The Velan Reach demo - development update

All of a sudden, I discover I'm closer to wrapping up the demo build than I though I'd would be today, and I should start to organize something of a release. So here's goes:

Oh, and sorry about another wall of text.

Update part one: what's in the demo, what's the plan?

What's in the demo?

The demo contains the better part of the first chapter of The Velan Reach. It has a lewd scene, and introduces a few of the important characters. Not all possible love interests are introduced, and some will only be introduced in later chapters.

It's... let's be generous and call it the begin of the beginning. It's not a full chapter, and it ends rather abruptly. It needs some more story content and a bit more titillation to even count as a beginning. But it works as a demo.

What's the purpose of the demo?

To get some feedback at an early stage where it is still possible to change things up. Is it hitting a right tone? How do people feel about the characters? Are there any parts that need major reworking while that's still relatively easy to do?

Who will get access to the demo?

Initially, like with any beta the highest tier backers can have a go if they want, so there is a limited initial group of people to give feedback, which helps me keep things manageable.

After that, it's not yet decided. It depends on the feedback, and on my feelings on the demo after it. The options are that I release it to the other tiers, or I may decide to first wrap up the second part of chapter 1 before releasing it, which might be be another two months of work, maybe? That's just a wild guess, so don't pin me on this later please.

Is it worth tiering up for to ensure I get in?

Heavens, don't. Seriously. While I love some money as much as the next guy, I'm not kidding when I say it's the begin of a beginning.

If I decide to first work on the second half of chapter 1 before releasing it complete to all, and you're a supporter with some history under your belt that still wants a look at the demo in the mean time, you can always reach out to me for a link once the beta round is done. But let's cross that bridge if we get there.

What's next?

I'm putting out a poll for the eligible backers to indicate if they want to participate in evaluating the demo, or if they'd prefer to wait for chapter 1 to be finished first (which is definitely not a bad choice). Again, don't tier up for this please. I'd hate for you to come away disappointed.

When?

We might even see the demo become available to the participating previewers as early as this weekend.

Update part two: what was actually done, and what is left?

Let's talk a bit about development and what was actually done.

Up until the week before last week or so, I was still mostly busy creating content (writing, creating and rendering images, editing, etc.). But the last couple of weeks have also increasingly been about getting frameworks and presentation in order, and that involved a lot more of what would qualify as actual coding than the months prior to that.

What is done?

Well, apart from a little over half a first chapter worth or content, a lot of custom sets made for the action to take place in, and designing all of the characters and their outfits for this chapter, we now also have the following features:

Roles and how people address each other

A straightforward but flexible system to track and manage the roles people have in relation to the main character, and the etiquette of how they address him and each other.

Having a flexible system works really well with the setting which is kind of period drama at times, even if it's a not-quite-steam-but-something-punkish setting with sci-fi elements. It allows me easily change it conditionally as the story progresses and roles and relationships evolve (and in fact, that happens a few times in the demo already).

In the demo, the player's control of this is still limited though, and I'm looking into ways to make that more flexible by the time we get to release.

Also, this might be good to get out of the way: I've seen quite a few people dropping by and going "oh, it's sci-fi, not my thing, bye"), but it's really more steampunky than sci-fi, so give it a go before you judge.

Traits

To continue, there's now also a system for having character traits. Traits(/perks/peculiarities/facts) are like mini achievements for a character, either discoveries about them or tokens of special moments with them (and possibly more of the same in the future when it's some fetish thing).

They can also apply to the MC (earned by choices you make in responses), to help shape them as a character.

Events

And there's a system for tracking events. Events act like a log of, well, events that occurred, and interactions you had with other characters, including story moments, discoveries and observations, (l)earning traits, and changes in a character's attitude towards you.

Character screens, for love interests, and for everyone.

And there's now two different ways to review the characters in the game and see their background, (l)earned perks, and an historic overview of your interactions with them. One overview is for all the characters you can have a relationship with (the love interests), which also shows your current standing with them and their status. And one overview is a streamlined version of that for every character you meet (well, with a speaking role, anyway) in the form of a cast list, so you can review who was who again if you want.

Gallery

Then there's also a reworked gallery for replays, which is no longer this weirdly hard-coded menu tree, but nice scrolling list with thumbnails and a short description for each major love interest (and one list where all the extra's and one-off encounters will be lumped into). It not only looks a lot better, but is also a lot easier for me to manage as it's all configuration driven.

Achievements

We have achievements again, which should be no surprise, and they have a screen similar to what is in Light of my Life.

Preferences

And of course, we already have a more neatly organized preferences screen that I showcased earlier, which not only has a new "game-play" section including notification options and walk-through settings.

So, what is left to do for the demo?

Like I said, I found myself suddenly much closer to release than I realized. A lot of work has been going really smoothly. Let me just take one moment to sing praise of Python and the way it lets you handle operating on lists and collections, that part was way easier than I thought it would.

Most of what's left is the usual stuff:

• Testing, testing, testing.

• Setting up the actual build for the first time (The Velan Reach is structured a little differently from Light of my Life internally and I need to account for that).

• Getting the android build to go (setting it up and pressing “build”, and test).

• Splash screens, icons, etc., slightly different for all different platforms as well.

• Licensing the music.

• A really short showcase of some concept art right after the demo ends.

Some of the other usual pre-release stuff has already been taken care of.

• Code is mostly cleaned up, with only a final pass to go.

• Images have been compressed for release (something I do late as it makes fixing things a little bit more involved).

• There is a carousel of sorts in place for the main menu background (for now, I've adapted the existing concept art images for blinking and parallax camera movement, but in time, it'll unlock a new image with each chapter as with Light of my Life).

So, I'm in a pretty good place with it all.

Recap:

Demo very soon for highest tiers. Maybe soon for other tiers unless I decide to finish chapter 1 first. Participation poll next.