State of Development
Hello everyone, I hope you have all been doing well lately.
First, the bad news: Yes, January 31 2021 was a wildly unrealistic release date for the alpha. It had to be moved to Q3 2021. And no, CP2077 has nothing to do with this.
The pre-development of this game started in January (and I mean, I was still literally learning how to use Blender to make the sprites) and full development started in March. Indie games usually takes 3 or 4 years to be developed, and to think I, as a solo developer, could push a huge FPS game into Early Access at just 10 months of actual development can't be viewed as anything but sheer arrogance. And I apologize for that. I should had measured the date better and not given people hopes of a such early release.
By the time the game got announced at Realms Deep 2020, I was working on this 10 hours a day. I thought I could keep up with this rhythm until January, but turns out, no, I can't. I have been reducing my workflow to healthier hours now. I also had to keep up my promises with my community to release an update to VietDoom.
Now the good news: I have a much better scope for the release. Initially I was thinking about releasing an "Early Access Campaign" with mixed levels from Episode 1, 2 and 3 for testing purposes. I scratched this idea, and decided to focus on releasing the entire Episode 1, fully scripted and voice-acted. I think it's important that everyone's first impression with this game reflects a real taste of the final product.
I have finished writing the story and how the game will end. It has been decided that the game will have 4 episodes, decisions made on episode 2 heavily changes episode 3, (even changing the first level entirely), and then all decisions made on the three first episodes changes the way episode 4 will flow, and the multiple branching paths it will have for different endings.
For this reason, I want to avoid an episodic release, since each update is likely to break compatibility with saves, it will be impossible to track what you did in your previous playthrough and you will need to replay the whole thing every time an update drops. Since episode 1's decisions has little impact on the story, it makes the perfect set of maps to be released during Early Access to collect feedback from the community and supply modders with a good chunk of resources to start building their own levels. And then people can wait for the full release of the game.
In other news, I can also pretty much guarantee that the game will be localized in Spanish, Russian, and German on the first Early Access release. Several community volunteers have been showing up on the Discord to offer translation services.
Also for those eager to check the progress of development, you should join our Discord server.
On the WIP-Development channel I post minor showcases of new stuff.
Currently our leader composer is releasing teasers of the soundtrack, and he is looking for feedback.
https://discord.com/channels/749705001181380739/752220374103621695
Starting later this month, I will start posting regular updates in form of development diaries, where I will record videos showcasing features of the game. The first video will be about the gore system and how it's improved when compared to Brutal Doom, and then a second one will talk about the scenario interactivity, and so on.
Also, I want to thank everyone for the overwhelming support so far and the mountain of the wishlists the game received. Given how poorly planned the reveal was (I had literally zero marketing material, not even a box art mockup finished), things went pretty smooth and the game got a lot traction.}
Hope you are all holding up well, 2020 is almost over (not like a change in the callendar will instantly make things better, but hey there is hope).
- Mark
