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So just over seven weeks on and how are we doing?
4,500 renders made, over 40,000 words wrote, all bonus work done and sections of the game have started to be passed out to the testers is how
So, not too shabby for a ditz with a single machine.
Sorry for being a bit quiet of late but this is the part of the development where, not only is it a slog, but there ends up being little I can show off. Either because it's coding or corrections (
which doesn't make for an interesting read) or because we start to get very much into spoiler territory which would be a little bit self defeating at this stage.
So what can I tell you?
Tester feedback so far is positive. Very. As an example, Sarah's caverns games went down well (
See how good I was there? I totally resisted saying anything on the lines of her CoC went down well *is good!*) with the game not only being more immersive and gamelike but with them also getting around an hours gameplay out of this single component. It was also, I gather, as funny as hell...
If I can get an hours play out of all the components then I'll be very pleased indeed.
What else?
I did a little bit of makeover work on one the unseen locations. There's a pump room which I needed and, sod's law, no soon had I finished making it than a new asset came out which suited it better. So....yep, I bought it, gave it a makeover and used that instead.
I've also found in doing the animation work that the G3 models I use aren't quite as limber as I would like. Nothing wrong with them really (they've been an industry standard for ages) but they can seem a bit stilted at times. Too late for me to do anything about them now given the number of frames I've made but going forward I've solved this by making G3 and G8 versions of all the characters.
Other than that it's really just slogging on as I wrap up the individual sections of the game, pass them over to testing and then bring them all together for the completed chapter post the quality checks.
At this stage the only things that are worrying me is the gameplay of three of the components/mechanisms.
Firstly, the "Glam" challenge isn't as fun as I'd like it to be and, a bit like caverns earlier, I'm not entirely sure why. Although given that putting that on the shelf for a bit and doing some last minute tweaks turned caverns into a big success, I'll stop worrying about it and do the same with this one and await inspiration. *crosses fingers*
The mechanism that is causing me some concern is the diagnostic database. The issue here is how to ensure it works for both casual and in-depth players. I want the latter to be able to really go to town with information and the former (
or indeed players who have decided that the any work on the station is a waste of time as they're going to recommend it be closed down) to not be constantly hassled by the database chirping away at them. I'll be honest and say I haven't cracked this one yet. My fall back might just be to allow the player to turn it off for players not interested in it.
Finally, and the one that is perhaps causing me the most worry, is the domme path with Chris. Not in relation to it's mechanisms or content but more the duration. The longer the scene goes on the more content it needs as it starts to lack immersion if it repeats too much. My aim here was for around two hours of content but I might have to row back on this one a little. In all seriousness this is, for those who like this type of content, some quality stuff and not something I've seen done before. So if I can pull this off it could be the best thing out there for it's genre and the internal struggle here is balancing the duration and quality correctly. Too much duration without the quality and it fails. To much quality without sufficient duration and it also fails...
And sadly that's about it. August is looking a cert and I have a rough release date of the 19th in mind but bear in mind that this is subject to quality checks and testing so should be taken as a probable date but I won't release anything shabby so don't take it as a hard date just in case. Again, I'll be quiet for a bit now as it's the part that needs focus and isn't that much fun to talk about.
Some
Bored Pilots covers behind the paywall.
Take care, Notty.
