The New Invasion System
So, I've completed the whole champion/invasion system last night and have spent the whole day looking at the game as a whole. To cut to the chase, I think the invasion system, which was planned to be featured during the later stages of the game (7 and upward) is a fresh new element. However, after completing and playing through it, I could not shake the feeling that the new system was changing the genre of the game - from a tycoon to something that felt more like a tower defence game.
I am aware that some of you have shown concerns about the invasion system previously, that it being too disruptive to the "peaceful nature" of the game. While I wasn't sure about those comments at the time, I am quite sure that while the new invasion system is fun, it does take away from the game significantly.
In light of this, I am scrapping the whole system.
Level 7 and 8 will still arrive on May 20, the invasion system was only a portion of those two levels, and should I feel that the levels need more new features to keep it interesting, I shall do so at a later stage.
My current thoughts are that the invasion system could work for an endless/sandbox mode, by providing a regular challenge to the player to keep it interesting, so it still may appear in the game but just not on scenarios. Nevertheless, it is a tough pill to swallow after months of work put into it.
Preparing for the full release
Tavern Tycoon was released in Feb 2017 and so far, it has been wonderful. But, I think it is time for me to seriously prepare the game for full release. Some of the details still need to be ironed out, but the current status of the game is like this.
level 1~6 is released
level 7 and 8 is about to be released
level 9 is almost complete
level 10 is still WIP.
Based on this, here are some key decisions I've made regarding full release.
- The full scenario will consist of 10 missions instead of 11.
- Level 10 will be released before the end of June.
- During the month of July, I won't be adding new features but only bug fixes. Steam achievement will be added in full during this time as well.
- Starting August, I shall be releasing Release Candidate Builds and will be working on localization of the game.
- Release the full game in September.
There are some undecided issues and questions that you want to ask, so here they are:
Q: What language will be supported?
A: To be decided in August.
Q: Will it have endless/sandbox mode?
A: To be decided after the release of all 10 levels.
Q: Why 10 levels instead of 11?
A: I feel that contents of the game is there for 10 levels, and to cater for another level will feel like just stretching the game. The scrapping of the invasion system is partly to blame, but I would rather have 10 interesting levels rather than 11 mildly interesting ones. Level 6 feels like this at the moment and some features from level 7 will be pushed down to it. Consequently, level 7 will have features from 8 and so on. Hence the need for level 11 has naturally disappeared.
If you have any questions regarding the full release of Tavern Tycoon, please feel free to comment. But in general, my immediate focus is to polish the current game, and present a bug-free version of the game first. Then I shall work on having the game balanced so that the experience is not frustrating.
As for the scale of the game, it is not too difficult to expand further, but expanding further seems like an endless conquest and has to end at some point. I feel that by the end of the 10 levels, it should be where it was first designed to be.
This is it!
Thanks for reading and enjoy your day.