Update!
Added 2023-10-15 21:03:19 +0000 UTCHi all, hope you’re all well. I figured I should put something out considering I was recently asked if the game is still being developed.
The short answer is: Yes! 100%
The longer answer is that amongst other things, I’ve been waiting on new PC parts...
I won’t lie, after playing and working on many of these games over the past few years, it’s always felt somewhat disingenuous when a dev states ‘hardware issues’ as the reason for delays, or as the basis for requesting financial support. But I now have first-hand experience and can attest to the fact that hardware throttling is the leading cause of aneurysms for AVN devs everywhere.
The simple fact is that I’ve had lots of hardware limitations, (as apparent by the ‘animations’, or lack thereof, in the first release). The initial plan was to always include animations, but when it became a ‘too hard basket’ issue, I decided to exclude some of the content that was originally intended for the first release. This also had an impact on the story itself, which to me, is the most important component of the game.
Much of this may have been avoided if I’d used more premade scenes and maps, but my intention was always to build something as unique as possible. Therefore, a number of ‘scenes’ or maps thus far have been built from scratch and wind up with sometimes 100s of assets on screen. It’s not efficient by any means, (or even a good idea when I think about it?!). But it is what it is.
I realise that animated content isn’t a game breaker for everyone, but it’s something that I’ve always planned to include, especially with the coming content. So instead of agonising over which content to include vs exclude again, I made the decision to wait until I had the tools to finish the job properly. That’s pretty much the crux of it.
I also recently acquired fresh offspring. It’s had no impact on the next release date, it just makes me happy and I wanted to share it, lol.
And that’s about it. I should have further details in the coming days.
Until then, glory to Alheimurinn.
