Hey folks, I am back once again, with the first actual devlog entry in quite a while now, and the first one for this year. I am sorry for the ridiculous radio silence in some places. 2020 has been surely both a productive and a frustrating year for everybody, myself included; we've had some successes, we've had some failures; we've had fun, we've had our woes; - we all did, I did. Allow me to share some of mine, starting from the woes. In case if you have missed some of the previous devlogs (or you're just new here [welcome to here, by the way!]), I've originally anticipated to have some of the features and bits of the game ready by last December of 2020 for it's Early Access launch...which I soon after have had cancelled it, because I've been pretty much getting stressed out by the idea of not actually making it in time, nor was I entirely satisfied with the state the game was in to even launch in Early Access. So, I then have decided that I'd rather delay it to 2022, so I can work on the game more and launch it in a more "definitive" state, and now I am kind of uncertain when exactly it should be done by. I am sure a lot of you have read that one albeit overused quote from an infamous game director, Shigeru Miyamoto: "A delayed game is good, but a rushed game is forever bad", but did you that this quote has actually been mistranslated/shortened down, because apparently we, stupid non-Japanese-speaking readers, don't like to read ridiculously long paragraphs of texts? The actual quote is actually this: "It's best to take time on fixing and adding some things to gradually make a game better, but a broken, rushed project will forever leave a bad first impression on gamers and remembered, even considered by them to be a big mess, no matter if it's later patched or not." So basically what this means is that even if a game gets delayed once [strike](*cough*Hello Neighbor*cough*)[/strike], or hell, even several times [strike](*cough* *cough* Cyberpunk 2077*cough**cough*)[/strike], it's development may still get rushed and despite all the trouble it will still get shipped out filled with game breaking bugs, glitches, broken features and/or just ends up not living up to everyone's expectations (basically - becoming a disappointment). And of course we all know about No Man's Sky too! Sure, the game's gotten tons of patches, got it's missing features and some of the new features overtime, gradually improving the game and it's overall quality of life, but let's take a good admit it - when it first came out, it was a mess, albeit a fascinating one, but still - a dinosaur sized pile of crap that received mixed reviews at start and tons of disapproval from lots of known critics, and we still remember this. So, with that being said, I will actually be taking my time reworking on the game until I feel like it's good enough to be shown off again, but who knows how long that will take, but I actually don't think it will take another 4-6 years to start from scratch...which I am actually doing right now, and things are going fairly faster with the knowledge I've gained from using Clickteam Fusion 2.5 during this game's development...uh...purgatory...? I wouldn't necessarily call it development hell, because now - I am actually starting to take things easy and I am beginning to take a bit more casual approaches towards some things without breaking any further fuses in my nerve system. So, you may ask what's going on with Stramedia right now? I have decided to rewrite the entire framework from scratch again to add in and support more features, I am actually starting to write a proper game design document for this thing that will help me out know what the eff I am even doing and writing a more fleshed out version of the game's plot/story script...while also recycling some of the assets that I still have around in my work SSD.
But of course, Stramedia is now not the only game I will be making, because I've felt like working on a short fun sideproject (coming to PC and Android devices [Steam, itch, Google Play and Game Jolt] for a literal dirt-cheap price of $1.99 USD [that's a price tag for one slightly oversized potato chips bag!]) for all of you to enjoy (kinda) that will help you not get bored while waiting for another development update article or, especially, another freeware demo/alpha test build that won't be dropping any time soon until I feel like I am satisfied with the work so far. So, there's plenty of neat stuff to look forward to this year and the foreseeable future! Now, it's time to wrap up this article. And for once, I actually don't know how I am even going to wrap it up. So, I guess I will once again plug in my friend CrookedBeaker's Legend of Zelda inspired game, Rune of Eternity, so... be sure to check that out aswell! That fun thing's coming out of Early Access next week! Bye now, and stay safe - and don't forget to wear your masks and wash your hands.