April retrospective & next update scope planning (Patreon)
Content
Hey all,
Once again a post-release post to talk about how the sprint went, and what I plan to implement for the next release.
I'm aiming to make these every month for transparency and continuous improvement.
All things considered, I think I wasn't too far off in my estimations as most of the last month's planning was shipped, specifically :
The ManyFans rework was completed, that was a lot of artwork to update but in hindsight I'm still not entirely satisfied and I plan to keep touching up these scenes. Development wise, I implemented the clue/comment system in the app
Regarding the interactivity, I'm quite satisfied with the FaceGram additions and I think the comment system can have some good gameplay presence onwards. I'm still working on an interesting reaction system for the DMs
Story is advancing at its own pace, I have some good ideas for what's next but drawing is obviously the biggest amount of work
I already gave news regarding the Android release investigation, which I'll sum up here : I had a working, feature complete build which is great news, however the views have been designed for a desktop platform and are pretty broken on mobile. I intend to refactor the views so that there is no platform-specific code and the UI is responsive and cross-platform. This also affects the feedback I had regarding weird looking views on small or large resolutions. This will be a bit of work but it'll happen progressively, until an Android build can be released effortlessly for each update !
For the next update, I plan to :
Following feedback, I want to rework and fix the save function which is not entirely functional as of now, some data is not saved which can results in some weird softlocks
Improve the flow of events specifically for the ManyFans stream, have it offline first then going back to offline after it ends (mostly for immersion, though I may need to make it possible to save the artwork in the gallery)
Address the feedback I got regarding small fixes and QoL stuff
Continue the day 2 story (writing, clues, and a few pictures), with the party coming up
Add some form of character customization : have a Player Character page in the contacts app (this is already possible though hidden) so the player can change his name/avatar/gender and have those changes be reflected in dialogues
As much as time allows, keep updating/polishing/coloring the current day 2 artwork !
We'll see how much of this I'll be able to fit ! Obviously, the critical bugfixes are a priority, and then I focus on the new content to have some more juicy stuff in the next update.
For now I'm satisfied with the monthly schedule so I'll keep it that way, aiming for a release at the beginning of june.
As always, I'm eager of for feedback so keep it coming and thank you for the support. I'll try to post more on the Patreon page, mostly some exclusive artworks and WIP scenes !