Next Project Poll Results
I'm a day late (nearly two, given the time of day), but I just got home (and haven't even finished unpacking), so let's take a moment to talk about my next project - Redemption Harem.
It probably won't surprise you (and I certainly hope it doesn't disappoint you) to learn that Redemption Harem is my next project. It won the public poll with 80% of the vote. It only got 69% (nice) of the vote for the Patron poll, but that's still far and away the majority, so that's what I'm doing next.
As for when you can expect to start seeing updates for the game getting released, you also shouldn't be surprised to hear that the official v0.1 won't be happening until next month. I am, after all, only human, and there are only two days left in June. So, July it is.
When in July it'll be coming is an entirely different question. Even though which project would be getting made next was up in the air, I still took some time to look for plugins and other development tools to help bring all of my potential future projects closer to my vision for them.
Redemption Harem in particular has lots of little fiddly bits, and while I've found plugins that should work out great for all those bits, I still need to actually implement all of it. There's also lots of smaller things I want to rework to hopefully make things feel better in terms of gameplay (if you've played the demo, you might be familiar with how impossible it is to hunt the wild animals), as well as addressing the game's economy (it's way too easy to get rich way too quickly). As much as most of what I would consider to be the v0.1 is in the game already, basically all of it will change at least a little bit, so while it'll still be the same game in concept, it'll very nearly be a whole new game in practice.
The combat in particular is something I want to look at. There's even a poll I want to run about moving to an "XP-less" system so combat feels more like a necessary evil rather than your primary means of progression. If you have thoughts on that, feel free to share them now, but I'll definitely be asking again later anyway. The crux of moving to that system is being able to change combat to a more skill-based thing that you'll be able to get through using either reflexes and adaptability (think Expedition 33) or through knowledge of the enemies (similar to Persona/SMT), and if I can't make at least one of those happen, going to a progression system that isn't based on levels might be a little too brutal with all of the survival elements that are supposed to be there (something else that needs to be revisited, which will likely involve reworking how time passes in-game, too), but that's getting into a conversation we can have later. I just want to start fielding these ideas now so ya'll can start sharing your own thoughts before I get past a point of no return.