WildMan Games
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Day 16 news, updates and some candid thoughts.
🕑 Added 2023-01-03 23:18:01 +0000 UTCHello. This is gonna be a slightly wordy post—I've bolded some of the important parts if you want to skim through.
I hope everyone is enjoying Days 14-15. I hope you like the new character and the visual reveal of Pandora. I sincerely appreciate the increase in support.
I want to talk about the delays and the extensions over the past few months. Firstly, I want to apologize for setting dates and continually breaking them. I like to think of myself as fair, so as I explain my thoughts below, know that I believe there's justification in being disappointed or upset with me over the broken deadlines. If I keep giving dates and then miss those dates continually, it is completely logical to feel frustration and disappointment. So again, I do sincerely apologize for the continual delays and deadline changes.
So why did this keep happening?
It's both simple and complicated. Stranded in Space is a huge, huge project that I'm working on by myself. The amount of work it takes is staggering, I cannot express this enough. I've worked on various projects and jobs all my life, and I can tell you nothing has come close to the amount of work putting this game together takes. It is deceptively difficult.
Every time I release an update, I come away thinking, "Let's make some changes, let's make it easier on myself for the next one."
And then somehow I do the opposite every single time. And not even in the same way—each time I make the work harder for myself in a different way. What was Day 14-16's trouble?
Two things: There are more scenes (about double) per day than in any previous release. I didn't intend on this, and to be honest, I didn't even notice it until I was mostly done with the rendering. I just looked at my work after the fact and saw, "Woah, there are like 35 scenes in this update." The second reason is animations. Including the Elysium edition, there are over 50 animations in Days 14-15! Assembling 50+ animations is... challenging, to say the least. The worst part about this is that the increased scene count and animations aren't as noticeable because there are so many split-path scenes from previously made choices. So all that extra hard work goes unnoticed if you only play through it once.
The reason I made this post is because I want everyone to know that I really work hard on this game. I care about it a lot. I stress about deadline delays because I don't want people to think I'm coasting off of their subscriptions. I don't want anyone to think this is about laziness, a lack of passion, or a lack of effort, because it's truly not. This is about an ever-growing mountain of work that becomes harder and harder to manage as each update is released.
So where do I go from here?
First, from here on out, if I provide a date for a release, it will be set in stone. This precision means I won't be providing dates very often, though of course I will keep everyone regularly updated on what's going on within the game's development.
With that in mind, I want to officially guarantee that Day 16 will be out before the end of January. This is the last extension I ever plan to announce. My top focus is not blending into another month ^^^ as explained in the previous paragraph. This is locked in, it cannot change.
Not counting Day 16, there are three more updates coming to Stranded in Space. They are Days 17-18, Days 19-20, and Day 21. I am already rendering Days 17-18.
After that, we'll be in the second iteration of Stranded in Space. There are numerous changes and improvements planned for the game, all for the better, both for the player and for me from a development perspective. I won't get into any of them here, but the first release of the second iteration of Stranded in Space is something everyone should be really, really, really, really excited for. Seriously!
Other Day 16 notes - The profile pages will be updated, there will be a new somewhat expansive laptop minigame, and I'm holding off on another feature for now (that was previously promised, but not detailed).
Future notes - Sound is still coming to the game. My headset broke last night, so this has been somewhat delayed, but I want sound for my Steam release, so it's definitely happening soon. As per my new rules, I won't commit to a time, but I'll keep everyone updated.
And that's about it, for now. I want to apologize again for the delays; I promise I will be better about it moving forward.
My next post will likely be a Day 16 release date announcement. I'll see you all then! Thanks for supporting the game, I genuinely appreciate it!
Comments
Alicia Laimante
I'm a developer too, not games, but business applications. I've been doing it for like 15 years now and I've experienced absolutely everything you've described. It's frustrating and embarrassing when software projects get away from you even though you're usually working your ass off. And, of course, it's incredibly difficult to explain to folks how/why it happens but I can assure you, it's usually exactly the way you described. All that to say, don't despair, you're doing great and you clearly have a bright future ahead of you!
Stephan Cordes
Jesse Towns are right. That's a must have!
Randy
Can we get a single DL page? Or a gdrive to download the entire current version? Ive tried to redownload the previous versions but getting errors.
doujin
I think deadline is not that necessary. The only thing i think it will be good and fair for all is some what of regulary progress update (maybe a % of weekly progession). No need for the deadline but something that will keep all of us know that it still have progression each week.
