Nearing The End
Greetings all.
As I’m nearing the end of development, I thought of writing some words about the last few weeks. I haven’t updated the game to this site in a while, nor written much about the progress. This was due to some real-life difficulties, and also due to my decision of switching into closed beta for the remainder of game development. I felt it more appropriate to keep the content hidden so that the final version will be a (hopefully) positive surprise and not just minor improvement on the previously released version. In any case, I’ve made constant progress, and by now levels 10 and 11 are looking almost finished. There’s still a ton of minor uninteresting technical stuff to be sorted out before the public 1.0 release, and things aren’t still looking 100% certain that I will be able to keep with the end-of-february deadline as previously promised… but then again, since it was only ever a goal set for myself really, it’s not as if anyone cares if I take an extra week, month or a whole year to get this game right.
So, what’s next? The boring technicalities aside, most of the level geometry and enemy encounters have been implemented by now. What’s missing is: most of the sounds, some scripts, and of course endless amounts of small detail work. I also haven’t gotten any beta testers to play these levels yet – obviously – and that will take some time, to get someone to not only test the levels, but to play the whole game through to see if there’s any remaining pacing, progression or difficulty issues. Then, after that’s done, it’s iteration time again, until the game as a whole starts looking like a finished product. Only then I would be ready to call it a “public” 1.0 version, and be confident in releasing into the wild. Although, again, considering the obscurity of this game, it’s not as if there’s a large audience out there just waiting to give judgement… but, as the goal was from the beginning: not to seek validation, but to be as accurate and authentic as possible to the original vision. Within the limitations of the engine and my own skillset when it comes to game development, that is, of course. It’s not as if Sophia will judge me that much, knowing how insufficient I have proven in earlier endeavours.
It’s not that I haven’t learned a lot along the way, of course. Looking back at the early versions is both painful and funny, reminding me of some of the early attempts at writing short stories and trying visual arts. When I look at the newer stories and artworks, I can see they are better, but still woefully insufficient. Same applies to this game – and, as I’ve begun to understand, life in general. No amount of skill will be enough to truly mediate the original vision. But that’s the pain and bear of existence. There is no alternative but to continue, trying to improve and hone the authenticity and accuracy so that one day – perhaps – the end result might look like at least one percent what was originally intended.
Thank you.