Attention, narod: It is essential that we address the state of the project's crowdfunding, in tandem with the future work it intends to bring about throughout the following weeks. Our small bastion here on itch.io, as well as on Steam, has been growing steadily for the past days, from which we have extracted lessons here, and found new horizons there.

State of Crowdfunding

The launch of the Kickstarter was premeditated, in terms of timing and context. For a long time since the project's foundation, we had intended to fund the development of the greater game through a popular, backer-based platform, and so we settled on Kickstarter with the intention of progressively escalating our promotional efforts to the point of a 30-day campaign. At Voyvod, we've done our best to understand the reasons behind the lacklustre performance in the July 6th launch, and continue to derive from its truth the lessons we'll need tomorrow to carry this project into greener grass. We realize, first and foremost, that the exposure we had received in the past weeks was large, but undefined and uprooted enough that it would not guarantee the immediate, committed support needed in a Kickstarter campaign; secondly, we realize the time window we allowed for that sentiment to grow was too small, culling the possibility of forming a solid community pre-campaign, which is essential in crowdfunding; thirdly, we realize there has to be a better means and method of communicating our product, securing our audience, and building One Spirit the way it is meant to be built: from the roots it must grow. Our intent is to shut down the Kickstarter no later than July 15th. Along with it, we'll be refocusing efforts to outreach, maintenance and minor development and polish. While we acknowledge the failures of our first assault on crowdfunding, we too consider the grounded, meaningful efforts we have led, and which begin to bear fruit in these rather quiet days, when we see the timid, steady growth of our work. We are convinced we have produced a project with potential if not actuality, reason to be and sufficient creative power to both stand its ground as is and overcome its state; in a word, we believe One Spirit is right: right to nurture, right to defend, and right to continue furthering its essence and ends. For this reason, our attitude is to build on what is left of what is right, to find reason to change in the errors we've made, and reason to believe in the virtues we've attained; because we are convinced there is something grander than a setback in this project of ours, and because we believe all good things teach hope, we refuse to depart and dissolve, and will continue to produce One Spirit for long and for all. Because it is right to.

Patch 1.1.0 Notice

As part of this unyielding will, we plan to bring about a minor update to the current prologue, to coincide with our efforts in promotion and traffic. The update will, in terms of... FIXES:

• Fix transition errors where they may be found, as minor and scattered as they are.
• Correct the format and phrasing of various lore entries, making their expression simpler or lighter.
• Research various minor bugs detected in a small minority of playthroughs, especially in terms of user interface.
• Carry out a few minor modifications to point-and-click item selection areas, where one or two seem to overlap excessively.
• Adapt the "Note to Player" screen to reflect our current outlook on the project's future.

ADDITIONS:

• Add more dynamic visuals to the introduction scene in the bus (scene0), including a looping animation for the background to simulate movement, and various different backgrounds to change up the scene, give tone and image to the landscapes of Eastern Sysica, give more reference to the actual text and also adapt better to its breaks and rhythm. This is likely to solve the issue of the introduction's monotony, as called out by many reviewers.
• Build in a few more brief, minor interactions with items and characters.
• Introduce more sound effects for select scenes and ambience occasions.

Patch 1.10 is set to release later this month of July. Enable automatic updates here on Steam to ensure you are able to download it at the earliest chance. IMMER WIEDER, WIDERSTAND SVADOCH Creator, Director, Writer Twitter Discord

[ 2021-07-10 14:23:07 CET ] [ Original post ]