Posted March 15, 2022 by bitshiftgames
So what's next?
First, other than minor additional bug patches, I'll be retreating to my bunker to work on a few more art assets for the game. Nothing huge, just filling things out a bit more. I expect this to take another month or two.
Beyond that, here's the rough plan for the larger project:
Three missions like this, except a bit larger and more varied. New enemies, new gimmick (still at least vaguely involving mind-fuckery though), new tilesets etc. Each will pass a small amount of data on to the next via a simple text file (should be able to do this with plugins), allowing each to effect the subsequent ones in small ways.
After this, there will be a fifth final mission for the final "boss" that will play differently depending on the outcome of the other four. This is ambitious, but not wildly so: I mostly just have to do what I've already done four more times, just a bit larger and with a few additional moving parts.
However, how far this project goes from here depends on interest. I planned from the start to do this first mission gratis, partially because I wasn't even sure I would even be able to finish it, and partially because I wanted to do something like this at least once, whatever the reception. That said, I had two worries going in:
The first was that nobody would really care; there would be some polite "That's neat I guess" and that would be it. That worry has obviously been proven wrong, and I'm deeply grateful people can see the same spark of something fun in this little project that I do.
The second was that no one would really be interested in paying for it, and this worry remains to be seen. I've already received a few payments/donations, and to those responsible,thank you so much. It's wild seeing this project, that's seemed like phantom for so long, actually bringing in ANY money.
That said, this chapter took seven months to put together. Subsequent ones will probably take about the same, if not a bit more. I intend to always keep payment on this first one optional, and do a hard price on the rest (probably $5), but the hope is that this first one will still bring in enough to justify sinking another seven months or so into dev on the second.
All of this is to say, if you like what you see, and you're able, toss some money in the hat. If there's a decent response, I can justify continuing to work at the pace I have been, and we can get the next mission out quickly. If not, it will be a lot longer, and depending on the response to mission 2 there may or may not be anything to follow.
Either way, thank you all for your interest and feedback so far. I look forward to sharing more of this with you as it's made.