September Update and Plans

EDIT: Couple changes to reflect how the past week-and-a-half has gone. First, at the request of a few patrons, I'm holding off on the Patreon poll until after 0.11 is released. I have a good number of patrons who have not played any of these releases and are waiting for that one to play it. This way, they can play 0.11 and have it fresh in their mind when they start voting. Since I saw no real harm in holding the poll off for a week or two, I agreed. Feel free to message me or comment if you disagree, since I can only make these decisions based on the feedback I receive.

Second, the next release is due very soon. I had a minor hiccup that cost me about 6 hours of work from yesterday, but I've almost gotten that back today, and will be working well into the night. Version 0.11 was originally going to be the final prologue and days 1 & 2 of Chapter 1. I'm ahead of schedule in that regard, and have almost half the content of Chapter 1 release #1 in place. I know exactly where I am going to cut it off now, and you'll end up with at least 5 new scenes (3 Aylia, 1 Triste, 1 Kira). The release plan will go: 1) alpha release with no editing and limited playtesting, 2) beta release after editing and fixing reported bugs, 3) public release. I'm estimating about a week for the entire process.

I will remind everyone when the time comes, but remember that release #1 will be an example of what I'd like "major updates" to constitute. This next release (0.11) is NOT what I'd consider a major update.

Finally, I've update the message below to reflect these changes.

Thank you.

Good Morning!

Part of the YummyTiger Gaming reboot was to offer you guys more transparency on what is going on and what to expect. We want to do this by posting a status update at the start and midpoint of each month. 

September is going to be an exciting month. As the last release showed, the prologue revamp was nearly done. That was finished up last week, and Friday I moved into full Chapter 1 release mode. The majority of assets, writing and other planning is waiting (im)patiently to enter RPG Maker.

Here is what we are working on over the next few weeks:

1. Inputting chapter 1. This began in earnest yesterday. For those uber testers out there, they probably noticed that past releases had a few remnants of chapter 1 still in there. You can start a few quests, see a CG, and read the very beginning of the story if you could navigate the sea of bugs. Those bugs were a result of the re-organization that the game itself underwent.

2. Commissioning sprites for the bandits and Cyrus.

3. Poor Pseudolurker will get at least one, if not two chunks to edit. I don't envy this job, nor do I look forward to his Excel Spreadsheet of Doom (ESD).

4. The scripter will be available mid-month to begin making the final changes to the battle system. In the meantime, future releases will have the option to enable/disable battles in the game. The option will present itself after the initial two rats battle. Also, the bugged sex appeal skills have been removed, I apologize for that, I completely forgot they were in there.

What YOU, the patron, can expect in the next few weeks:

1. The September poll will go live after 0.11 so those who are waiting to play the game can experience it and vote accordingly. This poll will cover Lynne, the third rival. I ran a poll around two years ago on Lynne, and got feedback on who she was going to become. At the time, I didn't plan to still be on Chapter 1 and to have not released her two years later... Patrons have changed, YTGaming is much bigger than it was. Given just how important this is to the game, each rival plays a pretty large role in the story and has a number of scenes, we've decided to rerun the poll (with additions). Lynne will then make her debut in teaser form in October.

2. The next patron release will be alpha 0.11 and the alpha release will occur around 9/11 (I'm working to make sure this one has substantial new content). The alpha will run while the content is being edited, then a beta release will occur, follow shortly by the public release.

3. There will no longer be a second alpha release prior to Chapter 1 release #1. I've input more of the chapter into 0.11 than I originally anticipated, so an alpha for release #1 should follow later this month.

4. At this point, we don't anticipate the battle system to be fully complete until the first full Chapter 1 beta (0.13). I will have more information on that in the mid-month status update.

YTGaming note: One of the things we talked about the "reboot" was a quarterly report on patron rewards. September was listed as one of the reports. We will not be running a quarterly report for September, as the reboot just occurred. The first quarterly report will be in December, and I hope we will be able to report that everything is going according to plan.

Thank you for your patronage, I believe September will be a good month--October and November as well, but I won't get too far ahead of myself.

YT