Hello Villagers!
This week, I reached a very exciting milestone: there are now less than 200 items remaining on my "Required for v1.0" to-do list!
There were once over 1,200 items on this list, so being below 200 is a really big deal and signifies we're close to the end.
To celebrate this milestone, I'm doing something I hope you'll find pretty cool: I'm making my entire Trello board public!
This means that anyone can follow along as I grind down the remaining tasks for v1.0.
Wait, what's Trello?
Trello is a project management tool that many developers use for tracking tasks, ideas, goals, and other things needed to make a game.
You can think of it as a big, virtual to-do list. And because it's virtual, I can easily share it.
Whoa, there's a lot there! Too much! What should I pay attention to?
Most people will want to stick to the cards in the first column of the board. They are labeled "Read This First!" and "Burn Chart"
The Read This First card will explain what you're looking at and how to parse my crazy chicken scratch.
The Burn Chart is probably the most meaningful thing here. This is a graph that tracks how many items are left on the Required for v1.0 list on a day-by-day basis, as well as a forecast for future days.
This number serves as a countdown, and when it hits 0, that means Village Monsters is ready for release. For example, the above chart predicts completion by September 9th.
Of course, some items are much harder to complete than others, and cards are constantly being added, modified, or removed from the list as new things are found and priorities shift.
So don't be too surprised if you see this prediction swing wildly around. What we really want is for it to be consistently trending downward.
Does this board contain spoilers?
Sort of. Like I said, this is the same exact tool I'm using to keep track of development, so it's bound to contain info or hints about features and things you haven't seen yet.
However, almost all of it is in my shorthand and wouldn't be easily recognizable unless you know what you're looking for. Still, if you want to go in fresh then you shouldn't let your eyes wander too much.
That's all from me for now! The march to v1.0 continues, only this time you get to watch me marching from the comfort of your own home.