05 - Perfect Son-In-Law

It’s Friday night where I’m at, and I just realized I hadn’t written a development update yet. So if you were wondering why this post is a few hours late, that’s why.

At least I remembered in time, so all good.

What’s less good is that I might not be able to finish the next update within a week. I’ll do my best to hit the deadline, but there’s a decent chance I’ll have to delay beta access for Acts 5 & 6.

I previously said this would probably be the update where I find out whether my roadmap was a little too ambitious. Well... it’s starting to look like it was.

That said, I haven’t given up yet. So don’t be too surprised if next Friday comes around and I somehow drop the full update without a problem. Just don’t expect it. At my current pace, I can barely finish Act 5 in time, and that’s only half of what was supposed to be included.

There is an upside to a possible delay, though: there’ll be more story for you to enjoy.

I could probably finish the game by November and hit all the deadlines if I started cutting things or compromising on quality. I don’t plan on doing either. The game is shaping up to be around 50,000–60,000 words long, and I genuinely think it’s the best story I’ve created so far.

I keep seeing that reflected in every part of the project. I’m constantly impressed by how the art turns out, I like the sound design, I absolutely love the music, and I’m still very happy with the premise of the game.

I mean, just look at the image that comes with this post. I haven’t even done any post-processing on it. That’s basically how it came out of Daz3D earlier today.

I won’t say what exactly the render is showing. People who know German have a slight advantage here, but I think even if you can’t read the banner, you probably have a pretty good idea of what kind of event this might be.

Anyway, I was sick this past week with a mild flu. I could blame the slowdown in progress on that, but honestly, I don’t think that would be fair. Finishing two big Acts in two weeks was already a pretty ambitious goal. Finishing one and a half Acts in a single week is starting to look borderline impossible.

You can probably tell from the way I’m writing this that I’m still a little undecided about what to do. I don’t want to announce a delay just yet, because for some reason I still think I might be able to finish everything next week.

Please don’t expect that, though.

The most likely outcome right now is that I split the update in half and release Act 5 next Friday. Act 6 would then follow one or two weeks later, depending on how badly I underestimated the scope of the project.

I also want to say this early: I made a roadmap, but I don’t think I need to force the game out in November no matter what.

If necessary, I may move the full release until after Steam’s Winter Sale and into the new year. It’s still too early to make that call, but I want to be upfront and let you know that changing the release date is something I’m considering.

I’ll make that decision soon. I just don’t want to make it tonight.

For now, I’m going to give it everything I’ve got and focus on finishing Act 5 before next Friday. Maybe even Act 6, who knows... :D