Tickling RPG Update #7 (Patreon)

What we're planning

Right now, I am planning on entering alpha phase sometime early summer.  Alpha phase means the initial development is done.  But the game is probably buggy in places, could use some more love and interaction in spots, and certainly could always use some balance fine tuning amongst the classes to ensure they're all viable.  This phase will just be me and the producer(s) testing the game.

I want to enter beta phase by late summer.  Our Patreon supporters will receive beta invites to the game.  I am hoping at this stage the game is stable and only small bugs remain, although there could be many of them.  I will be adding new features based on user feedback.  I will be leaning on beta testers heavily for feedback, as this is the first time the game will be opened up to a larger audience.

I want to fully launch the game by winter of 2022.

So how are we tracking on those goals?

I am writing this entry with not a small amount of emotion behind it.  I don't know if these are tears of joy, tears of frustration, anger or...oh wait, there's not really tears at all.  But I am very happy to announce we have officially launched the alpha version of the game!  I wanted to release it "early summer" which to me meant sometime in June-ish.  So we remain slightly ahead of schedule on the development front.

These last two weeks have been an absolute mess, train wreck, fustercluck, odyssey, and learning experience all on one.  It started with me doing my second playthrough of the game in test mode, theoretically putting it into alpha state.  Somewhere between me testing positive for COVID, realizing I had conflicts somewhere in my javascript that only express themselves when the game build is finally constructed, as opposed to the sandbox playtest area, and finding out how poor the performance is for the game when it's webhosted, I've learned a lot.  Right now for the alpha testers I am creating just one .exe file that contains all the data files within.  Very clean.  I'm unsure if I'll head into beta and then proudction like that, but it's sure simple.

It is beyond exhilerating to say we are officially in alpha.  This project has been a twinkled in my eye since forever.  I took the plunge late last year, and have been deep in development for about four months straight.

The artwork is lagging behind a bit.  I'm not worried about it quite yet, as it should keep filtering in during alpha/beta stages.  But I think most would agree the sooner it's in there the better.

The Main Character

Besides a general update on how we're progressing on the game, I wanted to reveal something fun about the game: the main character!

Lucia is a proud Sergeant Major of Fallung's 3rd Royal Guard regiment.  A young woman in her early twenties, Lucia has risen to prominance as a bold leader, skilled swordswoman, and wielder of the arcane arts. She serves at the behest of Princess Katrine, as part of the Princess' special troops to protect and serve the Aedylon Empire, especially the royalty.  Lucia answers frequently to Simone (first appearing in Cyriaan Chronicles #6).  Simone handles much of the administration tasks of the Royal Guard. 

Lucia's father Walter died when Lucia was quite young.  She does not have many memories of him.  Her mother, Gwendolyn, raised her virtually alone in Fallung, and and the two remain close to this day.

When playing the game as Lucia, the player has two choices of skills they can pursue with her:

Bladedancer.  The bladedancer combines grace, speed, and precision in slicing foes on the battlefield.  Bladedancers move along with their blade in a hypnotic rhythm, becoming one with their weapon.  They are fierce protectors of their allies.  In traditional RPG lingo, this class is more a tank/support class.

Elemental Mage.  The elemental mage studies a variety of spells and can rain down fire, rock, water, or lightning upon their foes through bolts and storms.  Each enemy has an elemental strength and weakness, and the elemental mage excels at seeking out these weaknesses and exploiting them.  In traditional RPG lingo, this class is a DPS class.