We're excited to announce that we've hit our biggest and most important milestone. As of today, we have officially completed a functional beta build of Chinatown Detective Agency. This is big. This is probably the most important steps towards completion.
So let's just dive into the details of what this means.
What is this beta that you speak of?
It means you can now play the game from beginning to end. So in purely functional terms, the game is complete.
What is this beta still missing?
It's not 100% content complete just yet - we're still missing some assets like VO, SFX and some animations. We've got placeholder assets for now, but are steadily finishing up and implementing the real assets as we speak.
It's also a pre-QA build. This means that it needs to go through rounds of testing to make sure it's bug free. We have a dedicated QA company to handle this, as the team has decided to go beyond internal testing (meaning testing done just among ourselves and by the community) to deliver a much better game.
We're still in the middle of localisation, but we're right around the halfway point. One of the biggest challenges we faced during localisation is making sure we translate the puzzles properly. Since most of the puzzles were designed in English, we had to make sure that a player playing the game in another language can arrive at the same answers when they do their research. This was a bigger task than we first anticipated, but we're finding ways to get it done.
What's left to be done?
So here's a quick rundown of what's left between now and release:
- We're hoping to hit 100% content complete beta (which will have completed one round of QA testing by then) around the week of the 23rd of August.
- This content complete beta will then be passed on to our partner porting studio so that they can begin the porting process for Nintendo Switch.
- Complete our second round of QA testing and aim for a fully-tested launch candidate version (for PC) by the end of September.
- Finish localisation and localisation QA at the same time frame (end of September)
- Finish off and implement what's left of the Kickstarter in-game backer rewards by the end of October for all platforms (via content updates).
This means that with this new timeline, we're looking at an Autumn release.
We also just wanted to share some highlights of development with you further below.
We planned for 30+ locations. We ended up doing 105 total locations in the game.
Yup, it's pretty crazy. This totally caught us off guard, as the writing evolved over the past year and more locations and environments were added to the list to enrich the story. We had initially planned for just 30 or so locations in Singapore and around the world. In the end, Chinatown Detective Agency will include 105 locations (which include cities, districts and neighbourhoods, and detailed interactive locations). That's over three times the amount initially planned for. And Ricardo has made sure they all look fantastic.
You think that's something? We've also got 202 unique animations (and counting).
Our two-person animation team has been working on some really cool animations to really bring the scenes to life. We've got dozens of unique character models, too (and we're not even counting the in-game backer rewards). We're running at a pace of delivering around one new animation spritesheet per day.
Over 7,500 lines of dialogue.
As a narrative-led game, story and character development are a priority for us. That's why we ended up writing over 7,500 lines of branching dialogue across all the story arcs and multiple endings. As you already know, the key dialogues will all be voiced, and we're very excited about the end product. Our writing team came up with some interesting twists and turns in the plot, and we really can't wait for you guys to play through them all.
Speaking of character development, we've introduced some really cool new characters. Check out their portraits.
Dr. Kon, a genius who has, for better or worse, set far reaching things in motion.
Pierre Danton. Don't you just hate that face? We don't like this guy too much. We've got a strong feeling you won't either.
Ariel Yeo, the heiress of a powerful megachurch. You can already tell she probably thinks she's better than you.
We've got many more new characters you're yet to meet, but we don't want to spoil the story too much.
We spent a lot of time on the puzzles, and they're sure to get you scratching your heads...
Our favorite part of the writing the game was coming up with the puzzles. We've got some pretty cool puzzles for each mission that you'll definitely need to spend a bit of time figuring out. The clues are intriguing, and draw upon some of our favorite topics in history and art. Throughout the story, Amira will run into objects and pieces of evidence that will give you an idea of where to begin your search. In one example, you've got some stone blocks with symbols and icons on them. Maybe you'll recognise what they mean right off the bat. Or maybe you vaguely know which civilisation they belong to and just need to do a bit of research. Or maybe you have no clue and will probably have to ask Mei Ting for some help!
Solve the puzzles successfully, and Amira is one step closer to a resolution. Otherwise, you're going to have to call Mei Ting for some help! And we all know what that means - less money in the bank.
The Road Ahead
Hitting beta is a massive step forward, and the end of development is now in sight. It's taken longer than expected, but we really didn't want to compromise on the quality of the game, so please bear with us. Having said that, our current projection for a new release window is Autumn 2021. We're doing all we can to get this done, but some things took us more time than expected, and we hope you'll understand. Now that we're in beta, we're much much closer to completion.
We'd also like to share with you guys that we have a planned post-launch content update that's totally free and will include new missions. It's our way of thanking our supporters and followers for the support you've given us since day one!
Talk to you all again soon!
BACK TO WORK, AMIRA!
Yours with anticipation,
The Chinatown Detective Agency Team