Project Updates for Thief's Roulette on BackerKit Page 7

Update
almost 3 years ago – Sat, Feb 12, 2022 at 10:29:14 PM

I wanted to have that new trailer done for today, but as usual, it is not. The QA phase has opened my eyes to quite a bit, so I've just been making big changes and fixes throughout the game. Some of these changes being:

SAVE & LOAD was pretty janky and I hadn't realized while playtesting it myself. I've been putting time into making that work better.
Some of the later Challenge Rooms needed more attention when it came to making the puzzles easier to understand. Not easier to complete though, just less obtuse.
Reworking some of the introduction sequence. This isn't a big task, but the hook is important, so the small & subtle aspects matter a lot.
Adding more lines to the HELP option during challenge rooms. Now, not only do they provide useful hints, they're also more character specific. So a character's HELP option will also have some of their personality coming through.
Just started making controller specific UI icons.

There's plenty more little things I've been doing, but those are the main points right now. Progress has been going very well. It's about time I put more effort into getting the word out about this game, so that will be a focus of mine going forward. I've been seriously slacking when it comes to that.

Not much else to say for this one. Thank you all, and have a nice weekend.

An even smaller Update
almost 3 years ago – Tue, Feb 01, 2022 at 06:04:20 AM

Not much to say for this one. The game is going into the QA phase now, so we'll be working out the bugs and finding things that need more attention. After that comes console porting, and after that comes release. I've still got a little bit of work to do, but it's mostly waiting now.

Next month I'll put out a new Trailer for the game, and QA should be done before the end of said month. I would like to have that new Trailer land with the next Update (February 12), but I may be preoccupied at the time, so we shall see.

And that's all I got. Bye for now.

The Smallest Update
almost 3 years ago – Fri, Jan 14, 2022 at 09:54:33 PM

There was a comment on a previous Update that seemed to believe I announced January as the month Thief's Roulette will release. I only noticed that comment today, so I have to make it clear that Thief's Roulette is not coming out this month.

The confusion comes from me announcing the completion of Thief's Roulette will be in January, so it's not their fault at all. I was trying to say Thief's Roulette will be done this month, and at that point I will send it over to the Publisher and we will work out porting, release dates and all that. Thief's Roulette will be COMPLETE next week. But there's still work to be done before the game can be officially released.

We are going for a simultaneous release for PC, Switch and PS4. Console porting can take some time. There's also the time that needs to be spent on QA. I'll continue to make updates throughout this process but for the most part it's just a waiting game.

That's it for this update. It was very small and it will likely be this way for the final couple of Updates. In this case, that's a good thing.

New Year & New Update
almost 3 years ago – Sun, Jan 02, 2022 at 03:12:31 PM

Happy New Years!

I don't have much to talk about for this update, so I'll get right into what I've done:

Almost finished with the last couple CGs. This part has been a little frustrating since there's so many moments that could have a cool CG, but that would be an insane amount of drawings to do. So there's still a decent amount of them, but not nearly as many as I wanted. A big thing I know I'll have to improve going forward is just how long I spend on art. I've been improving my process, but it's still quite the time sink. The future is bright, though.
I said the game is playable start to finish in the last update, so I've just been playing the game a lot and making sure scenes mesh well. There's some pretty neat sequences that I am looking forward to seeing reactions to. The game actually takes control away from you pretty sparingly, so there's a good amount of things that happen without the use of a cutscene. I think it should be pretty fun.
I've been making a bunch of 2d markings, signs and posters to place around the world. This seemed like the last bit of environment details that I needed. Things will look much better with them.

That's all I got for this update. I hope 2022 treats us all very well.

Little Update & Schedule/Plans
almost 3 years ago – Fri, Dec 17, 2021 at 11:59:08 PM

Rundown of the things I've done since the last update:

Minor visual improvements.
Every location is visually polished and playable. So the game can be played start to finish. All that remains is me going through each scene over and over until I think it all meshes well.
Improved code, cleared unused junk from the game. Led to performance improvements and a smaller file size.
Finished the CGs that will show up in the final trailer (and the game) so I don't want to post them yet.
Got the focus/zoom function to be much smoother.

View Video

That's all for the progress portion.

Let's get to the Schedule/Plans that I mention in the title:

The game is very close to completion. What I'm doing now is making sure things fit well together and the non-gameplay moments are cohesive. That's the part that I'm most self conscious about. You can play enough games in your life that you start to get a feel for what's "fun" or what people may find enjoyable to play. When it comes to storytelling, you really do need to just put it in front of someone that's not you and hear what they have to say. Of course gameplay also requires testers, but you can get a feel for it pretty well on your own if you're being honest with yourself. So the focus now is to make sure the storytelling feels as good as I think it could be. After that point it's really out of my hands and I'll just have to learn from the feedback that follows.

The game will be complete next month (January). At that point, I will send it to the Publisher, and we will work out the porting, release plans, and potential translations. All of those things will take a month at the least, but potentially up to 3. So the release date will be in March-April if things go as planned.I've said other dates in the past, so its understandable to be weary... but it really will be complete next month. Not released, just complete.

I'm pushing back the final trailer to be released days before the actual release of the game. Maybe even 1 day before. Before then, I will make a new trailer that grabs the highlights of the three old trailers that I've made and recaptures them in the current build of the game. So a sort of "remake trailer" that takes parts of the old trailers and does them all over again. There will be a couple new things in this trailer, but it's mostly prettier versions of scenes from those old trailers. The game looks way better now, so those old trailers just don't hold up anymore and don't represent the game.

In between this remake trailer and the final trailer I'll put out the game's official promo art. That art will come with an announcement of the game's official release date. So when the art comes, the release date will be attached.

I would probably be fine with not saying all this, but I think it's only fair to go over what my plans are considering how long it's been since the start of the Kickstarter. There's a little bit more to do, but things are finally coming to a close now. I've learned a ton through all this, so ideas have been flowing non stop. For a while I would get stuck just trying to cram every little new thing I learned into the game. So there were long stretches of development where I'd just spend months on new ideas simply because they were cool and I didn't want to regret not including them. Now, I find much more excitement in the thought that every time I stop myself from throwing in a "cool idea" just for the sake of it, I know I can instead use it for whatever projects come in the future. Instead of thinking this one game will "define" me, I look forward to the chances I'll get to improve on it down the line.

I can't help but look ahead to what I want to do after Thief's Roulette, but until it's done I'm going to be super focused on completing this game.

Thank you all for the support.

LINKS: