New Year's Greetings
Welcome to another update! We'd like to take this time to address the current situation and what matters most for us.
We sincerely apologize for the extended development timeline, the prolonged wait, and the concerns we have caused.
Despite the repeated delays, we want to make this absolutely clear: we will complete this project and deliver it. Cancellation is not an option. We promise without exception to release the game and deliver it to you as pledged. No matter the challenges, this commitment will not change.
Reasons for Development Delays
- Vague initial specifications
- Excessive desire to add new game elements
- Delays and revisions in game scenario writing
- Insufficient manpower for the project’s scale
- Unforeseen incidents, illnesses, and other setbacks
When we launched our campaign on Kickstarter, the elements that were proposed as additional inputs were not yet fully defined. While the team knew what we wanted to achieve, we were stuck at the stage of trial and error during the phase of introducing new elements to the game - adding and removing features which were then understood to be a mistake or could have had a negative impact on gameplay.
Frequent revisions during the development of the game caused delays. In addition, delays in writing and changes in scenarios had a huge impact on the overall progress of the work.
As development continued, it became clear that our team lacked sufficient manpower for the project’s scope. In a small team, even a single person's absence can disrupt progress. For instance, delays in programming tasks by a staff member who also oversees script coding can cause a domino effect, slowing the entire process.
Furthermore, temporary absences due to illness or passing of family members have repeatedly contributed to these delays.
At the heart of these challenges is our lack of experience and overly optimistic initial planning.
To address these issues, we brought in an editor and transitioned to a multi-writer team for the scenario last year. We’ve also expanded our programming staff. While our progress still falls short of expectations, we are steadily moving forward.
Future Schedule
While we are eager to provide a specific release date, we can currently only commit to a 2025 release window. This cautious estimate is to ensure we can provide accurate information once the development timeline is more certain. Additionally, we are in negotiations with publishers, and if a partnership is secured, release details will be finalized collaboratively. We ask for your patience as we finalize these discussions.
To clarify, these publisher negotiations are not intended for additional funding. Thanks to your generous support in the crowdfunding, we have all the necessary resources to complete development. Instead, we are seeking assistance with distribution, marketing, and console releases. By maintaining financial independence, we aim to establish a balanced and collaborative relationship with the publisher.
■ Game Update
■Story:
- Story has been adjusted to accommodate variations in game endings
■Battle:
- Applied a few new skills to enemies' units
- Updated the AI so they will be more intuitive on the battlefield. Boosted the chance that AI would target units rival blessing for extra damage. More about blessing in this previous update.
- Slightly adjusted EXP gain during battle.
■System:
- Following the report, we increased the player's gold income per chapter.
- We replaced some tree and grass assets because reports say there is a big drop in performance on larger maps.
- New items will now spawn followed by progress in the game, not by Deegan's level.
- Deegan's luck stat will now be applied to his cooking outcome, giving you a chance to create dishes of the best quality.
- In low-quality settings, the game will hide miscellaneous decorations on the battle map to keep stable performance on low-end computers.
After the New Year's break, the team has quickly resumed development at full speed! We sincerely appreciate your continued support this year as well.
- Miore
Thank you, Satchely!