Dev Journal: Speak Up!

Well, I wanted to post a reminder and realized it was just about time for another dev journal anyway! So, first thing:

Project Matchmaker v0.02 is going out to my proofers today to check over while I finish putting the final bits in there. That means we're about a week out from the first release to supporters, and that means that if you are in applicable tiers, this is your last chance to make sure you've input the info for your rewards! If you're in the Power Player tier or above, that's you!

In just a couple days I'll be pulling the final data for PMM v0.02 and implementing it, so if you're In the Credits, making Personal Additions, or want to add an Alternative Name, this is your last chance to fill out the linked form and take part in the fun!

That was what brought me to be posting today, but while I'm here I might as well share some about how things are going. As I mentioned, Project Matchmaker is just about content-complete and all gussied up to look and play better! I'm still getting the last touches put on the art so I should be putting up previews for those soon, and I'm still wary of any bizarre bugs that might pop up, but we're definitely on the tail end with it now.

And that means it's about time to start figuring out what's next! I've had a pretty strong idea for what I wanted to dive into next in the back of my head for a while now though, so I went ahead and took the time to put the new Basics and Outline together for that today as well. This is another example of a "some people won't like it at all, some might like it a lot" kind of game. I hope I'm at least hitting a lot of different folks with the good stuff as I try out all these ideas!

I'm still figuring out some of the background details and where exactly my goals for Project Voice will be, but I'm thinking once I've got things a little more solid I'll be putting up a new vote to get some opinions from you guys on the things that are kind of a toss-up to me. So keep an eye out for that! Probably within the next week.

I mentioned this in the public journal, but going through PMM has been a real slog this time around. I'm not sure how much of that was all the technical issues I've been struggling with and how much has just been that the basic idea of the project has maybe been less exciting than I'd hoped. I've seen a few people now suggest that I just switch my main project over to PWO since it's much more interesting to play to them, and I have to admit it's been a lot more interesting to develop so far.

But I know that the bulk of you are still here because you've loved MVOL, and I don't want to switch completely to something so drastically different and leave you guys hanging on the kind of gameplay and experience that's really meant something to you. PWO might be able to provide some of that, but it certainly won't be the same, and I'm very aware of that.

So I'm also planning to hold another vote, sometime after PMM v0.02 goes out. Maybe after it's publicly available so I can open the vote to everyone but with supporters measured separately, not sure. I want to see how everyone feels. Is PMM the project you're most excited about right now? Is PWO? Or are you still hoping for another new prototype on the horizon to really capture that magic for you? I want to see where everyone's standing on the issue before I make any decisions.

That's a big part of why I've been focused on PMM. With v0.02 I think it should be about on equal footing with PWO, and you can look at both of them and feel out which seems like it has a more promising future in your eyes. So if you haven't already, I'd encourage you to check out PWO sometime, and when you get your hands on PMM, maybe keep this in mind. I'll be very interested to see what everyone thinks when that survey goes out.

So that's a lot coming up in the next month or so! But I think that rounds out the journal for today. Thanks for reading, and I hope you're looking forward to all this!