Posted January 25, 2023 by SchwerMuta
I've released a trailer, a demo, and some marketing for R0: Concourse of Conquest. Now what? I suppose I should explain myself.
R0 began as an idea to expand on my novel's setting and characters by writing a 'previous generation' story. I detailed a lot of that journey in a post I made about my experiences and goals writing it. I've come a bit further since then, if it wasn't clear. Development has been strong, and even though there are many facets still in need of improvements, many beats still in need of writing, the game creeps ever closer to it's final product.
With all that in mind, I'm going to lay out some future plans. Let's start with the fact that public releases will only go up to chapter 12 in the main game. I have not yet decided if I plan on selling the game just yet; it's been an expensive venture, both in time and in money, and I won't lie, the pragmatic one within me is telling me I should get some tangible returns out of this and not just the satisfaction and happiness of creating a game people like. But is it worthy of a price tag? Maybe. Maybe not yet. We'll see when I get to the end. To be safe, though, restricting access to a demo that spans half the game seems like the right decision for now. If I can improve the quality to something even greater, I may be able to get the game on Steam and provide to an even broader audience. If not, then I'll likely make the game free later on down the line, but for now, 12 chapters feels right for something that's still in a nebulous 'work in progress' state.
Currently, I've just about finished chapter 21, and there are plans for 28 main chapters, 7 side chapters, and however many challenge chapters I feel like putting in. These numbers may fluctuate as development proceeds, but the idea was always going to have four plot arcs that detail Laelynn's journey around Eirea. To my testers and supporters, I'll likely give a build that has around chapter 27 complete once I get there, but for the most part, currently, R0 is mostly feature complete. I've tinkered with it's mechanics a lot and I think I've finally struck that balance I want and all that's left is to ensure that statistical balance between the player and enemy is consistent throughout the rest of the main campaign. I'm, of course, going to ensure that the story is always the first and foremost thing I pay attention to, but I want to ensure that my playerbase is enjoying a good game as they engage in my brain child.
However, right now, I do work an ordinary job to help pay for expenses related to real life and this project, and coupled with the fact that I have a surprisingly active social life that I juggle between all this, my time for development is rather limited. I do take the opportunity to write wherever I can, such as during my breaks at work, or downtime at an outing, But my PC doesn't go wherever I go, unfortunately, so that limits the time I have to churn out maps, adjust stats, playtest, etc. In spite of this, I do have a plan; I'll have saved up enough money to go summer without working, and thus, I would like to release the full game by late spring/early summer 2023 at the earliest, late summer 2023 at the latest. Do not use these words as hard confirmation, of course, as anything can happen, and I am but one person. This is why I say would like to, as I'll be trying, but I cannot make any promises or guarantees.
Finally, some questions you may have:
If you've made it here to the end of this post, all I have left to say at this point is that I hope you enjoy R0 and watching it's development. I am a first time indie game dev so this is all pretty new to me but it's been rather fun, if stressful at times. Thank you for sticking with me to this point.