v1 launch, post-mortem, and future plans

(0) Introduction

Wow, it's April already? When did that happen? Well, happy Easter to those who celebrate, and merry spring to everyone in general.

The response to this little project has, once again, completely blown my mind. I'd like to thank everyone for that. It's fun to develop these games, but also a lot of work, so I'm always happy to hear people like them. I couldn't reply to each comment individually, but I read all of them, and I very much treasure the feedback. <3

The remainder of this post is split into three sections. If you just want to know what's to come in the future, skip to the end. Otherwise, here's what's in this post:

• A discussion of the way towards the v1.0.0 launch,
• a quick review of some aspects of the game,
• and a road-map for what's to come in the future.

(1) The 1.0 launch

On the technical side, the game is finally in a state I'm comfortable describing as "full release."  Version 1.0.0 quietly dropped about a week ago, and there's various bug-fixes and some small quality-of-life improvements. I've also cleaned up some assets and removed debug symbols. Nothing that warrants its own post, but I did want to note it here.

There was also some flavour text that has been in the game since the jam version, but couldn't actually be seen, due to some oversights in how the hotspots were set up. It's fixed now, so the descriptions of (for example) the Artist 🧑‍🎨 and the Worker 👷 are now accessible. There's one or two more description files that got lost in the shuffle, which I just dropped into the "cut content" section below.

Lesson learned here? About polishing feature-complete games? Yeah, it takes longer than you think. The 80/20 rule is real - 80% of the work takes 20% of the time, and then after that you can spend a person-month fiddling with audio levels without getting anywhere.

I think I'm happy with where I spent the effort, but I'm also glad that I don't have to spend more time hunting down weird glitches and edge cases.

(2) The Post-Mortem

Overall, I think this project was fairly successful. This is stuff that's been part of my headcanon for a long time, mostly since 2021, and I'm glad I was able to get it out there. I'd say it does a fairly decent job developing the setting, and of course there's plenty of robofeels to be had. The plans were still too ambitious, and I still had to cut the scope back, but this time some 80% of the planned content made it in. (Reset Day clocks in at, generously, maybe, 60%.)

As with the previous projects, I want to look at the good, the bad, and the ugly there. After that... well, I have some ideas on where to take this.

(2.1) What worked

First of all, in the positive column, there's a lot of content in this one. There's about half a NaNoWriMo's worth of reading in this thing, though that does count some duplicated text in different routes. It might almost be a little too much. This probably hurt the game's chances in the Jam itself, I think? It's a lot of story. But that's fine, the game found its audience. <3

The writing is more disciplined than in the previous games, even though there's more of it. Compared to Reset Day, there's fewer characters, but the ones who made it in have more depth. There's a more straightforward plot, but one that retains its Themes. I also got to do a lot of worldbuilding in this one, which I love. We're pretty far from the basic "5 minutes into the future" setup now.

The level of interactivity is higher this time around, probably alllllmost at the target level. There's more puzzles and branching, and the experience isn't quite as on-rails this time. This is now closer to being a "light" version of a classic point-and-click adventure game, rather than being a fancy VN, and I think it's good for what it does. At some point I do want to make something more gameplay-focused, though.

I think the scope was appropriate for a jam game. Reset Day was vastly over-ambitious, and ended up with a somewhat disjointed plot as a result. This game is a lot more focused. There are still things I would've liked to expand upon (e. g. the nature of the billionaire compounds, social interactions with the robots, a longer post-conversion segment) - but at some point you have to actually finish your project, and I think that worked.

On a technical level, the game is relatively solid. The scene setup makes a fair bit of sense, the scene transitions work alright, and the systems do what they're supposed to. Some people have asked if I used Escoria. This is not the case - it's a bespoke engine. Though maybe using Escoria would've been a good idea.

Finally, I like the visual style. I'm still not much of an artist, but the higher resolution lets me work in a lot more detail. I think it worked out okay here.

(2.2) What didn't work all that good

The project management for this one was... just a mess. I wasted too much time tinkering with engine stuff, and then I had to re-do some of it after I started creating actual game scenes, because some ideas turned out to not actually work. I got the game finished, just about, but I had to burn three vacation days. Lesson learned: Make sure you have something playable as soon as possible. You can iterate afterwards.

Along the same lines: Making the game work on smartphones was a real headache. This is actually related to the first point, in that I needed to start developing and testing in mobile browsers a lot earlier. I didn't, so it took a long time to have a build that functions properly. Whoops! Lesson learned, again: Start testing as early as possible. On a variety of devices if possible.

The user experience is... not bad, exactly, but I'd say "mixed results." I think it's the best one so far, in this series, but some awkwardness remains. Everything seems to take just one more click than it should. Some of this is again because the UI is the same on desktop and on mobile, so you can't actually rely on mouse movement or right-clicking vs. left-clicking. Maybe this could be streamlined further, I dunno. We'll see.

There's a few spots where the plot moves a little too quickly. It's taken more or less as read that life in the underground society sucks, and that Mr. Overlord is a bad ruler. Marty does give us some insight into the specifics, but still, I would've liked to add one or two additional scenes here. Maybe an additional "day" where tentative contact is made.As it stands, the locals are perhaps a little too eager to leave. Oh well, game jams.

