Devblog #97

Hey Wizards!
Shady Character One here!

From one angle, I really like this whole "regular updates" "early access" approach that we are following here with Under Your Spell. It is really nice to be able to share our work early with the players: getting feedback on things they expect to see, reading their reactions to changes or improvements that we implement, being able to vicariously see how the game is built-up brick by brick.

But on the other side, this approach brought with it a lot of underwater stones. Every time a new change is introduced, I need to think if it might break players' saves. A change that would otherwise be a simple change of a line in code, might turn into a bit more work if I want to keep legacy compatibility. Some content that is not completely finished or available yet (like the dates with some girls) needs to be properly mothballed, so that players need to be able to pick up the story after it the content is finished.

Sometimes I do everything correctly. Sometimes I don't. And it is good when I can quickly patch things up or find a way to add a patch that would fix the saves that might've broken. But sometimes - I can't do that, and when that happens I feel like I let a lot of players down. That's the trade off. The upside to this downside is that it does motivate me to try and do better next time.

But let's get back from the lyrical parts of the devblog to the meat of it. Last week was not really all that productive for me. Preparation for the update must've really drained my energies. I did some more work on the Third Trial, which I need to get to work on properly really soon if I want it to be ready by autumn. I also did some planning for a couple of girl events that I am going to write next. It would likely be Lily, Ciara and Katelyn. Maybe Gwen. Damn, I do have a lot of plans. I need to stop planning and start writing.

Shady Two had a more valid reason to do very little drawing last week. She hurt her back a bit, so she only does the absolutely necessary things, so as to speed up her recovery.

Well, I guess, that's it for this week's blog entry. Hopefully there will be more exciting news come next Monday.

Shady Character One, out!