It’s been a while since we last made any news posts and it’s all due to the lack of time. The last month was just a never-ending cycle of tests.
We’re basically running out of time here because it’s time for our coder to move on to his project. Most of what needed to be done was finished for the release version, but we still need to improve the castle part. Add things to the first day and create the second one.
We’ve lost two weeks sadly. Some time was lost due to illnesses, some to rewriting the code of the inventory. We hired another coder to build the inventory code for us, but it ended up being rather clunky to work with. We needed new functions but it was impossible to add them. As a result, I think we just should’ve done the rewriting with our own coder.
We’ve wrapped up all the content before the castle, the build is currently being tested by our community. The coder will take a few days to rest and then we’re going to «siege» the castle part. That part of the game has some problems to it but it’s three times smaller. There’s hope we can get it done in a few weeks but then we’ll have to test it and it’ll take around the same period of time. We lack testers, especially Russian speaking ones. Simply because localization comes later.
Talking about gameplay, we haven’t been able to do all the tasks. The option to equip potions mid-battle is a balance-breaking feature. I wanted to let you equip one potion at a time and after that you’d take on a fight with a group of enemies, but it’d require four or even five days of coding which we didn’t have. We left it as it is but added a hard level of difficulty. I tested the game on that difficulty and I was quite comfortable playing that way.
For QTE there’ll be three modes, the standard one (the one you all know) and two simplified modes.
A lot of things have been cut or postponed because we don't have time for it. It's a very hard update for us morally. You know, I’m interested in the history of game development and noticed the following pattern: "In agony, either masterpieces are born or deafening failures, other games are made peacefully." Torment we have already experienced, it remains to understand whether we created a masterpiece or a failure. However, personally, I will be satisfied with both options, because often failures are the beginning of a new path.
As for ETA, we really need to get it all done before October.
We won’t waste any time on achievements, simply because we won’t have time to make them. In a situation where events and mechanics are cut out, wasting time on achievements is a questionable idea for me as a developer. Yes, it affects sales, but I don't care.
Anyway, the next news post will be the release, but for now I have to go focus on game development. For even writing this post takes time which I don't have right now.
All the best
Novel.