RealmInvader
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April Wallpapers and development update
🕑 Added 2023-04-11 04:51:25 +0000 UTCIn the best interests of my ego, I'm going to declare that I knocked these wallpapers out of the park.
For those of you that don't know, these wallpapers are late because I wanted to completely finish rendering episode 1 before working on them.
Using the power of deduction, you may be able to figure out that I've completed the rendering/animating for episode 1 (Kind of)
I've faced a dickload of setbacks making this episode. Most recently was my PC pissing, shitting, crying, and maybe cumming because I abused the shit out of it to render and encode minutes upon minutes of animations. Factor in the human (that's me) time investment of actually building these animations, you're in for a long dev cycle. One that ambushed me while I was innocently working as hard as I could.
Also; Holy shit making this game has been stressful, constantly worrying about the quality and production speed. The end goal was constantly inching itself further and further into the future. First I thought I could get it out in February, if not, March would be a surefire bet. Now here we are in April.
The most reassuring thing to me was some (impersonal) feedback from my Patrons.
I hosted a poll asking if they would allow me to push back the release of the game to develop some additional features. Particular UI elements, a Gallery, and an important Lore codex are all on the future agenda. (Also, apologies to the two of you that voted for me to release the game as soon as possible. You have been defeated by democracy)
This poll was a positive tick for my mental health. It showed that contrary to my own misguided preconceptions, most of you guys are not growing rabidly impatient with me. Naively assuming that I was working at an unsatisfactory rate honestly crushed me inside a little, because whether you choose to believe it or not, I am working my ass off on this game, typically putting hours into it daily with no external help (other than advice).
So there are a few things left to do before I laser-guide this Episode 1 payload into your family computer:
I need to re-render the demo scenes with the updated character models. (These are not remakes. I will simply be swapping out the models and rendering them again. This will only take 1-2 days)
Scoring - I hate scoring. But it needs to be done. While I don't have the most fantastic budget in the world, you should be happy to know that I'm actually going to re-invest some of that Patreon money back into the game. I'm going to license a few pieces of music. Again, I can't exactly afford straight masterpieces, at least not yet. But I'll try my best to get some good tracks. (Also sound effects... God, I despise adding sound effects.)
The aforementioned UI elements.
As always, I'm happy to discuss things with anyone, whatever questions you may have. Never hesitate to contact me.
Just don't ask for a concrete release date. I'm apparently terrible at predicting it.
Comments
Aeon
This is your first update and you are working at quality, it's going to take time to find your development speeds and understand the cycle. Just keep doing the thing.
Invader Gary
Thanks a lot, man. It's just simple insecurities on my part, really. I feel like I have a lot to prove right now. Hopefully, as the game expands, settles, and becomes familiar to the players, we'll all know what to expect and I'll feel more comfortable as a norm establishes itself. As I said in the above post, the poll was extremely reassuring. The fact that I felt like I was maybe underperforming was the reason I put that poll up in the first place. The story still has a long way to go. In actuality, I would say that episode 1 is still a pre-amble in and of itself. I have some really cool moments I have planned for future episodes. And I'm glad that people are supporting me all throughout it.
Eirnawn
This is technically the first chapter (seeing as the demo is like a preamble or just a teaser to what it is about). Most of us know that getting everything set-up early so your not going back and recoding due to implementing new features is really the best way. I am sure your future updates will be quicker just because of that alone. But honestly, the best games I play are the ones that have a slightly longer wait time. If your putting out an update every month, its usually trash.
