Chapter 8 - development status update

If you've seen the most recent development update infographics, it's pretty clear that chapter 8 of Light of my Life is almost content complete. Almost all the content (dialogs, images, audio, etc.) is in there, and it won't be long until it's ready to be released.

In this post, I wanted to talk about what that means, and what still needs to happen before it releases.

So, if the last face in the infographic is filled, you release it, right?

Not quite. After it's content complete, I still have a quite a few tasks left to complete before it is ready for beta testing. After that, and after all the issues that come out of testing have been fixed, it is ready for release.

Well then what needs to happen before it is ready for testing?

First of all, I need to spend a little time working on a mechanism that lets people carry their choices from chapter 7 to chapter 8, which will be a new, stand alone installer.

Why a new installer, you ask? I put a little something about that at the bottom of this post, so feel free to scroll there first.

I already have that mechanism technically in place for PC and Mac and its working great, relying entirely on Ren'Py systems (with little chance of things breaking), but I need to provide some dialog to help out players that do experience problems. There'll always be some, and there are some things to keep in mind, like you need to run through the finish of chapter 7 with version 1.0 or better, and players need to be made aware of that.

Then for Android users, those Ren'Py systems to carry over choices won't work, and I'll need to actually do a little bit of coding (which Ren'Py blissfully hides away most of the time), none of which is complex coding, but it does interact with Android file access and security which has gone through quite a few changes over the last versions of Android, and that's what makes it tricky.

If it doesn't work, there's still a fallback where the chapter 8 needs to be installed over chapter 1-7 for Android players, allowing players to continue where they left off at the cost of losing access to the old content, or alternatively, allowing users to start the game with default choices. Both of which suck, so first, we try to prevent that.

When that is done, I'm going to go through a few rounds of testing, proofing, and editing myself, plus completing work on the missing dialog for some of the paths that are not as often used (mainly, the lockout paths for Macy and Denise). And while we're on it, content complete is a bit of a lie as the achievements aren't in yet either, so somewhere along the line, I need to come up with a few achievements and put those in too.

Then, I'll put out a quick service release of chapters 1-7 with some minor fixes, and the ability for Android players to export their choices if that pans out.

When all that is done, then it's time to have the beta tests.

Who gets to test in the beta tests?

Good question. Being in the sir/ma'am tier gets you access, although I do not recommend you sign up to that just to get your hands on it early, because it'll be a rough, unpolished version of the game with plenty of bugs and issues, and tons and tons and tons of typos and gibberish. In short, it's a lesser version of the game, and if you want the optimal version, just hang back.

If you do want in, bless your brave soul, and I'll open up a poll for the appropriate tier soon where you can indicate your interest.

How long does the the beta test take?

Usually a week, maybe two, depending on the amount of feedback and the issues we run into. At some point, when it's clear most of the problems are found and issues tackled, I'll pull the trigger and release that version to the public.

Where will you release the public release?

As usual, the public release will go up on Patreon and SubscribeStar, as well as on Itch.io and your favorite pirate website.

So when is the actual release date then?!

When the tasks are done and the issues solved.

Look, I know, and I wanna blurt out a date, but I don't want to blurt out a date and then miss it because stuff is still borked, and have you get mad at me. When I'm confident I can hit a date, I'll share that date with you.

Until that time, it's "soooon".

Will it be done by the holidays at least?

Please, god, yes. I hate working through the holidays to push a release out, but I will if I have to.
Anyway, I don't wanna jinx it by saying that looks absolutely doable, so I won't.

So why is chapter 8 a stand-alone installer again?

It's a simple matter of maintainability. Chapters 1-7 are now so large, that the bottleneck isn't really the size of the graphics anymore. I compress those into oblivion for Android to make them fit, but it does fit. It's the size of the codebase and dialogs itself that seems to be giving the game trouble to load on all but generously specced device, as well as a bunch of stability issues.

Well, screw Android then right? It still runs on PC and Mac.

Well, no, it doesn't run well on PC and Mac either. By the end of chapter 7, the codebase was even giving my PC (which has very decent specs) trouble that required a bunch of tweaking, and indeed many players with modestly specced computers found they were unable to run the game, while load times are through the roof.

In short, it is just bursting at the seams, and trying to shoehorn another chapter's worth of content in is just asking for things to break beyond my control to fix them on all platforms, not just Android.

So I heeded the warning signs, and chapter 8 is it's own installer, that lives side-by-side with chapters 1-7, and should seamlessly let players carry over their choices when they start chapter 8, or start a new game with default choices if they prefer.