Finally, not enough robot kissing. Can't believe I forgot about that one. Shame on me. Shame!

(2.3) Bits, pieces, and cut content

There's some content that was planned for the game that didn't quite make it in. Here are some of the more interesting things from the cutting room floor. This is in no particular order.

Planned features that didn't make it in

There's some more planned worldbuilding that never quite made it.  The Council originally had a bigger presence, not just a small cameo bookending the plot. As it stands only three of the factions have logos (SKY, CAT and IRL), and only two of these have specific representatives. We know there's at least one more, as ECO is mentioned during the epilogue, and we can logically assume that the Artist and the Worker also have their own factions. Plus someone probably does, like, farming.

About the robot kissing thing again: People have noted that it's a bit weird that you can (optionally) express interest in the humans, but not the robots. That is weird. This is because there were going to be relationship mechanics that got scrapped once I ran out of time. There were going to be multiple opportunities to spend quality time with Xee and/or Vivi, get to know them, have a smooching session. Oh well.

In fact, those two had even more backstory in the original draft. You may have noticed that they struggle to fulfill their tasks due to various circumstances. This was a bigger theme in the original draft, but I had to prune it back because otherwise I wouldn't have finished the game in time. Either way, I think there's still a fun message in here about finding your Purpose and doing what you can to follow it. (The human characters also touch on this.)

Speaking of humans, there's a branch where Émile can mention being from a non-integrated settlement. This is a reference to a setting detail whose expository dialogue was cut at some point. Basically, there are (mostly rural) places that haven't opted in to the global society. They have guarantee basic human rights - specifically, they have to allow people to leave - and are otherwise left to govern themselves as they see fit. Earth is mostly ruled by the post-human machines, but you don't have to live under Fully Automated Gay Luxury Communism if you don't want to. Though most people do want to.

Cut content

There's a few more descriptions that were written but can't be read, because there's never actually an opportunity to interact with the entity in question. This could've be fixed without re-writes, so I'm dropping them here for your reading pleasure.

Security droid (look): In your head, you're calling these 'droids' rather than 'robots' to distinguish them from, well, the utilikin.
Security droid (perceive): Ah yes. Plastic and metal, with the acrid, bitter after-taste of lowest-bidder construction. You can't actually interface with them properly. They're far too low-tech. How's that for irony?

Dirk Probalo (look): Dirk Probalo was an icon of the early 21st century. A multi-billionaire, he moved from industry to industry, crushing unions and sweeping away regulation, growing his corporate empire. He vanished without a trace just before the revolution.
Dirk Probalo (perceive): You can smell it before you taste it: Privilege. The overwhelming, intoxicating, heady aroma of unquestioned power.

Litter (look): There's no way you could've ever spotted this yourself, but your visor is highlighting it for you. Plastic wrappers, broken utensils, food scraps. A person was here at least somewhat recently.
Litter (perceive): Eww, no.

Forest: The forest is technically walk-able, but very confusing. It's like you're in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.

Finally, here's some removed concept art. Initially, I was planning for the player character to have a unique appearance post-conversion. However, I decided that it worked better if you end up looking like, well, a regular drone.

Wasn't that fun? Everyone likes trivia.

(3) What's next

 So, what's next? Well... I have some ideas in the pipeline. There will be another post about this in the future, once things coalesce a little, but I wanted to give you all a little preview.

First of all, another jam game is unlikely. There's only so much you can really do in a month, you know? That's a common theme in the reviews for these games - some cool stuff in there, wish there was more of it.  However! I'm very much not done with those drones. Instead, I want to take a stab at a larger project. 

One idea I've been slowly developing is a space opera, perhaps an RPG in this setting. The various factions (or groups) of robots we see in this game already form a sort of class system. I could see a funky perk-based system based on that. The factions are descriptive, not prescriptive, and there's some wiggle room on how you, a drone, can express your specific Purpose.

 The idea I've been playing around with would have two player characters, a human and a drone, but with the human "wearing" the drone essentially as a space suit/armour of sorts. Could be an interesting setup. Depending on how you play it, the human could become more drone-like, the drone can behave in a more human way, and/or both converge.

That would enable both that good slow-burn dronification as well as lend itself to some weird RPG mechanics.

I'm sure you can tell that this is still in a very early stage of - "vision development" one might perhaps call it. But I think there's something there. The plan would be to make this a long-term effort, likely more than a year, though with an eye towards episodic releases throughout. There would also be a regular release of supplemental material. Sort stories, RPG material, concept art, that good stuff.

There's a lot of weird space to explore with how drones behave, you know?

Working at game jam pace for more than a month is, however, unsustainable. This would have to be a longer-term project, with staggered, incremental releases, over a longer period of time.

I've also been playing around with the idea of setting up a Patreon for this. The games you've seen so far were all solo efforts - just me, drawing my little pictures and writing my little stories. Having some money for the project would enable me to get professional art done, maybe get an editor on board, that sort of thing. I think it could be cool. If something weird happens and the pledges get high enough, I could consider reducing working hours at my day job.

As I've hinted above, there'll be another post when this idea comes together. In the meantime. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Is there something you'd like to see from this setting, or from me in general? The response has been overwhelming - I really can't thank you fine folks enough - and I always love to hear from people. And drones. I love to hear from drones too. 

~ Beep boop, Kayedrgn <3