And here's part three, the last part in the series of Roadmap devlogs where I explain my plans for the game structure and how I see the future of it. Click here to read more about the story side, and here for the online side. But like I mentioned, these are plans I've only carefully reasoned with my knowledge - and I'm just one person with limited experience. The odds are stacked sky high against me and my confidence. Let's go over it.

Roadmap summary

To summarize, the roadmap for this year (2024) is to move forwards with the game and try to finish the Alpha version of it. There are three conditions that are pretty simple: 1) Decide on basic gameplay principles to make the game fun, 2) Make sure the basic gameplay loop is finished and free from issues, and 3) Gather enough of a community that can help me advertise and promote the game. Here are my thoughts on how it will accomplished over the next 11 months:

• New Player Experience: I've put a lot of effort to easy the introduction of the game in to new players. I've added guide books, cinematics, helpful tooltips and NPC dialog to help navigate a new player in the world. Technically speaking, it feels enough done at this point, considering that the Lessons will be taking over the structure of teaching the in-depth game mechanics after it. So my focus will slowly shift to designing and scripting the Lessons, probably up to 5.
• Foodraise loop: The basic gameplay loop of gathering the four types of resource, submitting them in exchange for tokens, and then spending the tokens on unlockable things and creative tools is fairly finished, but with plans to perhaps add a bit more varied rewards - after all, adding pieces of clothing, graphics, patterns and such is very easy. I have some secondary thoughts on the token reward system and wonder what kind of incentive it really brings out on people - I wouldn't be surprised if the foodraise requirements, token rewards, or the amount of rewards will be changed. For now it's doing its job.
• Gathering resources: I really want to improve these systems in preparation for Lesson 2 to 5, which will be about them. Not only do I want to add many more variations of the resources that can be gained (adding new species, new variations of existing species, fake/bad catches, etc) but to introduce complexity underneath the simple-looking surface. For example, I'd like all four resources to be able to focus on one another in a social context - which means, as an example, that if you plant something near mushrooms, more mushrooms will grow around it, and anyone can do this. You can attach lure to your fishing poly, and it will boost the chances of nearby fishers as well. Things like that.

And since the new player experience, foodraise loop and gathering resources is the basic gameplay, this would take the most priority to finish. There are some other areas I want to work on this year too, for example, continuing adding activities that encourage social creativity. So maybe expanding on the writing, painting, and performing systems. For example, I really want to add an automatic way to play music together with your friends. I'd also like to add a primitive layer functionality to the paint tool or even introduce a way to use a big drawing board together with others. I also want to add one, two, or even three dream worlds, which would be like a preview of how you enter dream worlds, what there is to do in them, and what you can bring "home" from them. For Funders, mostly everything is in place, but I might experiment a bit with server-side features like allowing your character to appear in the world when you're offline, or recording your character moving to replay it layer for yourself or for others. Just to allow funders to more creatively make use of the world.

As for the marketing and advertising part, my intention is to polish it up enough so that the game is "promotionable" - that the cutscenes are correct, glitches and bugs are corrected through testing, and that there is something obvious and clear to do when you start the game. Basically, so anyone can pick up and start playing. After this is accomplished, I'd need to rely a fair bit on the community to do the advertising for me - whether by word of mouth, social media postings, and such. I'm just not a good advertiser in all honesty, and I think my time is better spent working on the game itself and the marketing material surrounding it.

Towards the end, the plan is to set a final date for the last Alpha and the first release of Beta - at which point, the game will gain a buy to play model. I don't know yet if it'll be this year or next year, but there will be a grace period of getting it for free as a promotion.

Problems ahead

There's always the possibility of issues. So, let's first list potential failure points. All of these are just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are plenty more reasons that can spark trouble or conflict, after all, that's usually what they are... issues that you couldn't predict, or didn't have the time, energy, or experience to look out for before it happened.

