alpha follow-up (Patreon)

so it's been the better part of a week by now, and it seems like the heat from the initial testing has just about fallen off. 

if you have not played the starlight alpha yet and wish to-- the weekend is as good of a time as any. the main download has been patched for the issues we've been able to replicate and can be found pinned in the test-info channel of the discord server if you're level 5 or up.

and the weekend is a good time for the alpha because i am planning to open the game for community open beta on monday

there have been some things we couldn't replicate, as is only natural, so i can't say i feel like we're going in in perfect shape or anything, and that concerns me quite a lot. but i don't want to continue holding things up that much and hopefully the information we get from an open beta will be worth not spinning our wheels in the mean time. 

for an example of spinning our wheels, consider this exchange from earlier today, where i asked marcello to take a look at a bug that i observed could happen when triggering multiple cutscenes at once. he had already spent the prior evening discussing the details of how we would make the code account for this, so we just needed to do it and test. and then:

spoiler: i had thoroughly wasted his time. it just worked for some reason that i still don't understand. but fine.

but the additions to the website are ready to go, i feel like we've done most of what can in practicality on the game itself*... god i am not ready... but i won't be ready until two days after i've already done it so we gotta.

*practicality: i don't want to go making dramatic changes or adding features at this step because we've basically just got one more wave of testing before the public release. if a fix we made to alpha broke something, we have beta to catch it. if a fix we make to beta breaks something, then we have to patch the public release and hope people get it and beg their mercy. 

we could have more tests. and there are a lot of clarity/QoL/polish features i still would like to add to the game, including some good ones suggest by y'all in the discussion channel. those aren't happening right now not only for the above reason, but also because of priorities

as much as i want the demo to be as perfect as possible, it would be very easy for me to burn another full month at the least continuing to add that stuff. and we will add that stuff.
just.
after we finish reborn. cuz that's still hanging there, after all. 

now that we've at least got something tangible that we can show people might be worth sticking around for -- even if it's a little rough on the fringes-- i have no reservations about committing to finishing it full steam ahead. i think i'll start tomorrow in fact. it's been left hanging for too long, and mostly over my head. 

just gotta get the thing out there with all its lingering imperfections and hope for the best in the meantime.

that said, i'm still talking about it this way because i'm anxious but i am substantially less anxious than i was a week ago before getting it out to you all, i cannot thank those of you who've played it enough, both for giving it a chance and for the support you've shown me and the project. i'm so grateful to those of you who've already found things to appreciate in the project already, and i count myself so lucky to have you all helping make it happen <3

and as always, thank you for your patience in all things.