BEW - Ongoing Dev Thread (DAZ Artists Still Wanted)

[Wolfschadowe]

Looks like the voting period has officially ended, although I set the end date wrong when I set up the poll, so it will run another two weeks before claiming to end. I'll leave it up so that folks can see the results.

Basically it's 25 in favor of Episodic releases, and 13 in favor of one big release, taking into account 1 changed vote.

After some thought I've decided to follow the vote results and convert to an episodic release schedule. This is close to my original intent for the game. I want to tweak the back-end of the game a bit to make sure there is a good foundation with the game engine, and then make the release. Timeframe on that will be "soon."

Ok, ok, I hate it when people say soon too, but I want to make sure the foundation is solid so that there is a good experience for players and I'm not sure how long it will take. If the stars align, and we receive blessings from on-high, it could be 2 weeks. If all hell and chaos breaks out, it could be more than 2 months. Most likely it will be somewhere between the two, I would guess 4-6 weeks, but it's hard to say for sure. I'll update here when we determine a firm release date. The main consideration is that the game framework is set and finalized, and is modular enough that nothing will break as we add Episodes. The content itself is ready.

I'll give more information on how it will work soon, but sequentially every episode will expand the game. they won't be separate games that you would play one after the other. The first episode is essentially the current Demo. The second episode will be the Strip Club Start, meaning that the current link in the Demo to go to the strip club after work will become active.

Once that releases, I believe in the Sexy Games board, Voting will take place there on what content Episode 3 will contain. Similarly, voting will take place to determine Episode 4, 5, and on.

New episodes will be released every 2-6 months, based on the size of the episode, which will be stated along with the voting as well as if the Episode is primarily composed of story content, erotic content or both. Erotic meaning that it's possible for at least one character to cum in the episode. img]images/icones/icon13.gif[/img]

For any playtesters reading this, your roles will change slightly. Primarily I'll ask you to continue testing each scene as it comes out of Development and rolls into test, the same way it is now. Additionally, I'll ask for testing of the next build for public release to make sure we didn't break anything in the transition from the full build to the Public release build.

Those of you on the waiting list for playtesting will on-board on pretty much the same schedule with the next wave coming in as soon as I finish the next scene, and the final wave coming a couple scenes later.

Once again, I'd like to thank everyone here for their support, insight, feedback, and patience!

Wolfschadowe

[Chappers]

Good stuff!

I look forward to exploring the strip club's story path..... but mainly the naked ladies.

Keep it up!

[Wolfschadowe]

I look forward to exploring the strip club's story path..... but mainly the naked ladies.

Thanks!
The content itself is done, just clearing up a few bugs, and a few engine tweaks to make sure the foundation is solid. Then a week or so to get the blessing from playtesters. So still a couple weeks out.

Wolfschadowe

[SYH]

I look forward to exploring the strip club's story path..... but mainly the naked ladies.

Thanks!
The content itself is done, just clearing up a few bugs, and a few engine tweaks to make sure the foundation is solid. Then a week or so to get the blessing from playtesters. So still a couple weeks out.

Wolfschadowe

Hooray! The end is nigh, er, near!

[Wolfschadowe]

Hooray! The end is nigh, er, near!

Nah... More accurately, it's about to begin.

Wolfschadowe

[j95]

Hello Wolfschadowe,

Hows the progress, do you have a rough release date for the next public release, please ?

I am very much looking forward to the next part.

Thank You

j95

Justin

[Wolfschadowe]

Hows the progress, do you have a rough release date for the next public release, please ?

Soon(tm)
How soon?

I was hoping to get this out to playtesters today, but I don't think that will quite happen. There's a couple of interface tweaks around achievements and bonus scenes pending, and a few stubborn bugs to stomp in the Strip Club scene. Nothing major though. It's 98% or 99% ready.

Once it goes to testers, They'll have about a week to go over it and find bugs, etc... If testing goes well, I'll release a week after it goes to the testers. If there are too many bugs, it may take a few weeks to fix it. The good news is that the testers have already seen and tested the content, so I don't expect many new bugs apart from anything that may arise from the engine changeover to the episodic structure.

So...the answer remains: soon(tm) Could be today to testers if everything goes perfectly (it won't.) More likely is early to mid next week to testers.

I'll make a post here when it's ready for testing. When it releases, I'll create a new thread in the Sexy Games forum.

Wolfschadowe

[Wolfschadowe]

Playtesters,

There is a new release ready for testing!

The test release is BEW Episodes 1 - 2 Release Candidate which consists of three components.

1. The base game and engine, which includes the Intro and the Wednesday Office scene and introduces our first romanceable character, Emily.
2. Episode 1 - Bar Start. The bar branch that introduces our second romanceable character, Faith (Formerly the Proof of Concept Demo)
3. Episode 2 - Strip Club Start. The Strip Club branch that introduces our third romanceable character, Natalie, as well as a potential add-in love interest, Azumi.

