🕑 Added 2015-02-28 12:47:17 +0000 UTC
This update will contain a lot of text, so a very brief summary is that Cloptopia will likely have a soft alpha-release (patreon-only because I'd like a smaller number of testers initially until the game has been thoroughly tested) sometime in April or sooner, and I've made some minor adjustments to the reward tiers.
Anyways. Many great things happened this month. I'm a year older (thanks for the millions of birthday wishes on Skype everyone :3), I've made an incredible amount of progress on Cloptopia and I think I'm going to be able to make a soft-release of the game sometime in late March/April.
Right now the game is what I'd consider "pre-alpha". It's playable, it's fun but it's still got some rough edges that definitely need to be ironed out before releasing it to a wider audience. But soon it'll be ready for more people to test. I've created a quick little illustration of the testing phases: http://i.imgur.com/ULbpU55.png
The reason why I want an incrementally higher amount of people testing the game is because in earlier stages of development, finding bugs is really easy and I don't really want to have 10 people all tell me the same thing. Additionally, I think most people would prefer a more complete, less-glitchy version of the game. So with that being said I will continue to work every day on the project and hope I can get something really solid ready by March or April.
I've also made some minor adjustments to the Patron reward tiers. Originally I said I was going to offer monthly prizes, but I quickly realized that I was splitting my attention too thin between animation projects and extra prizes. It's fun to give away bonuses like that, but I talked to a lot of my fans and it seems the general consensus is that they'd rather I focused on core project than worry about the silly little extras. Above all I know you guys support me because you want to see the animations, so that's what my focus is going to be. I will still randomly give away prizes here and there, especially when I'm less busy, but it's not going to be every month. I just don't want new Patrons to sign up and expect a raffle every month.
Another thing I should mention: if you've supported me for several months and need to stop the funding, please consider lowering your pledge to the minimum tier instead of canceling completely. If you stop your pledge entirely, I cannot see how much you've donated in total or when you first signed up and you won't appear in my Patron's list.
If you have any questions please contact me on skype or send me an email at mittsies@hotmail.com
Thanks everyone! ?
-Mittsies
