Password in 2022 (Patreon)

If I didn't have such a turbulent time over the holiday period, I would've liked to run this closer to an AMA format. Perhaps I still will in the future, but it's better that I bring people up to speed with where we're at.

Password (hopefully) will be done by Christmas 2022.
Honestly this one is going to be a bit of a stretch, and as I've been saying this is bringing the game into beta. What this means exactly will be the first "draft" of the story being finished. Start to end. But only the story. This will be where additional help will be brought on for things like editing, additional artists to help bring the CGs into full render, and alike. The transition from Beta to v1 will be a lot faster given the bulk of the work will be done (hopefully) and will be a perfect time to start looking into things like localization into other languages.

I am planning on having Password published on the Switch and Steam.
I know this has brought some worries along with this statement regarding censorship of material and alike given the content allowed on Nintendo's eShop. I don't intend on censoring anything that is critical to how I want to tell this story, or helps it tell its story. The main thing that comes up commonly are the sex scenes. I'm sorry to say that the game has never really been able to properly provide sex scenes without people hyper-fixating on them, when the focus was primarily the mystery at hand. As such, any adult works will be removed from the game if they haven't been already and left as side-content. Functionally canonical, but ultimately just not important. Look, I'm not a prude, who doesn't like the idea of characters fucking, but that just isn't the game we're looking at. This is going ahead regardless of if Nintendo denies publishing on its platform, and I feel the game will be better for it. Still not SFW by any means given the other content, but as far as sexual content, it's gotta go. Publishing on Steam however seems to have none of these problems.

Will Password be available in any other language other than English (once finished)?
The short answer is 'hopefully'. It's been something that's been requested a lot, notably Chinese and Spanish, but my stance has been firm on it being something only suitable to tackling once we have a final pass approved on the English script. Primarily from a financing side, it doesn't make sense to pay for a translation only to need to pay for it a second time if the script changes, or if the piece isn't even finished to inform word choice. Writing certain scenes knowing who knows what will be easier if you have the finished script in English to inform word choice after all. Any other languages I'm open to considering, but as I only have English as my primary language it's something I'd need to outsource.

What happens when Password is finished?
The short answer is nothing. At least not for the bulk majority of people here and on the server I imagine. There'll be some restructuring of pledge tiers, and a rework of the Discord server and relevant community pages in places like itch.io, but for a time things will be quiet.

Then at some point you'll get a sequel.

Sequel? Password 2?
Yes! Well no, but yes! Password will be getting a sequel. Trust that it makes sense, and that come the conclusion of the game you'll know enough to have an idea of how it comes together with various routes and alike. 

But let's talk about it for a little bit, starting with the title: Syndicate.

What the current goal is to take the true ending of Password and jump forward in time by some number of years. Dave's story has its conclusion and will not be returning as a protagonist. Perhaps as a cameo, perhaps as a side-character, but the poor boy will have been through enough. Plus, I feel his arc will have been suitably complete, not warranting another game from his perspective. Instead, I want to take a few other characters and write a proper crime drama. It'll be a lot more linear than what we have in Password, which is mostly just a scoping thing, but there'll still be puzzles to solve.

At the moment, the story will be told through three characters (though most of this is subject to change). We have Hoyt, a grizzled ex-cop turned detective who still has ins with the police department. Sal, now a cop in his own right struggling in a corrupt system trying to do the right thing...

And Roswell who's there to be a little shit. If only because I feel some 8 or so years on these three have the potential to yield the best scenes while also being somewhat capable to solve crimes. I essentially took intelligence as the deciding factor as to who I wanted leading investigations after some gripes with how Dave handled sleuthing. Also, to get the elephant in the room addressed regarding Roswell, I feel like enough is given in-game to explain why he's around now. If not, you'll know by the end.

Speaking of, the idea is to present it somewhat like a Phoenix Wright game, or perhaps Danganronpa. It'll be VN-esque but at the moment talks have been had about 3D viability and that's where the goal is. Some of the assets have been made already, so once I have a space to start putting things down (probably in Unity although I haven't ruled out Godot yet). How this will be distributed and shown off as it gets made will be announced closer to the end of Password's lifetime.

How much of the sequel has been written?
Admittedly very little. I have the broad strokes of the story I want to tell down, the key plot points and how the story resolves itself. Beyond that, nothing concrete. I have it blocked so far into 5 "chapters" although I'll consider moving it into a sixth should it need it. Do I have anything to show yet? Also no. Focus is still on getting Password done first, then tackling the bulk of Syndicate's work once Beta begins and I can start handing things off. That isn't to say I haven't started the design document, but it's pretty bare-bones until engine viability and alike have been addressed. Plus I need to do some research still as to how I want to present core gameplay mechanics too.

Will Syndicate be playable with monthly updates?
This is hard to answer only as I don't know. Due to the nature of it, I don't think it will be, moving instead to either a big update as chapters get finished (or at the very least grey-boxed). Monthly updates will probably be development updates instead and while I understand this will cause patronage to drop off not being able to play, I can't in good faith churn out full cases in a month especially in 3D.

Will there be any reason to continue pledging?
Another question that ultimately you'll need to ask and answer for yourself. Once Password is done, that's it. At least for the game-side of things. What I would like to do is to write short stories or 'what-ifs' to bridge the gap between the end of Password and Syndicate's start. I'm sure people would like to see more scenarios with David for instance, or what Dave does following the True End of Password with his boyfriend.

True End? Boyfriend?
Without saying who the 'canonical' boyfriend is for Dave, the concept that the game has a True End to lead into a sequel should be one easy to understand. Again, how that plays out in Password will be evident when we get there. Once you get the True End, you'll know.

To help you out though, I'll give you the requirements so you can start working on them:
- Clear Path A
- Across all saves, have found every last Zodiac Medal

That's it. You only need those two things. If you find all the medals first, then come the conclusion of Path A should automatically play the ending. I'm undecided if I want to force the player to hit that point a second time if they do Ending A first and then find the medals, but I do want to have an easy-access to the Epilogue/True End from the main menu. Either way, you can start working on those requirements now, just reach the point in the route where you go through the ones found with everyone in Path A or B. The rest update as needed, or will anyway. I'll let people know specifically which way we go when we get there.

These were the main questions that have been raised to me over the past year, plus a couple others for context. I'll be happy to answer more, and if we need to handle this AMA style on another platform we can find the suitable place to do that. Otherwise use the comments section below and if that blows up I'll make a second post rather than answering things individually. I should point out though that you'll get no spoilers for Password, so don't bother asking about upcoming story events. There'll be a time for story clarification once everything's done!