• The game isn't fun. My concept and ideas end up not being fun in practice because of...
  • ... overcomplicating the gameplay and making it too technically complex, too unrewarding, or too strict.
  • ...placing the wrong focus at the wrong parts of the game, adding too much friction and discouraging new players.
  • ...managing it badly in either the community side or game development side, social issues interfering.
  • ...the consequence of influx of players would strain the established design and intention of the world.
• There can also be issues that are beyond my control, external influences, such as...
  •  DoS-ing, crashing/overloading the server, technical issues stealing time.
  • Arrival of people whose motivation is to cause conflict in the community.
  • Security issues, data leaks, and things breaking with too many players.
  • Not enough income, chargebacks, disappointed subscribers, etc.

At the end of the day, what can I do about all of this? My goals are fairly simple; in that, I just want to continue working on this. I must accept that there probably will be issues down the road that I couldn't predict, and even "worse", there will be issues that I won't be able to fix. The project rests greatly on my shoulders, a responsibility i thrive and love from. But how do I deal with this, how do I prevent this from spiraling out of control?

Mentally, I feel stable and I count on keeping that way. I'm highly motivated by this undertaking as it fulfills many of my personal principles and ideals.  Physically, I need to be in check; with health, with work-life balance, with social life. Truthfully, I don't even think that this project can fail, because even with the burnouts and crunches that I've made, I always managed to refocus, compromise and move forward. And besides, even if it does fail, you can still play it by yourself. Simply put, the rigid connection that I've made between this game and me is so strong that I have a hard time imagining quitting. I think there's a minuscule risk of me saying goodbye to this.

Logistically, this is where it gets fuzzier. Being a solo developer is an almost crushing, constant pressure to keep moving towards the finishing line. I am fully aware that this keeps overwhelming me, and even if I strangely enjoy that consequence, I need understand how to reach that finish line. I need to properly plan things out, give enough details where it matters and always be prepared to cut something away if it ends up being terrible. I have to constantly seek out, interact, and receive player feedback, consider new suggestions and also revisiting past work done. I have to analyze and learn the basics in a lot of things, but more importantly, learn to filter out the excess, and not just excess in technicalities but also in things like community. Stick by my principles, and be not afraid of changes.

To be honest, I'm not encountering many technical problems because I have designed the game from the start to stand alone; as in, I do not need to frequently release patches or mess with the server all the time. I can get up and leave it for a while. The game is for the most part stable and optimized for speed and size, because I anticipated and used minimal resources from the very start. What I'm saying is that there are only few moments in development where I've had to curse myself in the past and work extra. I spend the majority of the time adding things.

What's gonna happen?

Anyways, to make all of this manageable, I have to be clever with the work I do, do the most I can with the least amount files, avoid complicating things too much, and basically just rush to the finishing line with minor flaws. I have to prepare for the inevitable and the possible, as in; store minimal amount of personal data on server, optimize and make it easy to start more servers, and prepare with good chat moderation systems in the game and discord. Releasing alpha builds and testing them "live" is also a good way to find issues before they get big. But most important of all, I have to keep talking and being open with the community, and listen to both complaints and praise and make the right decisions that are good for the game.

I believe that can be done. I don't have reason to doubt that I'll get there. The game is not technically overscoped, vague in purpose, and it has little technical or personal risks. I am not clueless or inexperienced with the tech and I do not have ulterior, illogical or insecure motives. I have somewhat of a support network and have a good ability to plan, revise, analyze, and learn from my mistakes. When the huge task of making a game is broken down in to smaller parts, like in these three devlogs, it sounds like a completely doable task to me - and I absolutely do not mind sacrificing personal conformity in order to accomplish it.

All that's required to continue is a desire to work, an ambition to follow, and the opportunity to do so. I have all three. All I have to do is remember the purpose, push through the hard times, and I know it'll be okay in the end. I believe in this project, and I hope you do too.

Thanks for reading, and see you in the Kemoverse.