Current Roadmap / v0.1.15.1 up tomorrow! (Patreon)

Hey guys, sorry that the story mode update is taking a bit longer than expected - once we decoupled it from the rest of the new update we figured we'd put a bit more into it and make it its own mini-patch. Also I may have spent a few hours writing up a more detailed project plan for 2017, starting with this post. Anywho! For those who have the dropbox link, v0.1.15.0 has been up since yesterday, satisfying all your gobbo, face-sitting and inventory needs.

While we're at it, we also want to start giving y'all more insight into what's coming down the pike and what we have planned - in later posts, we'll have a deep dive into the combat system and one into the map, but for now, I wanted to talk about where we're at in development.

It's a bit of a double edged sword having players see the game in this early state - on the one hand, we're getting a ton of useful feedback, ToA has already drummed up a ton of interest that is getting us support to make it bigger and better, and it's exciting to see players react to what's already there with so much optimism and enthusiasm.

On the other hand, there are some mismatched expectations, because it can be nearly impossible to tell where a game is in the development cycle. You're going to have a very different picture of what the final game will look like if you think this is nearly the final product already vs. thinking that this is really early in development.

So, then, where are we? Breaking down the current version number:

v0.1.15.1

The first (internal) version was

v0.0.00.0

That first 0 signifies that this is pre-release. When that's a 1, the game is live, and any new releases from us are patches, updates, and content packs. That's a ways ways off, so if we look at the smaller numbers...

Moving onto the second 0 - this is the major (pre)-release. When that was 0, that meant the game was still in the initial engine build out - major systems and concepts like input/output, screen management, and state/save management were being built. Now that those are done, we're at version 0.1 - building out the major game systems, like the world map, battles, and encounters.

The third and fourth 0's are a pair, just because, as we've seen (being at 0.1.15 right now), there's a lot of minor versions in there. You've seen this pair increment as we've released new versions to you guys, with incremental changes to those major systems and new assets.

The final 0 is the patch version - this is just a way to differentiate between the version BEFORE we messed something up and the version AFTER. So if we release v0.1.16.0 and it turns out that it replaces all the wolf-girls in the game with lizard-girls by accident, the version that fixes that will be v0.1.16.1.

So, given all that, the next big milestone is v0.2.00.0 - the second major (pre)-release. At this point, the core systems will all be ready, and the game will be in a playable, if very lean, state. That doesn't mean there won't be major overhauls or changes to those systems past that point, but they won't be in such an obviously unfinished state. Right now, large portions of the core gameplay systems aren't really in place, and there's plenty of development placeholders, most notably on the world map and in the UI, that need to be finished before we increment the major version number.

I can't really hazard a guess as to when we'll be going to v0.2.00.0 - all I can confidently say is that it won't be before we hit v0.1.20.0. There's still a ton of work to be done before we can get to pure content generation and tweaks.

What that means is that the current game is a mixture of the finished work we've done so far, the placeholder work that we're going to re-visit later, and the unfinished work that's waiting for other things to be built before it can become truly finished, and there's a pretty heavy slant towards that last category when it comes to both content and gameplay elements, because we're still early in development.

Our plans for 0.1.16.0 and 0.1.17.0 are to introduce all of the myriad uses of Agility, Endurance, and Perception in combat, which will really start to shape how combat is actually going to flow (including context sensitive attacks, bleeding, enemy skill reading and others), which will reduce the current dominance of Strength and the need to zerg enemies down. We'll also be implementing item use in combat, expanding the character screen to display equipment, and beginning the first real character "quirk" accumulation that will come to define how your character becomes invevitably more and more changed by their adventure, and will probably be the cause of its end - that is, unless you can keep them on the virtuous path.

That is the goal, isn't it?