Aaaahr, fellow crewmates! Ehrm, I mean... fellow swans.
As many of you may have noticed as of now, I'm not the kind of guy who fully understands the meaning of the word "deadline".
I have this weird tendency to miss each one I set, yet you have to believe me when I say that those still help me being more productive than I'd be otherwise. You couldn't imagine how much I've worked in the last two weeks compared to the slow pace of the previous ones. Because guilt makes miracles when it comes to do what you're supposed to.
That said I perfectly understand that missing deadlines systematically is not something a trustworthy person should do often. The least I can do is apologize, the best I can do is continuing to keep this pace until the day of the release actually comes.
I know that I'm not very good in "marketing strategies", there is, keeping the interest high, feeding the fans constantly with news and treats, etc. Sorry guys, it's just not my nature. Maybe I should employ someone for that. We'll see.
And now, to the core of the matter: Forge, even in his demo incarnation, is a truly complex game, with lots of scripted cutscenes, dialogues and such. Extra required stuff and little bugs sprout out constantly, thus increasing the time needed to fix them. It would be pointless to betatest something which is still in an earlier stage. It's almost there, but still not completely.
Speaking of code, there has been a lot of progress, as 17 rooms out of 20 are completely ready (except what the betatesters surely will find during their tests). The remaining 3 are in an advanced stage.
Voice acting is almost complete as well, as only one of the actors still has to send some of his files. And he's justified, since he had about 40% of the entire speech in the game to record. About 800 lines of speech, lol. He's Rusty, of course.
While coding, as I've told you, I often find that a required sprite or animation is amiss (usually small things). I've taken care of those by myself as well, as outsourcing pixel-jobs often requires more time than it saves. Don't be scared though, I'm decent enough to take care of easy pixel tasks.
It's obvious that having an official artist would be the best thing and it will be mandatory nonetheless to bring Forge from the demo status to the full game one.
Well, well, well. I believe this is enough news for now.
Take care,
-Abisso Deadlinebender
