PLAYTEST VERSION UPLOADING - WILL BE AVAILABLE TO PATRONS WITHIN HOURS!

So - why the delay?

If you will remember, a few updates ago I mentioned that we were in a VERY intense mode of development:

• We had spent the previous few weeks swapping out the Skybox, which includes the weather system, the day/night system, the lighting system, and others.
• We also swapped out the Ocean system.
• We improved the dialogue UI, eliminating most of the visual & interactivity issues.
• We added a few new NPCs and switched out a few old ones for newer, streamlined versions.
• Sneak vision was added.
• We switched all of the flora over to a shader that “fades out” between the camera & the viewer, meaning you will never lose track of the cat, in heavy foliage.
• We added the Mushroos, which will ease your passage during the night hours.
• The mood system was pushed further into place (more about that further below.)
• And so many tweaks/adjustments, it’d take pages to list them all!

In addition, we finally got the tri/poly counts down to a level that was very close to Beta-ready - with some areas showing a reduction of 75%! The downtown area, which used to be the most processor-heavy part of the island, is now bottoming at out 1.8 million tris - which is below average for a game of this complexity.  We also radically reduced and refined the vegetation, resulting in higher frame rates across the entire island.  One of the casualties was the mushrooms that dotted the island - the three-digit poly count was just not worth it...

Seven days ago, everything within the editor looked great, across the board.  I asked everyone if they had anything to add, and then locked down the project.  For all intents and purposes, we had the playtest version ready to go.

Sunday evening, I made the first build...

...and I came to realize a very unfortunate fact:  Each one of those new systems might run like a swiss watch within the editor - but when it came to a stand-alone build, they were only about 90% functional.

Normally, in a game with far fewer systems - such as a racing sim - a 10% deficit would be slightly more acceptable.  As long as the car moves, crashes, and the sound is more or less working - might as well ship it!

However, in a game like Peace Island, where so many systems need to work together in concert, that 10% deficit is additive.  In other words, if you have 10% failure across five systems, around fifty percent of your game isn't going to work.

I think I went through five builds the following Monday.  Each time we fixed one bug within the build, another would emerge.  I screamed at these flowers for TWO DAYS....

What was particularly vexing about this was: most of these were issues not visible within the editor - they only showed up in builds.  This meant that we were essentially working on informed guesses, and we had to wait 20-30 minutes each time to discover whether we had chosen wisely.

We tried to use this time to best effect.  While Laura worked on fixing camera issues within the UI, and Lance continued fixing minor issues with the controller, I tried to resolve a persistent bug with the new foliage  - we also got a LOT of premiums packed up and ready to ship on Monday, and I was able to catch up on a lot of paperwork.

It didn't make the delays any less frustrating.  Yesterday went by in a blur of building and deleting.

But FINALLY - TODAY - we got the playtest build ready!

Now- we usually throw the playtesting open to everyone in a closed "members-only" post, but this time, I felt it was necessary to make this posting public, in light of the delays over the past week.  We feel it’s important to be as public about our missteps, as we are about our gains.

Emails will be going out shortly to all of our prospective playtesters.  If you would like to be among them, please reach out to us at peaceislandllc@gmail.com.  Just give us your Patreon handle (yeah- sorry - these playtests are now closed to Patrons, only - so consider donating a dollar!)

You HAVE to email us, if you want to playtest this version - it’s the only way we can keep track of who is actively participating.

Thanks for everyone’s patience in this matter, over the past few days.  I apologize for our absence - I just didn’t feel I could post, without having the playtest version in-hand.

In retrospect, I cannot feel too badly about these final delays, because we were going to have to address all of them eventually.  It’s better we caught these now, than further down the road.

NOW - THIS AIN’T ALL!!!

In one week’s time, we’ll be releasing a “whitebox” that will serve as a stress-test of the “moodbar/stat” system.  Essentially, it’ll just be a box containing all nine cats, a few beds, a few sources of food, two golf carts, and a few toys.  The main object will be to just babysit all nine cats, and make sure that our current math “works” in a game context.

Usually, it takes a cat three full in-game days (almost four hours) to get so hungry or bored that it will run off on its own.  In this upcoming build, the passage of time will be accelerated about 10X, and the main object will be to just babysit all nine cats, and eliminate any gaps in our math.

This whitebox will be so simple, overall, that it should run smoothly on pretty much any system with 8GB of memory and a dedicated graphics card!

Anyway- As I type this, I can see that the build is about 42% uploaded, which leaves me with just enough time to finish the Playtesting manual.

Thanks again for everyone's patience, support, and confidence!

We'll see ya'll again on Friday, when we have the Whitebox version ready for playtesting!