Feature Freeze For 0.2
As we get closer to launch and Steam Next Fest I am focused on improving UI and UX for players. Any suggestions that have not made it fully into the game by this date of September 13th, the election simulator, and policy editor, will be pushed back and will be added sometime in November or December.
I am at the stage where I need to improve the experience for existing features for the next month. The main focus is on election campaigning as it is still not finished, although I have made progress in that regard. Legislation and governing, the world archive UI and navigation, lastly a few final touches to strategic voting and electoral pacts for their UI and UX.
Because of how important legislating, governing, and election campaigns are to the core experience, and given that it is much more involved than simply adding these features, I have to take serious time to improve these features. Not by necessarily always adding more content, but rather refining these experiences.
Generally, in development, most focus has been to adding features, fixing bugs, performance work, and somewhat refining of UI and features. Because of the deadlines I have set for myself, and the content required for launch, I did achieve the feature addition requirements within time. However, these features are added, they are not in their refined form.
Refinement of major features takes significant time in comparison to adding them to begin with. It is essentially the 80/20 law in action.
0.3 Progress
I have not had much time to work on 0.3. It is not ready yet, and given the work I have on 0.2, It will still be a decent update, I will not have a proper release ready until November 19th. 0.3 is generally feature complete at this point. But it is not refined or thoroughly tested yet.
0.3 focuses a lot on adding 4 new countries to the game. 1 was requested and was an easy add, the other 3 are major additions, with 1 being added on for stress testing. 0.3 also focuses on improving the career ladder for non-elected positions, a heavy focus on committees, and on party formations and party politics.
0.3 adds Canada, Japan, France, and Slovenia. With Australia and Italy being the next two countries on the list to be added.
I am not sure what else I will have for 0.3, it really depends on the time I have. I will of course keep everyone updated as time goes on.