pedevelopment
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Post-release update
🕑 Added 2018-09-12 16:46:15 +0000 UTC Hello,I just wanted to check in with everyone and offer a quick update on things now that the first release is out. It feels pretty good for the project to officially be back after such a long pause, and we've got a lot of things on the way to follow that up.
We're grateful for the incredibly positive response we've received, but we're also paying close attention to the things we can do better for the next release. Thank you so much for your continued support to us!
We're hoping to settle into a regular, roughly monthly update rhythm. Here's how this should look:
- A new release once every 4-5 weeks
- 3-5 days of hotfix releases afterward, to address the majority of bugs
- A release planning session
- Feature/content development
- Feature-complete testing through the week before the next release
Bug fixes, text corrections, and feedback-based additions for the following release will be happening throughout, but this schedule should organize us for reliable, steady progress.
We're still getting our latest dev team members up to speed, but everyone is now working on a designated piece of the content or features. There are also multiple development docs making the rounds among the team, which we'll be using as feature or writing outlines for when work begins on them in earnest. This should give us a steady flow where everyone is doing content or coding, while fresh additions are coming right behind.
We're holding the second segment of our Creative Call sessions this Fri, 14 Sep (GMT) on our Discord channels. The last sessions covered a sprawling amount of ground in addressing both short and long-term game design and feature topics. Those ran for almost 12 hours over two blocks to accommodate the whole team, since we are spread across seven different international time zones. Like last time, we have alloted six "core" hours for this week's sessions, but will certainly run long again by intent.
Among the hottest topics for this week's session is to resolve the plan for story endings for the big three NPCs (Teacher, Guardian and Therapist). We have a list of endings that came out of the last Creative Call to start from, but it's critical we get these right so the team is eager for further discussion. Once these are firmed up, it will allow us to define these main story threads in outline form and begin extending them in episodic chunks. It should also help us improve the way the story's through-lines thread into the side content.
Now the vast majority of refactoring is finished, April and our coders are working on improvements to the way we integrate NPC reactions, status checks and other player choices. Some of the things that are being greatly improved are the way PE keeps track of experiences the player character has, the mood of NPCs based on your interactions with them, and better ways of having your character's feminization affect how events play out.
The results of the patron survey are also in, and we're looking at ways to take that feedback to reward you for your support. Besides returning the Avatar to both the game release and continued development, we'll be looking at opportunities for additional Patreon-exclusive content. Feel free to share your thoughts on this with us - one of our most recent additions is a special status for our patrons on Discord and a patrons-only channel.
There's a lot happening with PE, and we've got a really solid team of contributors to keep it going. Thanks again for backing us, and as always, please feel free to share your thoughts.
