Well ladies and gentlemen, it’s done. The final story related maps are complete. (mostly)

It’s been several long months since I started this grueling journey but it’s finally over. (mostly) Thinking back at some of the earlier maps and it feels like a distant memory. I think I feel this way because I’ve made a huge amount of changes to my process of building and transcribing the maps. In that same time, I’ve also thought of newer ways I could simplify the process of dialogue as well. Which is good, because I still have loads of dialogue to create and transcribe before this game is complete.  😭

Okay, truthfully I am not fully complete with the story maps. I still have to test everything, (Of course) and I purposely skipped all of the bosses  because I need to rigorously test their battles in game. As of now, I will move on and revisit the maps once I’m ready for the Great Age Of Game Testing Hell!

So what’s next and what’s left to be done?

A lot, actually. Well, not nearly as much as I already have completed. I am very close to the fabled 80% Completion. As in, having 80% of the game playable. As in, the bare bone, core game being fully complete.

What I need to do next is complete all of the post game maps. I have made some changes and set the total map number to 7. But these aren’t just any old regular maps. They are huge. Each of them is about twice the size of the largest map from the story route. Despite that, it shouldn’t be any more difficult to get them into the game than the story maps. I expect to be done within two weeks at max. I would like to be done in one week, well, because I’m tired of these fucking maps and I want to be done. lol

Once the maps are complete I am going to shift my focus to 80%. I want the game in a state where if I was forced to release it right now everything will play as I originally planned from start to finish. It will be buggy, and it will be bare bone but it will be complete.

To get to that state there are a number of key features I need to complete or add to the game. I need to revisit and complete the holidays. That’s going to be an entire thing, that’s all I can say about that atm. Next, I need to add the battle coliseum feature.(which is also a holiday) It’s  basically me creating unique battles for special prizes. After that I need to properly complete the ending for the daughter raising portion of the game. Basically, create events for every potential illustration ending. With that done, I need to complete the Records section of the menu. I need to fill in all the data for characters and locations. Finally, with all the previous stuff done, I can complete the post game events.

At that point I’ll be at 80%. Only after everything is fully tested and working could I consider the game closer to 90% complete. I say 90% and not 100% because the final 10% is deceptive. Game creation doesn’t work on a linear growth rate but an exponential curve. That is, the closer you get to game completion, the more time you can spend “perfecting” the game. There are a large number of things I still want to add to the game that I feel will make it extra special to players. Also, there are a number of features I wrote recently I want to add but aren’t necessarily needed to complete the game.

Sadly, I am limited on time. I could spend forever working on the 10% but I need a product released this year. I will try to finish everything I need in the game as early as I can so I can add more of the stuff I want in the game. But for now, I will just focus on the 80%.

Some time in the next week or two I want to make a video celebrating my completion of the maps and exploration portion of the game. It will pretty much be a repeat of what I wrote here but with unreleased footage or perhaps videos of me testing some of the maps. We will see.

That is all for this update. I will speak with you guys in the next update. Later!