Newsflash - Release Date Edition
As mentioned in the previous Monthly Update, it's time for an early update about the 0.4 release! And there is both good news and bad news. Fortunately, the good news is pretty good. I expect the release date for Offcuts 0.4 to be around November 26th, roughly two months from now. It's not as early as many would like, but it's more to make sure I get my other things in order before that so I can fully start focusing on content production again. As always, give or take a day or two, as my estimates may be affected by other things, but that weekend is the target.
Then, to bad news. I have hinted previously about shifting to a full 3D engine as it has many advantages over 2D. I have been doing some experiments and already prepared some groundwork, mostly experimenting with Unity Engine and Godot. I'm also familiar with Unreal Engine as I work in a related industry, but I dropped it as a candidate because its system requirement tends to be a bit too heavy for my audience even with very stripped-down visuals. It also doesn't support Web directly, which is an option I would like to keep open.
Unfortunately, Unity changed their engine licensing and payment terms last week (September 12th) and caused huge drama in the indie game dev industry. While not the end of the world for many developers, it was a very bad signal when the company had already been making some questionable decisions in the past. To guard against any further licensing changes in the future, I decided to drop my Unity prototype and focus fully on Godot, as its open-source license allows much more freedom. This is especially important for adult games, as many companies are not big fans of them and often try to ban them directly or indirectly.
Fortunately, the loss of work is not too big and I had already been leaning towards Godot as I'm already a contributor and familiar with its codebase. This decision just forced my hand, but it's possible to turn this into a positive result. I need some time to sort things out and port any useful parts to Godot, but fortunately this should not affect Offcuts 0.4 release date much.
More about my next steps in later updates when it becomes more relevant. I'll also try posting more content as the release date approaches. Until next time, and thank you for your support and patience