Cruisin’ Right Along – Roadmap to 2.2.4
We’ve gotten through – or rather, soon will get through - our first round of Completion Updates.
To Recap
The round kicked off with Terra in 2.1.9, introducing the first Exhibition scene into SU along with a slew of yacht content, a splash of Tala, and Harley on a leash just for good measure. The yacht stuff proved to be a bit problematic but all-in-all it was a good first outing and we felt like it gave everyone a good idea of how we intended to move forward with these updates and our new communication standards.
What you might not know is that 2.1.9 was also the start of a major behind-the-scenes shift in the development process. The update wasn’t perfect but it still went pretty well, and we were confident going into 2.2.0.
2.1.8 – the yacht event – was development going perfectly, and 2.2.0 was the exact opposite. Of course, everything decided to go wrong when holiday shenanigans were already putting a strain on development– and thus the delay occurred. Then, due to some last-minute tinkering, a switch was forgotten and the Raven content – the big surprise and highlight of the update – wasn’t turned on properly at release.
From the outside looking in, you might think this would be call for a complete rethink of our new process and that we should be in panic mode. The truth is, had we not started revamping the dev process in 2.1.9 and development still operated the old way, 2.2.0 would’ve quite possibly had to be cancelled entirely – or at the very least been much worse.
While from your perspective it may have seemed like things were dire, from ours it was more proof that we were moving in the right direction with the new process. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, multiple times, and we only wound up a week late. Yeah, the switch at the end made things look and feel a lot worse, but you’re not in bad shape if you can fix and put out an update of what people see as a major problem in less than 12 hours. That’s not really a major issue or, as some people like to put it, “buggy as hell”.
Now, 2.2.1 we mostly did to ourselves. The argument could certainly be made that we should’ve taken the time to focus on catching up from 2.2.0 and put every other aspect of the business on hold until then. Hopefully, throughout the rest of this year and beyond, most of you will come to understand that our decision not to do benefits everyone in the long run.
As plans come to fruition and more is revealed, we’ll take a look back and explain things in more detail. Maybe we’ll look back and feel validated, that we made the right call, and maybe we’ll feel like idiots. It’ll probably be a mixture of both on a case-by-case basis.
But right now we feel all of you will really enjoy and be pleasantly surprised with the upcoming update, as well as the things we spent the time to set in motion for the rest of this year.
TL
R, Give Me the Roadmap!
After the first round we think we’ve made it clear how this works, but just in case, keep in mind that
these are just the heroines who are the update’s primary focus and not the only ones who’ll receive content.
Also,
we’re moving to release windows! It’s something that has been suggested by quite a few patrons, and if the majority of you are okay with it then we’re happy to adjust. We’ll of course shoot for the first date in the release window but, if things come up for whatever reason, you can rest assured the build will be made available within the window. We will still
update everyone if the release isn’t going to fall on the first date of the window for whatever reason.
This will also hopefully help us c-ut down on, if not entirely avoid, bug fix builds in the future.
2.2.2 – Batgirl (May 31st – June 6th)
2.2.3 – Vixen (July 31st – Aug 6th)
2.2.4– Supergirl (September 30th – Oct 6th)
Thanks for reading,
Gunsmoke Games
Called two of them (Batgirl and Supergirl), but I would prefer Starfire over Vixen, either way the future looks good.
