Since it seems I have to wait forever, what's he saying in the last update?
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Howdy! I’m alive and here with another progress report, plus some insight into our heads:
Both me and Moana were away to visit our friends and families, due to the new year and orthodox christmas (I’m not sure what exact religion that is, but our families celebrate it).
While we would normally forget about any celebrations and work on the update instead, we just couldn’t do it this time, because it’s the only time of the year when we need to be with our families, apart from birthdays, marriages and other human traditions.
We knew that this would happen - we knew that we will take a break, that’s why we were rushing to release 0.4.7 before the new year.
That said, we resumed our work this Wednesday, and finished what we wanted to release last year in one day. We’ve tested it yesterday and it works, but since we’ve delayed our game anyways - we decided to take a different route and add more stuff for it (stuff that was cut for time reasons).
I will explain what was our reasoning behind all of this next, and hopefully you will be able to understand why we did what we did.
Looking back, I believe we had two options:
Option A - finish what we can before the new year.
Pros: Celebrating holidays at peace, pleasing our supporters, speeding up the development of the game, bring in new patrons. In case of success it’s good for everyone - players, developers, the game and the project in general.
Cons: Most likely the release won’t have the artwork for npcs, items and a shop, which we will then add in the bugfix. Needs a “release date” to work, and we might fail and disappoint everyone, including ourselves. In case of failure - we will lose supporters.
Option B - release new version two or so weeks later, but complete.
Pros: New version will be complete - all artwork and all events. Minimal disappointment and stress, minimal risk and losses.
Cons: It won’t be a “new year” release and we wouldn’t be able to rest with it over our heads. Without the release date we won’t work as efficiently as we can, so it’s less efficient than “option A”.
Clearly we went with the first option and made a bet on ourselves. In our eyes, it was a high risk - high reward type of deal.
To give ourselves an additional motivation and a fighting chance, we decided to announce the release date. We were aware that in case of failure the consequences would be “less than ideal” to put it lightly, but we believed that the reward was worth it.
Because of that decision, we worked day and night when we could (sometimes for 30 hours straight), and almost immediately it became painfully apparent that we wouldn’t make it by the end of the year. So we decided to cut down some stuff - npc character art, item’s art, artwork for the shops and etc.
Unfortunately, even with our “cuts” we couldn’t finish it in time, due to a variety of quite diverse problems - wrong art, wrong text and etc.
Clearly option A was a failure, and we were left with no choice but to announce the delay and watch the consequences, while doing our best to not think about the game and “celebrating” holidays.
That said, We started working again this Wednesday and finished what we wanted to release last year in one day - version without npcs, items and shop art. We were so close to making it work.
You might have noticed that our game has a lot of unfinished quests and locations, that’s because we easily get distracted with new ideas, and we usually move on without ever finishing our quests. That’s why we want to finish the entire gym now - so we could forget about it. And that’s why I was writing farm at the same time as we were working on the gym - so we could finally start doing “complete” quests and events moving forward.
Due to everything I’ve mentioned above, “Option B” became our “Plan B”, and we are now working on the “complete” Defenestration styled gym experience.
Concerning the release date - I already did the artwork for half of the involved npcs and finished the item’s shop art, all that's left to do from “major stuff” is to make a repeatable “fifth” event for the gym, and test out how gropings system works - Moana is currently on it.
We still need some time to finish it, because I won’t be able to work on the weekends, but the end is right around the corner.
In conclusion, our old friend “deadline” did what it always does, it speeded up the development and we, in turn, have failed it (as per usual).
This year we have a lot of major plans for the game, and we will continue to experiment with our development cycle to find the most efficient and pleasant solution for everyone involved.
Most likely, we will attempt this again for the next “New Year” release, but for now, we will stay away from any dates in order to not disappoint you.
Please tell us if we’re overthinking it, and unnecessarily overcomplicating things. I will stay away from all social media for a couple of days more, just so I could focus on the game. Plus, I still have some relatives to see and I’m currently juggling between the game and my personal life.
Thank You for your support, patience and, most of all, for tolerating our weird behaviour, we’ll do our best to do better! 
