supporter tier that has provided 2 months will get one. The key can be generated and sent to your patreon email. Itchio seems to make this plan very easy to execute. If Steam proves to be the same way, I'll gladly do so for it as well.
The one downside to this is the split between the current general free release and that to patreon. I am thinking of ending the general free release, and this short period of releases to be supporter only. Or to release the last few versions as paid early access, where I can give supporters a perpetual key for them and the final game. A kind of pre-release deal. Considering it's October and I'm still on track to release by the end of the year, this doesn't seem like some would be missing out. I am open to thoughts, please feel free to message me, comment, or post on the discord how you feel about this.

As always, thanks for your support!