Too Perilous Bi-Weekly Update # 29
So a few weeks ago I said that I wouldn’t be working on the code that would create a more realistic and a less realistic path through the game. Well, that’s no longer true. Like I said, once I had a clear idea of what I saw as the issue, it just kept bugging me. So once I had thought about it enough, it didn’t take long to create the addition needed to allow players to refine their experience into either realistic or unrealistic options. We didn’t need any new art, so it didn’t take long to create the addition.
So now update 1.09 will feature the “fix” that resulted from our community discussion in December as well as the intended new content focusing on Tori and Steph. We will also be replacing some more of the old animations with 1.09.
The other big thing we have been working on is dealing with the ramifications of moving Steph’s confession scene forward. There are a lot of paths through the game hitting that scene now, and they all need to go somewhere. This has been a bigger challenge than I expected, but it has been a great exercise for us as well. In one instance, we created some dialogue that was leading off into a whole new direction, but it was going too far in a new direction. We were going to have to create a lot of art that basically took us nowhere. So we’ve been through some trial and error the past couple of weeks to create a balance in the economy of choices. My main goal is for the choices to lead to a variety of experiences, and I think we’ve finally achieved that without creating a bunch of basically useless scenes that would delay finishing the project. Where we were heading in the direction of one or two versions of a scene near the end, now we are looking at three and four versions in some cases. So that changed things. But it’s all coming together, and we’re still having fun building it.
The last thing I’d like to say is Happy Birthday to our first game. A year ago tomorrow, we started Early Access with Another Man’s Wife with hopes of seeing the game finished in six months. Obviously, we underestimated a lot of things including the intensity of interest some of our players would have with the game. As one player noted last month (And we completely agree), it’s pretty amazing how involved some players are getting in this little game that costs about the same as a soda and a candy bar.
But we’ve taken the interest along with both the positive and negative comments and let that fuel us in both expanding the game and trying some things we had not intended for this project.
So again, we appreciate people not just playing the game in Early Access but also taking the time to give us feedback. This game has grown a lot because of player feedback, but to me that’s not the most significant result. The experience with this title here in Early Access has helped us to shape the next title which is really where we started as writers when it comes to this story. AMW was supposed to be the simple little proof-of-concept game that gets us off the ground. It still is, but the interest from our players convinced us to bring more and more story (And a couple of characters) forward into this game to help bridge it to the next one. So the game has grown, and our goal remains to continue to add to it over time until it is seen as (hopefully) an outrageous value when you compare the volume of content to the price. So a year later, we’re still working on this first game with several months needed to finish it, but we’re very pleased with where we are, what our data has shown us and what the future holds for our characters.
