Changed Release Date


It became very apparent that I wasn't going to finish When the Stones Spoke by my originally selected deadline (October 9th). There were 3 major things (I will elaborate after this intro) that blew up my timeline, all related to issues I didn't account for — which sucks. It's not all quality related issues, more that there isn't a game there quite yet. I considered making it early access. When the Stones Spoke is not really an evergreen game meaning, once you play it, there are only marginal differences other than changes in your own perspective between times you play. That makes it fairly difficult for me to justify that switch.

So I'm pushing the date to a more nebulous "sometime in October," which should be enough time to finish it if I maintain my current pace. I'm sorry about having to delay, but I wasn't comfortable releasing an incomplete thing. I also wasn't going to hurt myself trying to make it by that day, either. Most folks I've talked to have agreed that making sure it's good later is better than releasing a broken/bad thing on time.

Here were the main issues I encountered and what I'm doing about them:

  1. The battle system wasn't particularly interesting as I initially designed it. You ended up feeling as though you were just... hitting attack and destroying them with no real reason to do so (other than them saying awful things to you). So that needed a redesign, and I landed on something much more promising.
  2. The dynamic of Ellis and the town was really neat. I felt like it was something I wanted to explore more, so more elaborate set-pieces need to be constructed, like indoors and more NPCs. That also means more writing, scripts, lighting, testing ... 
  3. I undervalued the amount of time it would take me to make menus for the battle system and other general things; I do have some experience in UI/UX, but I didn't account for the iteration time I would need after changing the battle system.

Again, I really appreciate your understanding of the situation; I'll get back to it <3

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