Anon42
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Weekly Update - 4-19-2020 (Reducing v0.39's scope, general update)
🕑 Added 2020-04-19 16:59:33 +0000 UTCHey everyone. Apologies if anyone hoped this would be a great update, but it's gonna be a bit of a bummer. There's less than 2 weeks left in the month, and I'm staring down the barrel of a theoretical gun made up of aaaalll the missing assets needed for v0.39 as it was originally planned, and nowhere near enough time to finish all of them. On top of that, I've been dealing with a lot of aches and pains lately, probably stress-fueled, and some pretty bad burnout.
This has been a really intense development cycle; introducing an entire new area that had almost no assets ready yet, a new enemy, several new H-scenes, a large amount of new rooms to explore (the new area was going to have about as many places as the entire current Catacombs does, and the development of the Catacombs was split across multiple updates), accessibility features, WELL over a hundred new voice lines spread across several cutscenes and conversations in an attempt to catch the game's story up to where our level design has already reached.. It's been an astronomical amount of work, and despite working more and harder than I ever have since CPE started, it just hasn't been enough. I truly don't have the energy left in me to delay the update's release and keep crunching like this for another few weeks, so at this point, for the sake of my mental and physical health, I'm pretty much left with no option other than to reduce the scope of the update, and push some things back that I wanted to be in this one. I understand this is disappointing, and I'm very sorry for it. I'm still going to try and get this update out before the month ends, but it will most likely be missing these things:
-About half of the planned rooms in the new area
-Some optimization work I wanted to do in the new area (there's one VERY large room in the new area that might end up lagging a bit on weaker computers, sorry, I'll be optimizing that room when I can)
-Most of the new cutscenes and conversations (a lot of them were tied to the places in the new area that I won't be completing)
-The Torguis CG
-The new enemy's H-scene (there will still be the regular Kertalus H-scene, and probably a cutscene H-animation (not a full scene, just a loop))
-Some background details and polish in the new area
-Some animations and graphics will be WIP, instead of complete, polished assets
I'm really sorry for anyone disappointed by this. I know I am, I wanted v0.39 to be the biggest update in the history of CPE's development. There will still be a decent amount of stuff to see in here, it's not going to be a pitiful update or anything, it's just not going to be monstrous like I wanted it to be.
As far as what I got done this week, I've just been plugging away at the things I mentioned in last week's update, and there's not really anything visual to show off I'm afraid. I got one of the new cutscenes and some new conversations implemented this week, finished up the new enemy's functionality (though his animations are still WIP), implemented the "Story" difficulty level (for a total of 4 difficulties) where the game is much, much easier than our previous easiest difficulty, did some more level design and polish, as well as some other stuff. Sorry I haven't been streaming, I'm hoping to pick it up again after v0.39 is complete and I'm in a better mental state.
Well, I guess that's all I really have to say this week. Just a reminder though, you'll still get the update when it comes out if you unpledge, even if the update doesn't come out until May, so don't feel obligated to stay pledged if you don't want to. Anyway, I'll see you all in next week's update.
Comments
Lance Tony
do not get yourself too tough. The crystal cave and dragon in there is one of the most amazing design I ever seen in this game. Finish what's left patiently rather than quickly
Uriah Jackson
Doing something right is more important than doing something quickly.
Well you have our backing no need to ever force anything out. I see everyone wanting you and your team to succeed and make your project come to full bloom and be amazing, there's a lot of stress out in the world right now and no need to come close to burning out. It's awesome to see small updates letting us know what's going on and what not. Just sit back and relax and go at your own pace. Cheers man if you drink you deserve a cold one.
YTEx
Just don't overdo it bro and more importantly is your health.
dercas
I'm very happy to see the positive comments. Some progress, a wonderful update and not running yourself into the ground are great things. I have seen (as I'm sure you also have) so many promising games get buried and left for dead because creators pushed themselves too hard. This is a great game, with a cool story, good art and wonderful voice acting. Take breaks when you need them. Pick someone to make you take breaks when you won't let yourself take them.
Broderick Black
It's a minor setback nothing that can't be worked on another day don't kill yourself with burn out do as much as you can and work at it day by day.
NakedAlice
Well, it’s typical for a person’s mental state to burn out sometime, this is understandable, I especially understand the developers, this is a difficult and tedious job. Hold on
Carl
Don’t sweat it, game developing isn’t easy, there’s no reason to blame yourself or be disappointed, we all understand these things take time. Be careful of working yourself too hard, and don’t set yourself up with expectations that are too high to realistically achieve. Thank you for the transparency, wishing you all the best!
Nathan Phoenix
Burnout is dangerous. Take a break, play some games
I'm in agreement with Xeddic. Manage expectations; ours sure, but most importantly your own. The one thing you don't want to do is feel constantly frustrated. That quickly spirals out of control and makes it harder to get even modest work done. There's been a lot of projects that end up shutting down in development because productivity grinds to a halt...most often because of burnout and its related problems. Frankly, I'm pleased with what you guys have accomplished already, and am in complete agreement; a whole catacombs-sized update, complete with full content, is just huge and unreasonable. Don't forget to take some time to look back and contextualize what you have in front of you with what you've already done. In Agile Development terms, this is often done as part of a formal Retrospective. You've done a lot, and you did it in small, manageable chunks. Be proud of that. I know I am. :)
XeddicAxion
I just wanted to say slow and steady wins the race. I would rather have the content split over multiple updates than for your team to suffer burnout from too much crunch. Thanks for all the hard work and keeping everyone updated!
