(Lengthy) update (Patreon)

Hello people,

I've got some news I wanted to share with you before I grow weary for the day.

But first of all, I'm sorry again for the delay we're having with this version. I know you'll want an estimation of when we'll release it, and considering it'll be in 0.4 when our girl finally gets screwed, your excitement must be at historical levels... :-P

Well, I'm writing the dialogues now. I've done half of them and I must say they're longer than others I've written until now. I suppose this stage in her 'development' deserves some more love and I'm making an effort because in those polls you stated crystal clear that you can't pass out without extensive dialogue.

Additionally, I'm using a new system to structure them in Unity. Cenvir's dialogue was becoming so incredibly big that it was lagging hard and most probably would have run out of physical space in the editor (LOL!) in just two more versions. Nevertheless, I've found a way to fragment conversations and make them modular, and that is helping to a great degree.

I'm estimating 3-4 more days for writing the rest (which are incidentally the actual drilling ones...) and then 'some' more days to add adequate expressions for every line and test the flow of the whole thing. And of course, I expect bugs.

So... 7-10 days of FULL work? I hope that is the case. I'm not counting other tasks I've got in Trello, btw. My plan is to release 0.4 for beta-testing as soon as the new events are ready, and add those additional features while Bloodbounds test the game.

Now, about the news...

Both of them are related to the fact that I've realized I can't (personally) go on like this. Back one year ago, I thought this absurd working schedule would be just a matter of time until I got my bearings and become more productive with Spine, Unity, writing, designing, etc...

Man, how naive I was...!

There's one thing *knowing* how to do nice things... and then it's a different thing to do them in a timely manner.

I'm proud in the knowledge that LOKR is a one of a kind game on the amateur scene at this moment. Quality of graphics and animations were always our top priorities. And then you also considered the writing nice enough which, I won't lie here, is surprising for me because I'm no writer, and certainly not an English writer. :-D

But... I can't continue doing all (except drawing) and expect to...:

1) ...have a social life.
2) ...expand the game story AND mechanics at the same time.

If this game is to receive monthly updates, I'll need to drop some responsibilities now. Permanently.

We need to outsource things that can be outsourced, which in LOKR particular case are...:

1) Writing
2) Additional animations

For the first item, you must have noticed the new goal on the left...

I must clarify that we're not actually *looking* for a writer. We've already covered. It's Vladimir Romanov, our most veteran collaborator which already gave me dialogue "skeletons" which I expanded on my own, and he's also responsible for several of the NPCs archetypes.

I've been using his 'drafts' as inspiration for quite some time and they served me well.

Now, I think Vlad is sufficiently motivated and familiarized with the game to be a valuable full-time member, but for that to happen we needed to negotiate a compensation, so he can leave his regular job next month.

If I've learned something about amateur game-dev in all this time, is that making games is not a game... and certainly not a hobby you can do in your free time if people are waiting.

So, what I'm saying is that 0.4 will be the last version I'll intervene in creating the plot, character dialogues, and lore.

Vlad will not only write them but also do it in its plugin-ready format, readily usable by me after importing his file and do some superficial tweaking.

That is the plan, and if all goes well I'll be free of the most time-consuming task in this game's development process.

He'll require some training from my side, ofc. I'll try that it doesn't further delay 0.4 launch, but it's also true that we want him fully productive when August starts.

And on the second 'outsourceable' item, additional animations... that's an idea I had from some time ago.

The thing is: my current side models are SO COMPLEX that trying to send them to other Spine animators and ask them to produce something nice would be a very frustrating business.

I've fortunately streamlined most of the workflow and became more or less good at managing my own creations. But the truth remains that making so extremely interactive animations between two separate models is a hard task if you don't even know how their dozens upon dozens of layers are sorted later in Unity...

Therefore, I didn't even contemplate the possibility of outsourcing model animations. That will be something I'll continue to do forever.

However... CG full-screen animations don't have that problem!

You must have seen Kuja making a reverse-cowgirl CG these past days.

The plan is to include that scene ASAP in the game, as an experiment to find out if...:

a) ...you like the concept.
b) ...it has a good content/time ratio.

Considering some of you already mentioned you'd like to see more variation when it comes to camera angles... well, this is the best way to add that because this is a 2D game, and the only way to "turn" the camera is to actually draw it from scratch.

And on the 'ratio'... it's no secret that, as I'm far too busy, Kuja has more time between versions to produce more assets. So, if he could create those CGs, and then we could find a mainstream animator to give them some nice motion... without me intervening in the process... well, that could work and result in more content per release and also more variety.

I'll take care of that first CG animation though, so I can set a standard and also estimate the work involved and how much should we expect being charged for the next ones.

At any rate, what I've realized without any doubt is that time is the most precious commodity one can have...