FEB 17
We've recently made some hard decisions, assessing our previous goalposts of what exactly will make the cut moving into Early Access! And we landed on something, that feels like the best possible trade off:
- World 1 Remix, and the 2 Remasters will not be available at launch.
- But ALL the Classic versions of Worlds 1, 2 and 3 will be included!!
This version of World 3 won't have all the enhancements currently seen in World 1 and 2 - it will be refined over time - but as the newest of the 3 Worlds, it was already the nearest in overall feel and performance to the desired modern standard.
This will give you PLENTY to play right from Day 1, and should hopefully both warrant the wait and encourage many to join us during Early Access! In many ways, this feels more appropriate. Starting with those original 3 Worlds, and building out from there.
This was actually the path of least resistance for getting the Classic Pack out there. AND it opens up some fun possibilities for Brad! We're very thrilled to see that take shape over the course of Early Access. Hang tight everyone. We'll be with you SOON!!
FEB 10
At the start of the week we felt closer than ever. Hence the big tease at the start of the week. The individual games are in fantastic shape!! Then you start pushing them together again for the final Pack, and the surrounding shell starts to show it's cracks...
For example, the master volume control was a little janky, and would suddenly spike to ear-destroying volumes for a few users! We are ok with moving to EA with a few bugs, (as that's sort of the whole point!) but not when those bugs are so aggressively anti-user. Deafening 10% of users doesn't really feel worth jumping the gun :/
I would have updated things sooner, but I was neck deep in Next Fest business. But worry not, Brad has been hard at work! How about a quick tease to thank you for all your patience!
FEB 5
👖 👀
FEB 2
It's a little soon to be updating again, but I (Graeme) will be away for the weekend.
What I can say at this time, is that the improvements Brad has made this past week have things feeling night-and-day better compared to where the game was such a short time ago :D
He'll be putting in some more work over the weekend, and when I'm back Sunday we'll re-evaluate where things are at. Fingers crossed the wait won't be much longer!
I hope everyone has a Fancy weekend!
And thank you all for the umpteenth time for you patience!!!
<3
FEB 1
I've been hoping we wouldn't spill into February, but here we are.
I jumped the gun on saying Brad has recovered. It seemed like he recovered quickly, but it was lingering and snuck back up. He seems to be actually recovered now!
Anyone who has been playtesting will understand why we haven't been able to release yet. Addressing some of these larger issues, often breaks smaller ones. You fix that small thing, and it breaks something even smaller. The process becomes continually chasing down that thread until the issue is acceptably small enough to leave for post-launch. THEN you turn and start working on the next major issue xD
eg. Brad recently had to completely redo how levels were cached to improve performance on some machines. This effectively broke every level, and Brad's main job the last few days has been cleaning that back up again.
We're trying to give things a big push to clear that launch threshold! We want things to be stable, as everyone involved is going take a step back and a hot minute for recovery once this game is launched. This has been a challenging couple weeks, but there's also been a building anticipation about finally getting it in players hands. Everything is being fueled by this raw excitement!!
Both the Bundle with Super and "Fancy Plans" are fully confirmed, and will be ready to share alongside launch! While I know these delays have been disappointing, I hope that this will be at least partially worth the wait :)
JAN 28
Our apologies for the slowdown on updates.
SO many things have been fixed already, but a few major hurdles lay ahead of us. For instance, fullscreen appears to be really breaking things for some users. And considering that's likely how everyone will want to play, it's sort of important to get that working properly!
Brad was also pretty out of commission for a day or two. This intense dev stretch caught up to him, and he simply needed more time to rest. He hasn't been grinding crazy hours this whole time. But it was unsustainable, and not a state of development that was ever meant to last this long!
He's feeling fit and ready, and is already have to work on things!
We'll hopefully have proper news this week. We're still waiting on that final Bundle approval as well. So hopefully that's ready to go before we're ready for launch!
JAN 23
Over 1 week past... Dang. We're deeply sorry for that!
Have you ever heard, "the last 10% is 90% of the work?"
Apparently that's true even when you're talking about the last 10% of an Early Access build.
I've been holding off on updates, because everything feels so close! So close... yet so far. Thank you once again for you patience!
On a positive note, we've all but confirmed a Bundle with Super FPA will be available. Final approval is still pending. That timing works out surprisingly well, as by the time the Classic Pack is ready, we should be able to sell the two games together! That's our silver lining among all these delays.
With that in mind, I'd cap the Classic Pack discount to 15%
With an additional 20% off when bought alongside Super (Super owners will get the discount without needing to repurchase anything they already own!)
And no, the Bundle is not the "Fancy Plans" teased a few days back...
JAN 20
Apparently I only give updates on even days? That hasn't been intentional! If you want more frequent updates, please consider checking out the Discord.
Things are looking and feeling good! In Brad's words,
"the main thing was tracking down anything that could crash the entire thing, I'm okay with a bit of jank"
Bug fixing is now mostly back-burnered (unless major crashes rear their head again). The main focus is on assembly, which should be a heck of a lot simpler a task overall :)
I'm a little gun shy at the moment with announcing a new date. But there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Thank you for your patience!
JAN 18
We're now 3 full days passed our intended launch window. The game is feeling and running MUCH better! Work is being done to reassemble these scattered pieces. Hopefully it all comes back together smoothly... If not, we may need to come up with a release plan that relegates some content to a beta branch. That feels like a worthwhile compromise, as we're eager to get this out there!!
Some good news in the meantime:
- We had a 10% launch discount planned. But the longer launch is delayed, the greater the discount I plan to apply! Maybe an additional % per day? That's the plan for now. Exact discounting TBD!
- Localized pricing has finally been approved, and will be ready at launch!
- Entirely coincidentally, some Fancy Plans that have been in the works for months happened to come to fruition today! I have my fingers crossed it will be fully resolved and ready to reveal alongside this launch. If it does, it will have (almost) made the delays worth it!!
JAN 16
It's now the evening of January 16th. We're about 32 hours passed the intended release time...
This morning, after 48 straight hours of coding, Brad finally had to clock out at ~6am, sleeping through the day, now re-emerging this evening to immediately start knocking out bugs again!
Attempting to untangle 18 year old code in a "dead" scripting language (Brad would beg to differ) is a nightmare. Progress is being made! I'll continue posting updates in response to this thread as there's more to share.
We will have this thing out asap, but I'd say don't expect it before the day's end. Everyone's kind words, support and understanding have all meant SO much! I sincerely hope it will feel worth the wait. Cheers!
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DELAY
The game was due to release @10am PT. Obviously we've now missed that time.
I have a full release write-up ready and waiting to share. So I'll keep this one brief!
The goal is still to launch today!
WHY?
The Fancy Pants series was never really built to be pulled together like this. It spans multiple engines, and coding languages! At the home stretch here, the seams are being stress-tested, and a few stitches have come loose.
While we know a lot of polish and improvements will come with time - there is a minimum level of polish we want to achieve before considering it launch-worthy.
I've already seen people asking, "why set a release date, if the game is still buggy?"
I think people are overestimating how far out from release the average game is actually "done". I've been a part of quite a few launches now - and without fail things are always being worked on until the last minute. You can never predict what sort of ugly bugs are going to rear their head *right* at launch!
OK, WHEN?
Brad pulled an all-nighter working on things, and he's still cracking away as we speak.
Bit by bit, it's coming together with improved stability.
But I think we're talking in a scale of hours. Sometime into the afternoon, potentially evening.
I'll do my best to provide updates here, or in the Discord
-Graeme
(2 Left Thumbs)
