The Long Road Ahead

Hello everyone!

The Steam Next Fest event has ended, and the results were far better than I could have hoped for. Not only did the number of players (and wishlists) increase dramatically, I also received valuable feedback for making the game better. Some of this feedback lead to immediate patches, while the rest will be taken on-board going forward, and will influence the demo content later on.

Anyway, with a much-increased following, I feel obliged to talk about how the game will actually be finished on time. As it stands, the estimated release date is the end of this year, which will give me roughly ten more months of development time. So, what will I fill that time with? Well, below is a provisional roadmap for the game, all the way to release.

• Implement Map 7. This will hopefully be finished by the end of February (or early March at the latest).
  
• Implement Maps 5 & 6. These will likely take about one month each, which will take us to May.
  
• At this point, the first half of the game will be done. I will take a short break from level design to address some of the issues with the maps in the demo, such as adding more scenery to the emptier areas, and balance changes for the easier difficulties. This will take us to somewhere between mid May and early June.
  
• Create three new enemies - a mini-boss and two more regular enemies that will make their first appearance in Map 9. This will bring us to mid June.
  
• Implement Map 9. This will be an arena-style level (for the mini-boss) and won't take as long, so will be finished by early July.
  
• Implement Maps 10 & 11. These will likely take one month each, taking us to early September.
  
• Implement Maps 12 & 13. I haven't decided exactly what these maps will be yet, however they (along with Map 14) will not take place inside Osowiec itself, instead being more abstract. With most of the assets for the game being done by this point, I don't expect these two to take as long, so they will probably be done by early October.
  
• Implement Map 14 - the final boss fight. Again, this will be an arena-style level and won't take as long, but will need a good boss for a satisfying end to the game. This will probably be done by around mid October.
  
• Implement Map 15 (the secret level). I know where this will go, but haven't thought about what will be in it yet. Again, with most of the assets already in place it won't take as long, so this will bring us to early to mid November.
  
• By this point, all of the levels will be finished. There will be an extensive polish period, where some of the poorer-quality sprites and textures get updated to improve the overall look of the game. There will also be a lot of balance tuning, and perhaps the placement of enemies, items and secrets will be revisited.
  
• Finally, we will have the finishing touches. I am planning to add Steam Achievements and other Steam integration features (such as cloud saves), and there will be a lot of bug fixing and testing. There will also be a few extra features which I will announce later...
  
• Hopefully, when all that polish and the finishing touches have been done, it will still be 2023. However, I will not rush things. If it looks like I need more time (something I can only really know later in the year), then the game will be released in early 2024 instead.
  

Of course, this roadmap isn't final. I will refine it as development progresses, and I get a clearer picture of how long things are taking. Oh, and look out for the next development update at the end of this month, it will be a fun one!

Thanks for reading!