Incremental Development and Plans for the Next Few Releases (Patreon)

Greetings! This post lays out some more detail on the incremental releases and what you can expect from the game in the near future. If you just want to know future plans for the game, skip to the end!

Incremental Releases

As I’ve hinted at several times already, the game will move to an incremental release schedule for “chapter” 11, and if it goes well, for the game’s remaining releases. The past couple of releases have been very large, but have also had very long development cycles. The long cycles have been kind of tough on the project’s financial viability (since a lot of supporters understandably drop off during this time) and also on me personally - you can do tons of work toward a big release and it still feels like you haven’t accomplished anything, since there’s still a huge pile of stuff left to do.

In an effort to address this, Chapter 11’s content will be released in many small updates rather than one large one. The intent is for each incremental update to have one or a few small, polished pieces of content - a quest, or an H-scene, or what have you. You’ll get more frequent updates, and I’ll get smaller, more achievable projects - on paper at least, it sounds like a win for everyone.

Another reason to do this is to fit more of the things I want into a release. There were several times I had a cool quest idea, but cut it in order to keep the release from taking even longer to complete. In 10.0, for instance, 2 of the 3 quests were “main plot” quests - only 1 was a side quest. And side quests can sometimes be really fun, or add flavor and interest to the game and its characters. And I didn’t expand the nightclub conversations like I wanted to, and I didn’t do any new ability quests, and I didn’t… you get the idea. If you’re getting updates regularly, you’re probably going to be more patient with digressions from the main plot. I expect I’ll be more efficient and productive too, since it’ll never feel like a giant uphill slog to get the next release out, so I doubt the “chapter” will take more time than it otherwise would have in the end.

Version Numbers

Let’s talk a little about version numbers under this new scheme. I’ve started thinking about releases as “chapters,” each of which is defined by one or more major plot events. “Chapter” sounds a little pretentious, so I decided not to officially call them that, but that’s how I’m using it internally. Game releases are now defined by 3 numbers:

X.Y.Z

X can be thought of as the “chapter” number, Y is which incremental update you’re on, and Z is for bugfixes (if Z is zero, it will usually be omitted.) The chapter thing can be a little confusing: chapter 11 - in the plot and story sense - is all the stuff that happens in 10.1, 10.2, etc. and the stuff that happens in 11.0. Chapter 11 is about getting Bloodfist - the raiding guild - to help with the dragon. This will happen in 11.0, but a lot of the stuff leading up to it - the commercial district reopening, meeting them, proving yourself to them, etc - will happen in the 10.Y releases. 11.0 can be thought of as the chapter 11 finale.

For the best experience - or if you’re pressed for time - I recommend waiting for a full chapter release to play. (10.0, 11.0, etc.) These releases will feel the most complete and alive, and any tweaks to either mechanics or story will be done by then.

Public and Supporter Releases

It would seem kind of excessive to have the public release a full chapter behind the public one, but having it one incremental release behind doesn’t seem right, either. Public releases will probably be 2-3 incremental updates behind the supporter ones - haven’t decided which yet. So, if it were two, 10.0 would go public when 10.2 is out for supporters.

The Next Few Releases

Now that the housekeeping is out of the way, it’s time to discuss future plans! I don’t know how many incremental releases will be in this chapter, but I know what the first few will be. Here they are:

10.1: Combat and the arena. This release should implement gems and enchantments for equipment (so you can use the stuff you got in 10.0), make any changes to the combat system I’m going to, and allow you to fight in the arena for fun and prizes. I’ll be soliciting some feedback on the combat system soon to help with this.

10.2: H-scene. I’ll put a poll up on this, probably next month sometime. Note: H-scene polls will probably be restricted to $5+ tiers going forward.

10.3: Commercial District reopening. You’ll attend the reopening ceremony, explore the new district with your friends, and probably do a few small quests. And maybe dates? They do have some nice restaurants there…

These plans are subject to change, of course, but I’m pretty confident these will be the first three.

Conclusion

That’s it for now; I’ll try to keep you abreast of what the plans are 2-3 releases out. Please let me know your thoughts, and thank you for your support!