- Jul 5, 2022
- 149
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There’s two things I think are slightly lost among the many (good) arguments for why she shouldn’t release it in two parts. First of all: I’m not so sure releasing Ian’s part now would’ve affected the development that much. It sounds like the plan always was to have just that one POV switch, so it likely wouldn’t involve much more than doing some polishing and testing on Ian’s part now instead of later.
Secondly: Even though the original decision probably was affected by the pressure Eva feels to release something, she’s also mentioned several times how much she loves to finally share the updates with her followers, and how frustrating it is that so much time passes without getting to share anything. Eva said it wasn’t the way she envisioned it, but I didn’t understand it as a solution she was solely considering for the patreons’ sake.
It wouldn’t have been ideal to do it the way she considered now, as something that was announced suddenly and she probably hadn’t planned on herself either until recently. But for future updates I don’t think it would be such a bad idea to consider something similar. Either splitting it up in one update for each protagonist, or finding another way to structure the story that makes it possible to release shorter chapters. I’ve been opposed to that earlier (and I’m still ambivalent to it), but with this update we’re probably ending at a development cycle of six–seven months (something between a rough estimate and just a guess), and that is a pretty long time to wait, even if the reason is that the game is absurdly complex and the chapters are very big.
I voted to release Ian’s part now, and I obviously agree that Eva and/or the majority should get to decide. But there’s a whole bunch of aspects to balance in how to decide the release schedule—making a game that is true to Eva’s vision, and is as good as possible; getting regular releases; finding a way to keep the patreons happy and ideally recruiting new ones; Eva making sure that the job doesn’t get completely overwhelming and she experiences another burnout. That necessarily calls for some pragmatism in one direction or another, and I think it would be wise for Eva to consider before the next chapter if there’s any changes she could make that all in all makes things easier, even if it involves some kind of small compromise to the vision of the game. I can’t speak for Eva, but I imagine the whole development process would feel less overwhelming if each cycle was, let’s say, three months instead of six.