Don't get your hopes up, no new content yet. I know it's been a while, sorry about that. Most of my time over the last few months has been dealing with back-end programming and planning. Once we release EP 1 & 2, I'll be able to focus on content again, and I'll get what is essentially Episode 9 wrapped up and out for Ongoing Test, which will be new content for everyone!

Key new features or the Episodes 1-2 RC:

• Game Engine revamp to enable an episodic release structure. Basically, the game will automatically identify the end of a story path and identify which future episode that particular path continues in.
• Slightly reworked Achievements reporting to support episodic releases. Essentially, achievements that require activities in unavailable content are hidden from view until that content is released in a later episode. For example, the Day 1 Mastery achievement will not appear until all Day 1 episodes are released.
• In game bug reporting...ok, almost in game. There is now a help option on the main menu, with a bug report link. That opens a brief instructions page that includes a link to export the debug file, and a second link directly to the bug tracker site.

I also fixed the bug tracker site, There were some permissions problems that were blocking access to things like downloads. These should be resolved. If prompted for download credentials for the test build, use the same credentials as the Testing message board linked from the BEW Playtest site.

Also watch for the proper editions. These will show up on the dashboard, but also under the "Releases" tab. If you don't see the releases tab on the left side of the bug tracker, let me know!

• Active Development Releases - the current working development. Only the Dev's have access.
• Active Ongoing Testing releases - the latest working scene group, available to all playtesters. Currently this is Episodes 1-8. This will always trail one scene/episode behind Active Development.
• Active Release Test - is the Release Candidate that we need to test now. This will always be one episode above the current public release.
• Active Public Demo - This is going away as soon as we release Episodes 1-2
• Active Public Episodes - Empty at the moment. Will hold a copy of the current public release.

I hope to release the game in about a week. Thanks for your patience and all of your support!

Wolfschadowe

[Ramirez™]

I hope to release the game in about a week. Thanks for your patience and all of your support!

Wolfschadowe

Wow, thats a nice message to see after almost 3 weeks being away from the board.
Looking forward to it.

[crossy]

Hey wolf,

Awesome as always to see this great project of yours progressing.

All looks good so far, haven't done any super thorough testing as yet, but have done a few play throughs and have messed about with importing and exporting and all seems to be going well.

[Wolfschadowe]

Wow, thats a nice message to see after almost 3 weeks being away from the board.
Looking forward to it.

Thanks Ramirez...I love the TM by the way...I appreciate your patience. Welcome back to the board!

Awesome as always to see this great project of yours progressing.

All looks good so far, haven't done any super thorough testing as yet, but have done a few play throughs and have messed about with importing and exporting and all seems to be going well.

Thanks Crossy! It's older content, and the general mechanics and thresholds haven't changed much, especially since testers are on approximately, episode 8. Hopefully that's far enough ahead that I'll be able to keep up with a decent release schedule across the planned 3 seasons (formerly Acts) with about 20 episodes per season....yea, it's a big game.

So...I'm ready to declare an official release date for S01E01-02 (That's Seaon 01, Episode 01-02, for those not familiar with episodic notation), which will be Monday March 23rd! The reason for a Monday release date instead of a Friday one is to give the awesome playtesters the extra time to verify that a few lingering bugs are fixed.

I will, of course, create a thread in the Sexy Games section for the release, and link back to this thread for the history. I'll also maintain this thread for ongoing development and testing type discussions and keep the main thread for general gameplay topics.

Episode 3 options will go up for community voting roughly 2 weeks after release, and the Episode 3 release date will be determined based on the vote, since the options will be different sizes.

Again, thank you all for your continued support and patience.

Wolfschadowe

[Greyelf]

So...I'm ready to declare an official release date for S01E01-02 (That's Seaon 01, Episode 01-02, for those not familiar with episodic notation), which will be Monday March 23rd!

Greyelf hears a roaring sound, he lefts his head and looks around to see the community joyfully rioting while shouting "23rd!", "It's Here!", and "Only 2 more sleeps!".
Once he is able to get someone to explain to him what is actual going on he quite happily joins in the cheering.

[crossy]

I think we should have a quiet word to old mate sharky and see if we can get it put up on the front page!

[Wolfschadowe]

Greyelf hears a roaring sound, he lefts his head and looks around to see the community joyfully rioting while shouting "23rd!", "It's Here!", and "Only 2 more sleeps!".
Once he is able to get someone to explain to him what is actual going on he quite happily joins in the cheering.

For some unknown reason, Wolfschadowe is inclined to pass Greyelf a coffee.

I think we should have a quiet word to old mate sharky and see if we can get it put up on the front page!

It is not worthy of such things.

Wolfschadowe

[tlaero]

I'm excited for you Wolf. I hope the release goes off without a hitch. The masses will finally get see you for the master gamemaker that you are.

Tlaero