Dev Update (Patreon)

Hi All,

A long overdue update.  Firstly:  Apologies for being so quiet...I kept putting my update off as I was hoping to share some good news and wait until I had a confirmed release date, but it feels like I'm chasing the horizon at this stage so I just need to get my head out of the sand and start talking to you folks again.

I also had some other (real life) shit going on (which I won't go into) which alternated between good news and then bad news and then back to good news.  This did NOT impact the progress of the game, so I'm not blaming the delayed release on any personal sob story.   But it did impact my willingness to share more frustration and potentially disappointing news to you good folks  (and kept me off other forums).  But that's my bad for not manning up and giving you folks regular updates.   I'll try to get back on the regular-update horse again and keep you updated more frequently. 

Where we should be:

At this stage, we should have released Ep17 a couple of weeks ago and should be well started into Ep18.  But as we all know, this is not the case.

Where we are:

Ep17 is still not ready yet.   Writing wise - This is definitely going to be our largest episode ever.  And we're probably about 90% done with the base script.  

Artwork  - I won't give full details as I'll only stress myself (and probably all of you) but at the moment our art progress is not where we would like it to be.  As you know, we lost our primary artist just before we started Ep17.    And then we on-boarded two new artists.  And then lost one of them.  And then on-boarded another new artist (so currently at 2 again).  And in that same space of time we have also had 3 potential animators in the mix plus two other artists that almost joined the team but none of those have worked out as the quality required just wasn't there.  And that's in addition to the countless number of auditionees that we went through.

And when our previous artist left, there was no notice or handover period.   He just "ghosted" us.  Literally not a single word to say he'd left.   He was normally pretty quiet anyway (and I know there was some real-life shit happening), so it took me a while to actually realize he wasn't working away in the background.   Because he left in this manner (without a trace),  we lost access to a lot of assets and also a lot of base art/files from previous episodes that we needed as building blocks for this episode.  Where this happened, we had to start from scratch, which was a major pain in the ass.    So this episode wasn't just about teaching the WTHI cast a new dance, we had to re-build the whole damn village!

So we have lost a fuck-ton of time/effort in this episode.  And frustration levels are extremely high. As I've said before, rest assured that come hell or high water, Patreon or not, deadlines or not, I will finish this game!    But if it wasn't for the current team being so focused and co-operative, I would have thrown in the towel, dropped Patreon and just finished the game in my own time.  

  To be honest, I don't know how Red and Cell have managed to stick around, based on the amount of work and effort they've had to contribute in their debut episode, so hats off to them.  And similarly, a massive thanks to Ace for going above and beyond his writing role and helping to tie the whole thing together.  

And based on what we have planned for Episode 17, this is going to our largest number of images also (approx 400  planned versus 300 in Episode 16).  Another mistake (which is my fault) was not scaling this back much earlier in the process when our artist left the team.  But we have written the script based on that amount of art so we are (almost) committed at this stage.

Working efficiently as a combined foursome has proven very difficult as we all figure out how best to work together and share assets, files, ideas and try to merge styles and get something that looks like a single episode, rather than a messed up patchwork from four completely different contributors.  There haven't been any arguments or disagreements (no divas allowed on the team), so that's not a  problem, it is just extremely difficult to hit the ground running with a brand new art team.

We have finally figured out a system that works for us and a way to get the improved quality we want to introduce while at the same time producing in the required time frame.   However, we have only hit this rhythm now and have a lot of catch up to do.  We are probably about 70% of where we need to be regarding artwork but we have good plans (and a lot of pre-work complete) to produce a shit-load of art in the next 7-10 days).

So current plan is to try to get something out this month (as close to a complete episode as possible).  That's all I can commit to at this stage.  I'll keep you updated every few days, so you're not in the dark.

Also, for anybody that drops or reduces their pledge, I want to assure you that you will still get the relevant updates your current tier entitles you to (including Episode 17 release) even after you drop / reduce.  To ensure this happens, please send me a DM and I'll ensure I get back to all of you and personally send you any links that you'll miss out on after you drop.

And for anyone who reads this long-winded post and feels the summary is "blah blah...excuse, excuse, blah, blah", I completely understand, so feel free to direct your venting my way in the comments or in DMs and I'll get back to all of you.   The only other assurance I can give you is that these delays are not because of a lack of effort from the Dev team.  

Thanks,

CG