Development Status

Hello all,

Development has been progressing steadily and efficiently over the past few days, following a 'boom and bughunt' style of development where I lay out a new quest or area rapidly and in one big push before sending it out to my betatesters.  The betatesters run through the first iteration and report back to me all of the bugs and logical flaws they find as well as comments.  Usually by the time I get the first reports back I am already finishing up the second iteration of a room or scene sequence.  Allow me to explain what I mean by 'iteration':

The first version of a map is usually quite barebones with the text filled into a scene but usually without the underlying mechanics fully fleshed out yet.  During the next iteration individual mechanical components are added and tested one by one by me and then I ship the whole production to the betatesters who run through the whole game to see how new components interact with existing mechanics.  It is especially crucial that the betatesters run through the full game because frequently during development I go back to older maps and either change or improve some aspect of the game (for example adding class-choice at the beginning intro sequence) which naturally has significant impact on the rest of the game.

After the second or third iteration of a particular map sequence or quest I usually leave that area to work on new components, occasionally spending time to go back and link old and new components together or finish development of mechanics that rely on some other feature that I have not yet put in.

It is in this fashion that development has progressed and will likely to continue to progress.  I still have two party member quests to complete, the main game storyline and also some Keep features.