A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I’m about on mile 990.
Right now the date I’m aiming for is March 8. (Yes, 2022.) That is provisional and probably optimistic. The date could slip back a week or three, depending on how well testing and last-minute changes go. What’s not going to happen is for this to be something that keeps getting put off. Come hell or high water, I’m going to release this game within a few months from today.
(Well, let me amend slightly. There is one possible development that could delay the release by a few months, but this is a very low probability. On the order of 1% chance or less. If that happens I’ll let you know and you’ll see why.)
So where is the game at?
It’s pretty much done (except for some artwork that’s still in the pipe, and one final scene). I am at the stage of development I call the rolling-pin phase: I play through the game in detail and fix everything I see as soon as I see it. No more additions to to-do lists (ideally): this is the phase where I check stuff off the to-do list.
After the rolling-pin stage is done, I will enter the killing-my-children phase of revising dialogue: that’s where I go through the dialogue and delete anything unnecessary or unhelpful (or could get me canceled), so as to waste less of your time than I’d otherwise be wasting.
After that it’s lots and lots of play-testing. Once I’m satisfied the game is relatively unlikely to crash on a wide-scale, I’ll finalize the release date and continue play test until the release.
At the same time as play-testing there will be other things on the side: promotion, dealing with Steam issues, and (hopefully) doing a couple things of an optional nature I wanted to get in.
I will keep you all updated as I get through these milestones. Everyone who played or witnessed the old demo, I appreciate your patience, I hope it will be worth the wait.