Quest Failed: Chapter Two - Dev Log #108

Hello, everyone, I hope you're doing well! It's started to get super cold around about this time of the year, but I'm standing strong! I wouldn't be worthy of the 'FrostWorks' name if I buckled to a little coldness now and then, would I~? If anything, I'm in my element with the winter! This is my time to shine!

For a general progress updating on the writing, I've capped off most of the small events I want to include in the new build now, and am fully focused on getting all the h-scenes done now! I've also been amassing quite a large notepad file of ideas and dialogue scraps for future h-scenes that will be done, too. So I feel like I've been able to flesh out a lot of content while also having planned out a whole lot, so I won't feel lost once I've caught up with my current pending scenes. Conception of a h-scene is always a fun thing for me, since the ideas can often come in many different ways. Either starting from little bits of dialogue that I write around the characters that naturally leads to a h-scene, or to having a very specific sort of scene in mind that I end up building towards steadily, while avoiding it happening extremely suddenly or with no warning at all. Build-up and context to h-scenes I feel are extremely important, and give off a far greater emotionally invested payoff, and make the characters feel like...well... characters! And not just pretty dolls that stand around waiting to jump poor Matt's bones. (Apologies to the actual pretty doll out there that's currently hiding away and scheming the demise of the world!)

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A small update on the writing aside, I wanted to use the majority of this dev log to talk a little bit more about the potential early access strategy I proposed in the past and gain more feedback on it to see if you guys feel I'm going the right way about this, or if you had your own input on the strategy. It's been quite a nerve-wracking, stressful time building up to this moment and I suppose I start to second-guess my plans and fear what might end up happening as a result. So to clear my head, and keep you guys in the loop, I'll lay out most of what I want to aim for, my fears, and what I think my potential options are--and then we can go from there!

I apologise in advance, as this dev log is going to be a lot more rambly than usual, and without the pretty pictures to back it up. I understand a lot of you probably aren't here for the business side of things and are more just interested in the end result, so I certainly won't blame you if you skip this one by! I'll be attempting to make up for this by having a follow-up dev log in the coming days that focuses more on where I'm at with the alpha build and what content I've completed, so you won't have to wait another week for that one--I promise! And after that, we'll even have the yearly Christmas art to look forward to, which I'm really excited about this year! It's going to be a little smaller in scale than last year's and probably be closer to how 2017's was--but still a charming, festive illustration to behold~

So--the early access release! I've talked about it a lot in previous months, and have generally stated I want to get it out by the end of the year. I still do at this point, and that would be my next plan of action after the next build comes out. However, in the lead-up to this, I'm beginning to have several fears and doubts as to whether or not it's truly the best way to go forward, and whether or not I want my grand launch of Chapter Two to still be something not quite finished, and not quite the definitive experience I've been dreaming of for all this time. I worry it might tarnish the first-time experience for a lot of players who get engrossed in the story but then find themselves cut off from content all too suddenly and find out they have to wait for the rest of it to be done. Or they consider the quality of the work in progress something indicative of the final release and write it off.

Additionally, my concern lies within the updates I would be adding to it--and the expectations of early access players versus alpha players who have been testing builds thus far. As of right now, alpha players are aware and happy that they have to start anew with each new build, and that saves don't transfer over between builds properly for a variety of reasons. (Due to changes in internal systems, new variables being added, or scenes just being moved around and proving incompatible with the old script) Naturally, I can imagine early access players might not want to constantly redo/replay parts to get to each new update as it came in, and it might end up souring them on the experience as a whole. Due to the open-ended nature of Chapter Two, it's impossible to build each new update around these limitations for the sake of saves and I feel it would stunt my ability to add new content, too if I had to constantly fear about new variables breaking things or not. This is one of my largest concerns for early access, and it makes me really reconsider things.

And on the subject of the updates, my initial goal with the early access was to perhaps ease some of the stress I had from how long development is taking by giving people an early glimpse of what was to come, so those that were interested could jump on in and get a headstart on the content it had. But I realise it also has the potential to go the other way and end up adding more pressure with a larger audience anticipating more updates and releases, essentially opening the floodgates to that sort of thing. It could honestly go either way--and it's something I fear, even if maybe it's a little silly to consider, haha.

Finally, the release might spark a lot of confusion with people. As the release of a game is its most important time to catch the eye of the public, and with the early access I would only be able to release on itch.io (and Patreon), while saving the rest of the platforms for the complete launch. Having multiple big launches feels as though it may fall flat, opposed to one big celebratory launch across numerous platforms to maximise eyes on the game and get as many people interested in it as I can. From a business-minded perspective, this is what worries me the most, as I feel for Chapter One I was incredibly lucky that as many places covered it a they did, and certainly wouldn't be here developing Chapter Two if that wasn't the case--but for Chapter Two, with a lot of competition now out there to compete with, I'll have to give it my all with PR and marketing to ensure it makes the biggest splash it can. I feel this might be difficult if I'm still stressing over new updates with the early access and might hinder my ability to properly get things out there.

So it's a lot of these reasons--and more--that compound together to make me question if I was a bit too rash to suddenly declare with certainty that I was going to release the early access as I did. At this point, it's still not impossible, but I wonder if it's the best thing for Quest Failed: Chapter Two. I really would like to gather feedback from you guys and see what your perspective on the matter might be, and how you feel about the release of Chapter Two.

Despite all these negative thoughts though, I don't want people to worry. I'm not letting the stress get the better of me and I'll still be soldiering on with the development no matter what happens, early access or not. I just felt like this would be a good talking point for us all to see what might happen with QF in the coming months!

Apologies again for this more business-minded ramble, and I'll focus back on the game itself, and all its lovely characters very soon!

Until next time~