Roadmap, survey, videos, and merchandise!

I need to start making names for milestones so I can stop saying "0.6.4", but 0.6.4 is finally live and working well. Still some problems being reported I'm keeping an eye on, I always try to prioritize bug fixes, but honestly 0.6.4 took a lot out of me and I'm very pleased to be planning and working on new features once again.

Today I've mostly been reviewing my development road map and better detailing out how to go about the actual programming and implementation of NPC villages and some of the features planned to come with them. I'm rewriting my private version of the road map to be less of a linear map of A, followed by B, followed by C, into more of a set of milestones with a variety of secondary features. Fishing being an example of a secondary feature, something that I definitely want to get in-game, but that doesn't necessarily need to be finished before I can start working on other features.

A rough example of the current road map looks something like this:

Secondary:
- Improved compass / tracking skills
- Crafting equipment
- Facility equipment
- Townsperson equipment
- Fishing
- Cooking
- MP grouping / healing / buffing
- Improved modding support

Version 0.7 milestones
- Villages
- Town upgrades
- Villagers
- Money / trading
- Town defense
- Quests

Version 0.8 milestones
- Combat rework
- Monster Skills
- Skill system rework
- Jobs and Classes

Version 0.9 milestones
- Performance optimizations
- Full controller support
- Multi-lingual support finalizations
- Achievements / trading cards

I'm very happy that I'm finally getting back into designing things rather than just coding non-stop, but three things have been slowly growing louder and louder in my head that I want to bring up in hopes of getting some insight from our community. If you have any comments or suggestions on any of these topics please feel free to leave a comment here, on Steam, or in Discord.

1. Annual Survey

As I've done in the past I'd like to run a survey asking our community what they think most needs attention, but first I wanted to make that intention clear and give people a chance to suggest any important questions they think should be asked. I'm thinking of running a much more open ended survey this time around, asking questions like: "What are some things you would like to see added to harvesting?" as opposed to "Which do you think is more important: A, B, C."

2. Video logs

I've come to realize the reason that I don't like to make videos is because I really don't like to edit videos. Recently, watching some of my favorite content creators, I've come to realize that the video content is much more important than the editing. A lot of the content that I very much enjoy from content creators with over a million subscribers isn't even actually edited hardly at all. The perfectionist in me wants to have a flashy title screen, crossfades, music, sharks with laser beams attached to their heads, and so forth, but I now understand that if I aim for that high grade of content then I end up with no content at all.

In lieu of this, I've started thinking about shooting some raw videos about how things work currently in the game, as well as a series of updates maybe semi-weekly or monthly to cover what's new and what's being worked on. I'm curious if people think this is something they'd be interested in watching/listening to, and if there's any specific content that they would like to request.

3. Merchandise

My wife and I recently had some t-shirts made with art that we created on them, and they actually turned out really well. I've been wearing my Big Kitty Games t-shirt proudly, and am considering making a hoodie for our swiftly approaching Fall. I did some research and there are a number of merchandising services that offer international shipping, and I thought it would be a lot of fun to set up a Solace Crafting store with some basic mug cups and clothing if it isn't too much work. I wouldn't be expecting to make a lot of money off of this, but honestly every bit helps, there's no sort of "down payment" that I have to make for the company that I'm looking into, and I'd honestly love to design and buy some of it for myself in any case. I'd love to hear if anyone has any interest in merchandise as in all honesty it's just something that I don't have any experience with and would love to hear what you think.

Thank you so much to everyone participating in early access, and to all of our wonderful supporters here on Patreon.

The nights are rapidly cooling where I live, so stay warm, stay safe, and happy gaming!