Development Update 19.08.2023 (Patreon)

Hello everyone!

Only one scene left! 😅 And to be honest I think I’ll finish it by Monday. I had some issues with adding SFX to the car animations and I figured it’d be better if a specialist took care of these. I ordered adding sound effects to all car animations and even though I got only a sample for now (they say I’ll get the full delivery on Sunday/Monday), I’m sure it’ll come out amazing. Also, this is probably the last full development update before the release. I’ll drop the exact release date sometime down the road (next week maybe?). I was thinking that it’d be a good idea to give you a little schedule of what’s left for Episode 2 release. Keep in my mind that these are approximate ranges. Things could delay or get done faster. 😅

19th - 21st of August - finish all the remaining renders.

22nd - 26th of August - put into the code all of the remaining scenes; touch up/re-render images that need to be fixed and final touches to the store page on Steam; rendering the last images done in the background.

26th of August onward - final beta testing and proofreading. Once this step is done we’ll be ready for the release.

As you can see, we’re really close. We have a few release dates in our minds but I want to be sure that everything is ready.

Here’s a few words from Joshua too 😄

It’s almost here.
As Jachu has said, we’re really close now. It’s been a slog, that’s for sure, and plenty of people have criticized the wait. That’s fair, but, speaking for myself as a first-time creator in this medium, it’s all a big lesson learned and won’t happen again.

From my side, some good news is that I’ve just finished episode 3, part 1’s script. Yes, we’ll be splitting episode 3 into two parts. The reasoning is that the delay was too long between 1 and 2, but also with Jachu having to focus on his health for a while, having another monster update will create another unacceptably long delay.

As a comparison, here’s the length of the scripts after the most recent amendments:
Episode 1: 207 pages, 63,429 words
Episode 2: 550 pages, 186,339
Episode 3 (part 1): 140 pages, approx 40,000 words at the moment
Episode 3 (part 2): Expected to be about 200 pages, 60,000 words (based on the current framework).

It’s not a pure comparison, as there are notes, comments and other detail in those numbers, but as a rough guide it gives you an idea on the length of the episodes.

As you can see, episode 2 will give a lot of playtime. It’s also meant a lot of custom car models, backgrounds and some new characters to go with sub-plots and route-specific scenes.
The whole combined script for episode 3 will be somewhere in-between 1 & 2 in size, but with most of the coding, car models and backgrounds already made, it should be much, much faster to a release than episode 2, as well as being split into two parts. The story itself won’t suffer either, with the flow and timing of the halves being polished to serve as endpoints to an episode, rather than a sudden stop without resolution.

As a writer/developer (or even as a person), I can’t promise I’ll never make mistakes. It’s a new project, and a certain amount of undertaking something new involves taking risks, owning up to errors, and making plans to avoid repeating those errors. I think we’ve done that here, and while I can’t predict the future, I can assure fans, patrons and even those that have been very vocal in their dislike for me that every opportunity to learn and improve is being taken.

I can’t claim to be unbiased, but I think once people play episode 2, they’ll see where the time went. I’d also say that while there are plenty of games with longer playtime at release +1 year, Race of Life will be able to provide value for people that have waited.

It won’t be for everyone, and that’s fine. Put simply, I don’t have anywhere near the talent to write something that will appeal to every person who wants to play an AVN. I am OK with that, but, I genuinely think that for people who enjoy a story set in the general current era that deals with somewhat believable characters and situations (occasionally exaggerated for effect—as my Grandfather always said, when you’re telling a story to entertain, it shouldn’t sound like an encyclopaedia) will enjoy what we’ve made.

So, yeah. It’s been a long wait, and that’s on me. But, I think as I’ve shown, I’ve taken steps to address that problem, and I truly hope that when people have a chance to play, they’ll see that the time wasn’t spent idly.

I can’t wait for you guys to play it, and I hope you like it (Woop Woop)!

Stay tuned!