Heya, stupid cat here! I'm the sole developer/artist/writer/musician/basically everything on cheesequest. Today marks the 13th month anniversary of cheesequest! To everyone who has played the game, thank you! It really means the world to me. I want to take this opportunity to give an update on the status of this game, the future plans, and the roadmap going forwards.

Where have you been?

Here's the elephant in the room. Progress on cheesequest has been... slow. The last update was v1.0.9, back on November 11, 2022. We're now in September 2023. That's a huuuuge amount of time with no updates or word from me, and for that I sincerely apologize. I'll break down what's been going on. Before anything else, let me be perfectly clear: cheesequest is not dead. When I first released this game under Early Access, I thought that a year would be enough for me to finish what I wanted in order to "complete" this game. We've passed that, and to be completely honest I've made a fraction of the progress I wanted to during that time. So what's been the problem? Three major things. First, it's been my own limitations. I'm the only person behind this game, which means I'm responsible for everything including art. Art isn't my strong point, so creating new sprites for the systems I want takes time for me to get something I'm happy with. Second, it's the state of the codebase itself. The first ever playable build of this game was actually finished in two weeks, as part of a private game jam I did with my friends! I'm extremely proud of what got done in those two weeks, but unfortunately this lead to issues down the line. The framework of the game just wasn't flexible enough to be extended in the ways I wanted. For example, since the game jam I've completely rewritten the cutscene and dialogue systems at least three times to account for growing requirements, and there's still remnants of the previous systems that I'm not happy about. I've also been working to implement full keyboard and controller support, which hasn't been easy considering the game was initially built entirely to use a mouse. Third, and this is the big one, time. cheesequest is a passion project I'm also balancing working full-time, extra contracting work, various other projects, and real life things. I've also spent a large portion of the past year battling with debilitating health issues, which has further cut down on my ability to work on anything. I just haven't had the time I've wanted to devote to cheesequest. That said. I'm completely dedicated to bringing cheesequest to life, and this is NOT a declaration of surrender. I don't know how long it's going to take, but I am absolutely committed to having cheesequest be complete some day.

What's next?

Now that we've gotten that depressing stuff out of the way, let's talk about next steps! Please keep in mind that nothing talked about here is final, and everything is subject to change. The next cheesequest update will be v1.1.0, which I've tentatively named The Town Update.
v1.1.0 will contain the following changes:

• Full keyboard and controller support!
• The first boss!
• New cards and modifiers!
• The town!

Gameplay Structure

With the addition of the first boss, we should talk about how gameplay is going to work. I've had my vision for the structure of the game since the beginning, but the incremental rollout of bosses means there's going to be a bit of awkwardness. The basics of the gameplay loop is that time is split into weeks. Every week has 7 days, and on the 7th day you face a boss (with exceptions). There will be 6 bosses in total, though there aren't necessarily 6 weeks. While the game is in development, there will be two stages of gameplay: "story" and "endless". You'll face each of the released bosses in the "story" stage, and once they're finished you'll go into the "endless" stage, where you can infinitely play battles with your current deck until you die (or prematurely end the run!). When the game is complete, the "story" and "endless" stages will be moved into their own separate game modes.

The Town

Just a brief preview of this new feature! On certain days between battles, you'll visit the local town. You'll be able to interact with the denizens of the town to do many things, such as buying new cards or upgrading them.

Roadmap

Here's the currently planned roadmap for the entirety of cheesequest! Please be aware that there are no planned release dates for any updates.
Here's a text based version, in case you can't see the above image: [table noborder=1] [tr] [td]v1.1.0[/td] [td]The Town & First Boss[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]v1.2.0[/td] [td]Second Boss[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]v1.3.0[/td] [td]Third Boss[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]v1.4.0[/td] [td]Fourth Boss[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]v2.0.0[/td] [td]Full Release! Fifth/Sixth Bosses & Act 2[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]v3.0.0[/td] [td]Epilogue[/td] [/tr] [/table] Now, along with this roadmap is something pretty revealing cheesequest will be composed of two acts and an epilogue! Act 2 is so entangled with the fifth and sixth bosses that it's just not possible to release them separately, so expect a longer period of time between v1.4.0 and v2.0.0 while this gets worked out. Once v2.0.0 is out, cheesequest will be considered fully released, and will leave early access. In version v3.0.0, the epilogue will be released, and cheesequest will be considered complete. Of course, these are just the major milestones. There may be periodic updates containing bug fixes between each release.

Final Remarks

The road of working on cheesequest has been awesome, even if it's been slower than expected. This is the first "real" game I've ever released, so the entire thing has been a learning process. Thank you for bearing with me! I unfortunately don't see the speed of development increasing unless I make some pretty large changes to my life, or get more people involved with the project. I don't know when v1.1.0 will be released. That said, cheesequest is not dead. The entire story has been written all that's left is bring it to life. And I'm fully committed to finishing it. If you have any questions, feel free to join the discord and ask! Thank you!

[ 2023-09-16 19:41:34 CET ] [ Original post ]