(Future Fragments) Delay on the Demo AND the Full Game, important post

So for a quick note, we'll be delaying this month's demo until February 3rd at midnight because we really, really want to get all the Powerups in for this demo, and Frouge needs the extra day or two to finish them off. (Remember, there's 50 of them!)

If you pledged $5 in January, you'll still get the demo even if you don't continue your pledge through to February (it'll be in your Patreon inbox).

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Now, onto depressing news, but stuff we have to do nontheless.

For the tl;dr; - We'll be delaying the full game until sometime between Spring-Summer 2021 (sometime between May-August 2021).

We don't want to give an exact date at this point, because we've gotten into a pattern of that and it ends up with both us getting into massive crunch periods (which just leads to more bugs and issues), and it also leads to misleading people about exact release dates which is never a good thing.

Instead, only once the game is fully complete and we've moved onto exclusively bugtesting, will we announce an exact date.

As for why we're doing this, no, it's not milking the Patreon; we took out a $40,000 loan specifically just to pay for voicework ($30,000), not to mention the remaining $8,000 in music and $2,000 in sound effects. If we really wanted to milk things, we'd just claim that we need to keep the game going until we earn that amount of money through monthly pledges.

Instead, we're going into debt specifically just to get this game out as fast as possible.

The simple truth is, we just don't have enough time to get everything done for the game if we were to release it in March. Massive chunks of the game would be left unfinished, and we don't want to pull a Cyberpunk on you all.

Read on below if you want to know the specifics as to what we've got left to do, and what the timeline is looking like for us. This is of course, an ideal timeline; some things may take less or more work than we're expecting.

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FEBRUARY  

• Parallax scrolling added to Earth, Ice, Fire, and The End's remaining/existing backgrounds
• Powerup functionality and effects added to all enemies / levels
• Remaining sound effects added to the global game + Fire Level
• Stealth section integration/programming for The End
• Finishing off the remainder of maps for the game
• Linking together all levels so you can play through from start to finish
• The Powerup RNG system (open up a powerup box, get one of the 50 powerups randomly, with 3 offense, 3 defense, 3 utility, and 1 negative per level)
• Finishing getting the last voicework for the databanks
• Cutting up/integrating databank voicework into the game
• Finishing all remaining non-ending music for the game
• Finishing and mastering all True Final Boss tracks
• Finishing special NPC artwork and integration of special NPCs into game
• Starting on script for cutscenes
• Reworking text and audio arrangement of Electric Level databanks to fit in existing databank window
• Numerous bugfixes, I'm sure

MARCH

• Continuing work on cutscenes + recording audio for cutscenes + implementing them into the game all month for HentaiWriter
• True Final Boss programming integration all month long for Frouge (the art is 80% done for the fight already as of the time of this post)
• Finishing off True Final Boss artwork as well as "end game" art (Secret Lab, Stealth Section, etc.)
• Getting sound effects done for True Final Boss fight
• Getting Game Over CG variations done for the CGs that don't have them
• Golden Databank Screens completed
• Scripting out all endings to the game + getting music done for them

APRIL

• Continuing work on True Final Boss fight programming for Frouge (this fight is more work for programming than every other boss combined in the game; it's a hell of a fight!)
• Artwork for endings completed (will likely take up most of the month for TriangulatePixels)
• Cutscenes and audiowork for cutscenes continues for HentaiWriter
• General audio recording for a lot of things (lots of Talia/Vie stuff mainly, leaving their lines until last as SilkyMilk works best with a large bulk of lines at once)
• Starting to fill out the glossary menu
• General art odds and ends
• Checking all existing backer names in credits and background for copyright infringement or other issues (this was done years ago for the Databank backers)

MAY

• Adding in the $10 backer names for their special plot-related stuff
• Finishing the cutscenes/recordings for all voicework in the game
• Finishing the True Final Boss fight programming and fight in general
• Finishing the glossary menu
• More odds and ends, more bugfixes, etc.
• Doing the final credits sequence/music
• Extensive bugtesting starts (bugtesting has been going on since 2020 with a private team, but this is where we would really be grinding out any issues and just running through the game numerous times to catch anything with a large team of people)
• Wrapping up most of the game

JUNE

• Continuing bugtesting
• Finally, submitting the game to Steam to look over as soon as we feel it's bug-free

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And that would be the ideal timeline, one which we're going to strive to adhere to as much as we can.

However, we know firsthand that issues happen, which is what we're not giving an exact date for at this time, just that again, we'll be done sometime between Spring-Summer 2021.

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REGARDING DEMOS DURING THIS TIME

So, given that this next demo will be the final Fire Level demo, and that compiling demos takes extra time to make them playable, we won't be releasing anymore normal demos to Patreon until the game's complete.

However, we will be releasing small demos intermittently in the event that we need something extensively tested by a very, very large amount of people (all of you); for instance, this month, all powerups will be finished.

But, we still need to add functionality for them for all enemies and levels and mechanics, as well as visual effects for a number of powerups.

Once that's done, we'll likely put out a small demo that's a set of 5 or so rooms (one for each level), with all the enemies for each level, and all powerups done.

These bugtesting demos would be at the $1 tier (just because of how Patreon's activity feed works), and posted for free on our Discord over at https://discord.gg/puXrfSm .

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REGARDING PROGRESS UPDATES DURING THIS TIME

Since we won't be releasing full/true demos until launch, instead, I'll be posting weekly updates to Twitter/Discord/Patreon that will let you know what we've gotten done on that timeline up above.

Rarely, we might show off some art or audio or something of that sort, as well.

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REGARDING DISSATISFACTION ABOUT DELAYING THE GAME AGAIN

If there's anyone that's the most unhappy about delaying this again, it's us. We want to get this game out badly enough that to reiterate, we took a loan out just to get the game out faster.

That said, if you are unhappy about us delaying it again, as always, feel free to request a refund and we'll give it, no questions asked, through PayPal, Amazon or Steam Cards, or (if within the last 3 months) Patreon.

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IN CLOSING

With the recent Cyberpunk drama of releasing the game too soon and unfinished, we don't believe you all deserve to have waited for this game for years and years, only for it to get rushed at the finish line and come out with major issues, missing content, and so on.

We want to deliver the game to you as complete as possible, with the only post-launch stuff being minor polish or balance issues, as well as bug fixes if there would need to be any.

(Speaking of post-launch stuff, we do plan to have some free DLC after launch; nothing major, but there will be some.)

If you'd like to ask questions about this, feel free to on this post or over on the Discord at https://discord.gg/puXrfSm .

We really can't tell you how much we appreciate all of you sticking with us like this over the years; we do have faith that once it comes out, Future Fragments is going to have been worth the wait, and we're going to do our best to make it a game worthy of making you all feel the same way too at launch.