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2020-10-30 News
What a week! So the play test went out, Yay! But then it got leaked on the pirate forums and all hell broke loose!
Those who've been around me for awhile know that I don't care much if the game gets pirated. I see it as free advertising and the truth is, 95% of my patrons came to my game through such forums.
Unfortunately, the play test getting leaked caused a lot of disappointment because people thought it was a finished release and it wasn't. Most people were understanding and accepted the disappointment with a good deal of grace. Of that I'm grateful!
I mean, I get it. I understand the disappointment. I've been playing these games a lot longer than I've been making them. I've been there. I just appreciate all the level headed folks who saw the situation, agreed it was unfortunate, and then demonstrated continued faith by saying they still can't wait for the actual release. Again, thank you!
BUT!
The upside to all this madness is that more people played the play test than would have normally. And the ultimate benefit to that, is that with the exception of missing fonts on the Mac version, NO SERIOUS OR GAME BREAKING BUGS WERE REPORTED!
It may not immediately seem like it, but this is a huge deal. Seven scenes for a brand new chapter using the restructured interface and all coding using my conversion script, and No Errors!
That's a huge boost to my confidence in the program we've established. It means the new interface is working exactly how it should and that the conversion script is fully functional. This bodes incredibly well for our future and nearly spells the end of manual coding for the game. Coding was easily 50% of the workload that went into a release. With it out of the way! We're heading towards easy street.
Other Fun Facts!
I did some calculating, and we put out the first seven scenes of Cassie's new chapter in about eleven weeks. That's around 8,000 words (not including coding) and around 450 images.
Now I wasn't keeping as close an eye on the stats as I was this time around, but the first render for Amanda's last chapter was created on 11/7/2019 and the last image was completed on 2/16/2020.
So for simple comparison:
Amanda Chapter 02: 14 Weeks = 340 Images = 24.3 Images per Week
Cassie Chapter 02: 11 Weeks = 450 Images = 40.9 Images per Week
I know taking those long summer months to code and script during the Covid lockdown was a long dry haul in terms of not having anything new to play. But taking the time to do so may have nearly doubled our content output going forward. Of course it'll take a few more chapters to know what the real time savings is going to be. But the early numbers look real good for us.
And did I mention the playtest had nearly no bugs except for missing fonts!!!!
I'm also looking to make a few more changes to how I write that will expedite image generation a bit further by removing some unneeded complication from my story, but all in all I think we're finally on the right track.
I'm excited about where we go from here as making the game is just becoming easier and easier!
Our next big time saving will come from getting the second computer up and running! More on that as it develops.
Have a Great Weekend!
For those celebrating Halloween, have a fun safe weekend. I'm going to spend the rest of the day and some time this weekend writing, and on Monday we'll hopefully fire back up with the Live Streams and work on finishing up Cassie's chapter!
As always, I salute you and thank you for your support and contributions!
Stay frosty my friends!
