Ahoy-hoy, Mythies!
You may notice that there’s no progress checklist at the bottom of this post. If so, that means you just scroll past this text without reading what I have to say. Rude!
But in all seriousness, the reason there’s no checklist is because I’ve only got to render the last bits of one scene before Chapter Four is complete. That’s right, the end is so very, very near! What does this mean? Will the update release next week? Not… not quite. It’d be a miracle if that were the case, because I’m doing testing slightly differently this time around.
In the previous chapters, I’d release maybe half of the chapter to the testers and then we’d work through the rest of it together, with me giving little updated beta tests until the chapter is done. This time around, there’s been no testing as of yet. I haven’t even done the “alpha test” (which is where I play through the chapter myself). Here’s how the rest of Chapter Four’s development is going to go:
-
- Nine’s Personal Alpha Test – I gotta like… play through the chapter myself. Basically this is me going through the chapter from beginning to end, to make sure the game doesn’t crash. It’s a pretty cursory playthrough where I fix anything glaring that needs fixing. Rerenders may need to be done, but I don’t forsee there being very many needed (if any).
- Supporter Beta Test – While I’m doing the Alpha, I’ll put out a call to the supporters on Discord to see who wants to participate in the Beta. As always, my testers need to be on Discord, but I’m keeping the testing pool limited to supporters because they’ll be the ones seeing the game early, anyway. Hopefully this won’t take too long, but there could be some huge issues with the update that I’ve missed. Being as the entire story part of the chapter was already passed through Beta readers, the only big issues that could come up are with graphics or code (hopefully both being caught in my Alpha test).
- Supporter Release – Once Chapter Four is all tested, $5 supporters on Patreon and SubscribeStar get their hands on it. After four days, the $1 tiers on those platforms will also get to play it. For all three previous chapters something in these supporter release builds has come up that needs fixing, but I’m really, really hoping to avoid that this time around so that this version of Chapter Four will be the final version… but game development never really works out that way, does it? Hey, if Blizzard can release buggy crap with their budgets, a solo dev can be forgiven for a few mistakes, right?
- Public Free Release – One week after the first supporter release, Chapter Four is put out free to the public! Everyone rejoices or despairs as their fan theories are either supported or thoroughly disproven.
The weekly updates from this point are probably going to be a little sparse, since there won’t be much to report on other than my personal life. There’s been no big developments on that front, other than my inability to make oatmeal without it exploding in my microwave, so… cool.
“But Nine! You put out that poll about which characters should get a side story! What happened with that?”
Ah, yes, good memory, Hypothetical Person! There will indeed be a new Tales from Mythos featuring Rain, but it will be included in-game only with Chapter Four (much like the B/Sophia story in Chapter Three) and not put up on the website for now. I also plan on writing a second Tales from Mythos featuring Jodi, but that one will be on the website (and included in Chapter Four if I finish it in time).
That’s all for this week! Keep the Legends Alive!
– Nine 💜