Changes | 0.5 | And what comes next?
Hello everyone to a "kind of monday update, that isn't really a monday update". Today I want to talk about the changes that came with version 0.5. and the future of the game.
A while back, I made a big post explaining how I felt about Covenant of Morn and my work in general. You can read about it here. Now with 0.5 I rolled out the first big change, namely returning to a free to play model with a payed early access, instead of making the entire game pay to play. This means going back to the same model I had when I developed MIST, only that the early access period is longer this time. You can find everything about it in the about section of my Patreon page.
The second change I made, was to revamp my shop presence a little bit. Meaning new texts and visuals for my Itch.io pages and for Patreon.
So far, the changes seem to be well received and I feel very good with them. My idea from now on will be to always make finished games pay to play and always develop current games with a free to play+early access model.
STRAYHERO
There is also another change coming. I've decided to part ways with my editor, StrayHero, who has been a big contributor and a huge help in developing Covenant of Morn. Time over time he has pointed out mistakes and gave me feedback to improve the game. Not even speaking of the great job he did getting rid of all my awful spelling mistakes. He is a wonderful editor and I'm certain he'll do great on other projects if he wishes to do so.
"Why are we parting ways if he is that great?", I hear you asking. And the answer is difficult. You might have noticed from that lengthy post I wrote in the past, but I've been struggling with my work for a while now. Nothing major, nothing that really endangers the development. Just uncertainties and annoyances that come up over the years of doing a job. Recently I've been noticing more and more that I want to take things back a little bit. Take more control into my own hands again and focus more on the pure joy of making stuff, instead of trying to deliver a "perfect" game. Its hard for me to explain, but for now I want to be the only person on my projects again. I feel like that is necessary for me right now. And then I'll see where things go. Maybe we'll work together again one day, maybe I realize that I want to stay 100% solo forever. I don't know, but I want to find out.
Thank you so much for your help StrayHero! You are a great editor and I feel like you've somehow also become a friend to me, even though you always pointed out my mistakes and I'm really not the most graceful person when criticised : D
WHAT COMES NEXT?
Now on to the next part. I'm already working on version 0.5.1, which will introduce the next dungeon into the game and of course a bunch of spicy content. I've finished all the environments I need for the update, have done the first rough pass for all dialogue and have done about 50% of the second pass over the dialog. So much about CoM.
There are still other changes afoot. What exactly? I'm not going to tell. For now I'm keeping eveything a secret, but I'm already working on it and will reveal everything as soon as I can. That means you'll still have to be patient for quite a while but I guarantee you, what I'm currently cooking up will be interesting to most, if not all of you.
Okay, enough of that. I'm back to working on CoM now and I wish everyone a wonderful week!
Comments (9)
Free to play! finally I can try this game, I loved MIST and have been following development every couple months or so, very much in anticipation of a public release.
When will this game "CovenantOfMorn" be available on Steam?
What’s the chance you could make MIST into an ipa, I played v.10 and loved it!
If it's just grammatical problem you can solve it by using either : ChatGPT to help you correct yourself if your sentences is wrong or if you want to have some advice for a better sentence. You can also Wordreference to search for more precise word to know their meaning and if you want your sentence to have a correct context. However don't get me wrong! I've never said that your dialogue was bad or anything else, i just mean that you can use both this sites as a tool to help you write a correct english sentence. I also have some problem to write correctly in english and i also use either chatGPT or Wordreference to help me with words i don't know. They are really useful and will help you a lot. Anyways, i love your work! Hope you'll find your way to your passion of your work. (I drop it here just in case you read it, i wish there would be a day where i could see a remake of MIST, i'm not talking about remaking the whole game but just some minor part of it like improve some 3D environement, correct some inconsistent scene, and so on).
No offence my man, love your work, but I remember when I found a looot of typos and general grammar mistakes when you guys fumbled merging his corrections into the release. You sure this is a good idea?
I know you're asking Rathieu and not me, but I've thought a lot about this and figure I'll share. While bigger swings like plot-impacting changes will be more challenging to implement retroactively, Rathieu could easily change his mind on engaging someone to proof written content after development with minimal impact to the final product if it's needed. Especially with that in mind, I don't personally think leaning away from perfectionism during early development is a bad idea. I'm not saying I'm not disappointed about the change, but ultimately, he's established himself as one of the few indie devs in the adult game industry that will deliver a finished, high-quality product. As a player and subscriber, I'm going to trust in his methods and ability to recognize what he needs to pace himself and deliver again with CoM, even if it means I'm unable to contribute directly to the project for the time being.
It's been an absolute pleasure working with you, and I hope, both as a player of your games and as a friend, that you're able to get back into the right headspace for long-term creative development. (For everyone else, Rathieu and I spoke about this a while ago, and we're still on great terms. I'll continue to be a patron on here, and as he mentioned above, maybe there will be an opportunity for us to work together again in the future.)
I wanted to thank you personally for the work you have done which I consider phenomenal. One of the biggest complaints I hear about games, is the poor spelling and grammar that comes from the dev not having someone like you helping them. Sometimes the dev does not even bother to do this. Even if English is the dev's first language, it is difficult to spot errors since the brain "auto correct" tries to fix them. If the dev's first language is not English, this gets much worse. Even the game mechanics can suffer without more eyes looking at how the game is playing out. Unfortunately the player usually sees many of these errors and their feeling about the game deteriorates rapidly.
Hear you, wishing you luck on the solo journey