Quest Failed - Feburary Rewards Sent Out + Alpha Status Update (Patreon)

Heya there!

As promised, all of the rewards SHOULD be sent out now to all of those eligible! Please check your inboxes!

As a brief reminder, this is what you should have got if you were on the following tiers:

$10 tier - Quest Failed: Chapter One (Version 1.1)
$15 tier - Bonus Art (Featuring Bella, ohoho~)
$25 tier - Quest Failed: Chapter Two Alpha (0.9)

If you have yet to receive your reward and believe you should have, please don't hestiate to get in touch via email, PM or comment and I'll do my best to help you and make sure we sort things out!

Thanks again~ Let's have a super lovey-dovey February filled with Valentines' Day goodness!

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And now, if you're still with me--don't leave just yet, uwawa--I'd like to take a moment to address the status of the impending new alpha build, and the general development of the game. I'll still have the regular development logs to follow in the coming days, but felt like I should address what I'm sure is the biggest question of a lot of peoples' minds.

First of all, I'd like to thank you for your immense patience regarding the development of Chapter Two. I truly feel blessed to be backed by people that are as patience and supportive as you guys. As truthfully there's always been a worry at the back of my mind that I might end up upsetting you all by taking this long and risk turning everyone against me and spoiling all of the goodwill I may have had. Since all too often I've seen this happen in communities where games are in development, whereby people may revolt or express anger towards the developers. All things considered, you guys have been absolutely wonderful to continue to engage with and develop for. It actually makes me a little scared, as if this is all to lure me into a false sense of security before you all jump me! (I kid, I kid, haha)

So don't worry--this update wasn't sparked by an onslaught of anybody harassing or asking me constantly, this is just more because I've been stressing over it myself and want to try and keep everybody up to date with what's going on, because I feel I owe it to you all. This is my own decision to try to be more transparent on things.

So--the status of 0.10. Where is it, and why is it taking so long? It's been a little while since 0.9, definitely. Truthfully it scares me to even look back at how long that might been just because of the guilt of how long I've been taking. But I think we can all agree it's been a while.

And mostly this all stems from the fact that I wanted 0.10 to be a substantial update on the game compared to the other builds. I wasn't happy with how alpha updates were only adding a few h-scenes at a time, and still keeping the main story at bay without progressing it in any meaningful way, focusing almost entirely on the side content.

I also had a large amount of assets that I hadn't found time to implement just sitting by unused, such as the new menu graphics which I desperately wanted to put in so the game felt like its own thing, rather than just a bolted on version of Chapter One.

So with this in mind, I the plans I wanted for 0.10 were:

- A large upgrade on the old UI system of before
- Have substantial writing done for the main scenario
- Have side h-scenes, as I feel these have always been a large attraction of the game
- Adding in smaller scenarios with some characters (small CG scenes you can stumble upon, not necessarily h-scenes)

And I'm very happy to say that I've followed through with all of these, with most of the new UI implemented, a large amount of the main scenario's first part written, and then all of the side event stuff, too.

It's become increasingly apparent to me that my way of developing Chapter Two definitely doesn't mesh well with frequent builds that get pushed out to the testers, largely in part due to the open-ended, non-linear style of the game.

Unlike Chapter One where it's just from Point A to point B, with some stuff veering here and there depending on choices, Chapter Two is a large web of inter-connecting events that stretch out from multiple points and loop back around themselves, often in complex ways. I've talked about this in previous dev logs, but what I maybe didn't quite cover was that this often lends to a chaotic means of writing.

When I write events, it doesn't necessarily go as follows:

- Write sub event A completely, move on to the next event
- Write sub event B completely, move on to the next event

But rather, it goes a little more like this:

- Partially write sub event A and lay out the foundations for it as inspiration hits me
- Move on to sub event B while feeling stuck on the other event, not wanting to waste time and build it up in the same way
- Start writing the main story while the other two sub events are still in a state of flux, with notes and outlines dictating how I'll finish them later
- Flip between the events as the mood strikes me between each one and the ideas surface, steadily building each one up over time

A little messy, right? (Okay, it's very messy. It's even embarrassing to admit aaaa)

As you can see--the way I progress on the scripts, just like the game, is also VERY non-linear. One day I could be working on one scene as I got amazing ideas for it the previous night, and the next I could be on another scene, not wanting to waste the day with a writer's block for that scene.

In this fashion, plenty of words DO get written--but each scene builds up slowly as a result.

As I say, this chaotic style of development doesn't lend itself to neat and tidy builds that can be wrapped up and put out in a fast manner.

So for alpha 0.10, I have plenty lined up, and it's shaping to be one of my biggest updates ever--it's just been taking a little longer to tie everything up due to how many more scenes there are than usual, mixed with my open-ended approach to the script-writing.

The story segment will have plenty of branching things within it, that will be tied to progression to previous characters found in the city, and the side events will offer a bunch of fun new scenarios in which I've been treading new ground in terms of h-scenes.

Though the more I explain the way I develop to you, the more I realise I could probably stand to organise things a bit more in subsequent builds--and even in Chapter 3 and beyond. As I say, I've learned a LOT of lessons in my approach to Chapter 2--and while I don't consider this chapter bad by any means (in fact I'm proud of how it's become my largest story ever thus far)--you can definitely be sure I'll be taking a very careful approach to Chapter 3 to maintain a less chaotic workflow.

Now, after all this rambling, you're probably thinking "yes, yes, that's all very well and good, Frost, but where is the BUILD?!" to which I'll say:

This month. I will release alpha 0.10 this month. Alpha 0.10 is coming this month!

Now, I've tried to stray away from promising strict dates in recent months due to the stress it usually puts on me in the lead up to the release, but in this case I think a little pressure is needed to wrap up a lot of these loose ends keeping the build from being pushed out. I feel I owe everybody this much!

And the build will launch with 3 new h-scenes, 2 event CGs, and a large stretch of text for the main story (which also has its own CGs in places.) Complete with all the new UI stuff of course.

Depending on how soon I wrap up these 3 h-scenes in relation to the other content in the build, this new h-scenes may or may not be voiced until the next build--but there's a good chance at least one will, no matter what, due to the schedules of one VA working out perfectly. The 2 event CGs however are already fully voiced, since they're small scenes.

In the meantime, if you have any questions regarding anything brought up here, or anything about Quest Failed in general, or if you just want to say hi, feel free to post a comment below, PM me, email me, or even check in on the Discord server. (We're all pretty chill there!)

Sorry again for dragging my feet with this, but I'm confident things are coming along!

Until next time~