Idrelle Games

Progress Report 2022.01.25

Added 2022-01-25 20:31:57 +0000 UTC

Hi friends,

It’s been a pretty busy few weeks. If you missed it, the alpha build was updated on January 19th with new content, new mechanics, and some UI refreshes. Since then there’s been a few patches to fix bugs and continuity errors, among some other things. You can read the patch notes at the bottom of the pinned alpha build post.

Game Updates

The most exciting part of the latest patch is the new Wayfarer logo and sigil! I’ve been working with a graphic designer for the past few months on this project and it’s now in the game! A huge thanks to Jessica Roy, who did a fantastic job at bringing all my random and abstract ideas to life. I’m so happy with the design and I’ve had a lot of fun finding places to put it in the game. 💕

The next thing I’m working on is getting the 1.5 patch ready for the public build. This patch will add the new gameplay mechanics and UI changes that are already in the alpha to the public version. I’ve been holding off on doing this update until I know for sure the status effect system isn’t broken (don’t want anyone to end up with permanently increased or decreased stats by accident 😂). The build’s been playtested enough times now that I think everything is good.

I am also going to be updating all of Wayfarer’s graphics with the new logo, so keep an eye out for that!

As coding the update and the UI changes took more out of the month than I anticipated, I haven’t had a chance to start working on the last section of Episode II. Once I’m done everything with the public build patch and the January bonus content post is out, I’ll be able to get back to writing. Episode II is about 75% complete in terms of story. The last 25% is not going to be as large or complex as the gala sequence. The next sections are fairly linear and there is not as much version iteration going on since the exploration section of the episode is done. I am likely going to hold off on updating the alpha build again until Episode II is complete.

I am hoping that I can finish Episode II by the end of February and I can start Episode III in March. This is pushing any public build content updates a lot further back than I wanted, but I am committed to finishing Episode III before updating the public build so the alpha can always be one chapter ahead. Episode III is thankfully short and non-complex (fairly linear, no exploration; it used to be the last section of Episode II before I split it off) but I am extremely bad at estimating how long development takes, so I’m not going to plan for an Episode III complete date yet.

And finally, I’ve changed the way I’m doing playtesting. Previously the playtesters had access to the same alpha file as patrons. Now they have their own early, "pre-alpha" file. My hope is that as the alpha build continues to develop, I’ll be able to playtest more rigorously and fix the more noticeable bugs and errors before I update the game for patrons. I’ll be doing a public call for playtesters when Episode II is complete so it can be more thoroughly tested to get it ready for public launch.

Thank you to everyone who submitted bug reports! Those errors should be fixed in the patch I uploaded today.