Stephan Cordes
Deadlines are good for selfmotivation. But the pressure can be to much. Not only for yourself. If you really need deadlines for your milestoning-process and motivation, maybe communicate them to good friends, not in public. Ore talk about releasedates as a hope, not a deadline. If updates takes too long, maybe produce some short special-sceens, so the supporters do not leave. Ore you hire 100 programmers and buy a house full of renderhardware and a rocking chair for yourself ... :-)
Dónaill
As far as I am concerned you deliver updates pretty frequently. I'd prefer that you work at your own pace and finish this VN instead of burning out because of the stress. There are many (A)VNs out there, there is no reason to put so much pressure on you when it comes to deadlines.
Idigina
This is why (and how) triple A studios developed crunch culture. Software development and especially game development is so complex that unexpected issues always arise, and you just can't plan for that. I'd suggest progress bars, one for writing, one for rendering, one for coding and maybe even one for testing. Even creating the bars forces you to look ahead at how many scenes and work you're planning for yourself. And you can even visualise setbacks by making the progress bar shorter. No hard deadlines, but we do get a reasonable idea of how work progresses.
Rhuarc
I definitely follow what Gryffin says. The amount of content and care towards SiS so far is honestly unbelievable especially when its just you, I can't imagine what you'd accomplish with more computer power and a team. I have no need for deadlines, I am fine and usually more excited when I pop on patreon and bam! there are links for new update. Will stress as well to take it slower or less exacting on yourself because losing you and SiS from the stress would be a terrible thing for the vn community.
Ricky Spanish
I’ve come to accept that delays are gonna happen with AVNs. Especially ones such as this. It’s one of the best I’ve played. I have been very engaged in the story and the characters development. I have played a plethora AVNs over the past year and I can say confidently that Stranded in Space is one of the best. Every update has had me cracking up with some of dialogue between the girls and the MC. I for one appreciate the effort you put into your updates and will continue to look forward to the new ones. Keep up the good work Wildman.
Huw Gryffin
I think most, if not all, patrons respect the sincerity of your efforts and trust that your issues and intentions are also true and sincere. There are always people on this side who want what they want when they want it without any appreciation (not to say they don't care) of how many and how high the hoops are you have to jump through in order to meet their expectations. I think you need to give no undertakings whatsoever, but merely your report progress including drawbacks, whether embarrassing or not. As ShadowNinja64 says we patrons support you because we both respect your creative ability and instincts and, above all, love the end reward our continued faith in you ultimately delivers, no matter how many delays have to be "endured" (duh!! get a life!!). This surely clearly shows that it is the quality of what you deliver which soothes away everything else and keeps us thirsting for more. I, and I hope we, want you to do the very best you can to give us, you supporters, the very best that you can give. You can have little or no control over what that entails or how long it will take to deliver. All you know for sure is that your very best has been, and will surely, with your sincere commitment and dedication, therefore continue to be sufficient to fulfil our expectations, our hopes and, in many of those "get a life" cases, dreams too. Giving deadlines helps neither you nor us when you cannot know whether you'll even get close to meeting them, so don't give them at all. You guarantee Day 16 by the end of January. What if you break your hand or a family member ends up in hospital...you're going to have to give us another reason why you missed your deadline. Don't put yourself in the position of having to do that. It needs to be sufficient for us to hear what progress you are making up until delivery. Then if you have a setback, you have a setback and we have to be patient some more. It's waiting on a deadline that winds people up, especially when it's another episode of SIS and who can blame us for feeling that way? It's your own damned fault for being so good!! Just do what you do and deliver the best you can give us as soon as you can. There's enough pressure in doing that without adding to it unnecessarily and, quite honestly, pointlessly too. So, tell us what you've done, what you plan on working on next (if you can) but not by when you expect to have these things completed. Keep a note of what you tell us and keep us up to date with progress on those things as you progress them. That has to be enough and will probably help make development a lot more pleasurable for you too, because you're focusing only on positive stuff, i.e. what you've actually achieved and not worrying about the negative stuff such as whether or not you're going to get this that or the other done by the date you told us you would. Anyway, I've blathered on enough (as usual). I, like the rest of us, am **** scared of you cracking under the strain, because I do have, albeit very shallow, some appreciation of how much is involved in creating and developing in Renpy and it is easy to see that doing this as a lone funman with the number of characters you've revealed and all of the individual threads (to say nothing of the main story) you, as a result, must follow and avoid tangling, could very quickly do that to you, which is why I'm concerned and the reason for this lengthy piece. That's all...
Brad
I appreciate the update and all the hard work. So far day 14-15 has been great and I'm now very excited for whatever is coming with the 2nd iteration.
ShadowNinja64
I can’t speak for everyone but for me I chose to support you in making this game because I enjoyed everything about it, from the story to the passion you have very clearly put into it. While I will admit that delays were an issue when they kept coming but every time you did delay you gave us a reason and a sincere apology which helped a lot and when you did release these two days they have been great to play and I fully understand why you delayed them by so much. You have put so much effort into this game and it shows, so just keep up the good work and we will keep supporting you and this great game you are making!
