Quest Failed: Chapter Two - Dev Log #101

Hi, hi, hi!

How are we all doing today? Well, I hope! Summer has faded and the days are starting to grow colder. Did you make the most of what you wanted to do over those summery months, and do you have many plans for the upcoming October? I certainly hope I can do something special for Halloween--though it's hard to say right now. I wouldn't want to promise anything--but there's something about the spooky month that really inspires me!

At any rate--development! Logs! What have I been doing in the span of time since the last big one, oh, oh (#100!) dev log? The short answer is: lots! The long answer is:

- Continuing to flesh out a variety of attractions throughout the city. This includes new interactions and dialogue at the inn, the library, Claire's shop, and so on. They're sorta half-way there in current alphas in terms of fun dialogue and random events that can happen, but I intend to add a lot more when I can help it. I primarily float between these when I feel stressed from some of the 'main event' stuff and want a change of pace. So at any given point I'm usually at least progressing the script on one front or another. I've had a lot of fun especially writing Matt's interactions with Claire, along with the library inhabitant. Uwawa!

- Working on two h-scenes concurrently, one of which features someone really small--and another that revolves around a 'ruff' situation. I'm sure you can probably surmise what they might be about, but at the same time, I can assure you nothing is as it seems! These are both extremely different scenes in terms of what they focus, and I think they'll bring something new to the table poor Matt to suffer through. I went out of my comfort zone with one of these scenes especially, so I hope people will like it all! One of these scenes will be pretty straight-forward to find (though still slightly dubious in nature) while the other will be hidden in quite a unique way. I hope it'll prove to players that they'll have to get really creative to get that 100% CG library! (Or just read a guide I guess. If you have to. That's coo', too.)

- Furthering development of the 'part-time job' mechanic. This primarily revolves around getting some more adorable little chibis of Matt working his hardest! I've already come up with several scenarios, though ideas are still open for this hardworking lil guy. I've also tried to mix up some of the chibi art with him too and sometimes include a chibi of someone else if it's relevant. For example, if he's helping shift stock around in Claire's store, chibi Claire will be visible from afar, watching on nervously as Matt handles precious cargo. I'm not sure why she's so worried, though. She's the clumsy one here! (Yes, this totally explains why Matt is a maid. And not just a flimsy excuse. I guess I should have went all the way with a full dress rather than just the apron, huh? Maybe next time~ Just don't let Ruby find out. I'm not sure she'd be able to take it .)

- I've been able to use this longer development time to add a couple fancy new CG cut-ins for several events for dramatic effect! One is especially intense for Matthew, and another poor woman in need of assistance. I wonder what it could be~?

- Prepping to swap over the majority of the UI to a shinier new version away from placeholder-land. This is going to be a big one, admittedly, and I've put it off for quite a while since I didn't want to break anything while focusing primarily on writing--but I've decided it's time, because I want to get the game looking just a bit slicker for what I want to propose and talk about in the following rambles to proceed.

So--with what I've been working on out of the way, I wanted to now talk about the state of Quest Failed: Chapter Two, its future, and what I've been mulling over. Chapter Two has been in development a long time--this is no secret! I started officially at the beginning of 2017 with it (while technically getting the first assets before even Chapter One was complete!), and we're now approaching the tail-end of 2019. I've been incredibly ambitious with what I wanted to achieve with this game, and admittedly sometimes feel I aimed a bit too high for the stars. This isn't to say it's all doom and gloom however, or that Chapter Two is in development hell, or anything scary like that. Far from it. I've often touted just how much content it boasts over Chapter One (20+ characters, 40+ h-scenes, etc.) and this still remains true! It just means things are taking a little bit longer than I'd like, and I've stressed about this quite a lot as each year rolls by. Progress is being made, but I'm never happy with how fast it is. Lessons have been learned about tackling projects and Chapter Three will be developed in a way that leverages a far more sensible release pattern that ensures everybody gets to play a whole lot sooner.

Which brings me to my main point: I've been considering releasing an early, advance version of Chapter Two for the end of the year (mid December). You could call it 'early access' if you wanted. Or it could be considered a pre-order for folks who then get to play everything finished up until then. Now, I understand this is quite a dramatic thing and will probably get quite a lot of strong opinions from each side, though this is my reasoning:

- Sales of Chapter One are still currently fairly strong. Not by dramatic amounts but I've been selling a fair amount still throughout the month still after all these years. This proves that there's still large interest around QF and perhaps some amount of hype for the sequel outside of enthusiast crowd. While there's still a buzz around it for the best chance at selling copies.

- Releasing what is done thus far to a far larger audience would more than likely lead to more rapid content updates to appease far larger groups of people depending on how I managed things. (Though on the downside I could see this lending to the stress, too)

- It'd be a 'soft launch' at best primarily through the likes of Patreon and itch.io. The big release through main channels would wait until it was finally wrapped up to avoid an earlier build getting too far out there. This would help avoid too much confusion as to the state of things.

- At present it has quite a lot of content to justify it with a little more polish, I'd feel--already quite a bit larger than Chapter One was in its present state. I wouldn't do it if I felt I was ripping anyone off for value.

- It'd taper off at quite a sensible end point where there's a dramatic break in the story for things to unwind, to avoid any sudden, abrupt halt of the experience.

Keep in mind this is all purely a thought so far. I know releasing games early is a touchy subject in some circles and may bring about ire. Nothing is set in stone, and I won't do anything if there isn't enough support for it or people think it's a bad idea. Otherwise I'll still keep plodding along for the full release and use the alpha testing as my primary source for pushing out earlier builds and getting feedback. Nothing will change on that front. And those waiting for the absolute full experience could wait a little bit longer if desired.

I suppose these sorts of ideas just come out because it HAS been so long since a last release and it troubles me greatly that I haven't been able to keep at a pace I thought I could once lead. In a perfect world I'd get everything wrapped up and let everyone play the experience as intended, fully complete from start to finish. Which personally I think would be the best way to do--so I dunno. It depends on what people want, I think.

I'd want to hear back from everyone on this really--all of the supports and fans, all of the alpha testers (if they would be happy for an early version to come out commercially after supporting the alpha for so long or might feel ripped off--this one is especially important to me) and so on. Please make your voice heard and either tell me what you think or slap some sense into me if you deem it necessary. I'm open to all!

Anyways, I apologise for such a long, rambling dev log as usual. I'll try to keep the next one a little more light-hearted and concise so you can get the gist of what's going on without all the fluff. But regardless you'll hear back on what I've decided from this main issue after I've had a chance to go over everyone's opinons and I'll act accordingly! This whole series was responsible because of you guys, after all--so I never want to accidentally go against you or do something that might upset you all.

Until next time~