Hello everyone.
It's a time to share information with you.
Trying to avoid making this post as a technical report, shortly - we are close to complete this game, to finish development. It's still quite something to add in terms of content, but main volume of work is nearly executed.
But (there is always "but") last week I have played it first time, from the beginning to the current end and it took me three days. The game is quite complicated, not like just a simple visual novel, fixing one issue in a middle of the game leads to necessity of starting the new game. Testing will take more time, than we expected.
The new rules of censorship. Steam implemented the new rule for adult games, based on requirements of payment processors. So, last few weeks we implemented the adaptations in the game's script in order to avoid problems. We have to remove some content, big parts actually.
We look for a solution as we want to deliver all content to you. Obvious step is to foresee an external patch, but decision is not made yet. Anyhow, it's a big volume of work - to check 200 000 words + two additional languages to be sure we don't brake the rules. Every change in English leads to changes in Russian and Chinses. Our writer has a hard time.
It looks that the game will be ready for release in the end of September. But (again that 'but") it's the Steam Autumn Sale somewhere in those dates. We cannot release while that Sale and right after, so I think realistic date to release on Steam is a middle of October.
Ok, in the end of the post some optimistic stuff:
1.I personally really like the game. I have played it first time and it looks interesting, I enjoyed. I have a feeling that you might enjoy it too and that makes me happy.
2.This censorship issue put us in a situation when we have to think how to continue making the games really dark with content we want to deliver and not to brake the rules. And that "external patch" issue can be a solution which lets us to foresee everything we want in a future games.
We have to check if it's according the Steam rules though.
3.We started planning The Book of Outcasts 2. Development will take far less time, as we have UI, battle mechanics and some graphic already executed in the first game.
Thanks a lot for your patience.
Best regards!
KamtiGames team