t’s been a week since officially releasing Black Skies into early access and it’s been an amazing learning experience.

Right now I’m focused on polishing the initial release, grinding down the rough edges, and adding quality of life improvements.

The number one item on the list is the save system. I’m building it now. It was triaged to a lower priority for the first release, but it has to be in.

I’m starting simple. If there’s no save, you start a new game. If there is a save, you can continue where you left off. The game saves automatically when you start and when you complete a quest, and it gives you a notification. That’s the minimum needed for viability.

One thing I’ve learned while building a game is that you should not build full systems start to finish. It sounds strange, but it’s practical.

There are a few reasons:

You don’t know if your idea is actually good or useful until you try it.

You don’t know how a system will fit with the others until they’re all running.

No plan survives contact with the enemy. You think you know how a system will work, but reality will prove otherwise.

So it’s better to build the minimum viable version, integrate it, watch it interact with everything else, and then iterate until it matches your vision and proves it has real value. And make sure it doesn’t break anything else in the process.

That’s the philosophy I’m sticking with. Updates will be steady and meaningful, not chaotic.

- Adam (Silk)

The Game: http://blackskyevent.itch.io/black-skies
The Discord:  https://discord.gg/qqESN9kZha