Celestial Tear: Demon's Revenge [RELEASE]

[Kain Nobel]

I've been sitting on a certain thought for at least a week by now, so I might as well spill the beans. The last thing I want to see is a commercial project go through development hell...

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Certainly, in a TV, web or film series, episodes make sense, but games are more interactive and less of a spectator medium. Releasing these complex projects in episodes is certainly doable, Master of the Wind did just fine doing it this way, but I'm sure they all faced ramifications from this format. I'm not saying episodes are a bad thing, MOTW had a great fan base and did a good job, but it wasn't under the commercial and publisher pressures like your project is. Matter of fact, I would urge you to get in contact with Volrath and Artbane themselves and see if they have any "heads up" style advice on this subject.

I'm just skeptical of trying to maintain a commercial game this way, as with scope comes complexity and with that comes having to fix something from six episodes ago interfering with the here 'n now. I personally think it's better to make something from start to finish and QA test it to death and then, when you're confident it's mostly stable, release it to the wild as a complete package, hoping players will be coming back with only minor bugs.

I mean, yeah, it's all doable and you can get more publicity and feedback through episodes, but I'd imagine you'd have to have it established very early on everything technical that will be in the game. Also, one would need to be ready to append changes in the database so the player can keep passing on their save file from one episode to the next without accidentally overwriting what they currently have, ie the infamous "corrupt save file" bug.

I'm not trying to deter you from doing episodes, if that's how you plan to do it, but if you're doing it for the sake of your publisher's orders you might want to discuss these points with them. You and your team appear to be intelligent, talented and driven individuals, so perhaps you've already anticipated the challenges. You need to love your project because the project isn't always going to love you.

Not only am I looking forward to everything up and coming, I'm hoping you guys have success and am interested in learning more about your experiences with the making of this project; the good, the bad, the ugly. I've already got too many commitments currently, but maybe we'll work together in the future some day. Until then, keep that passion :)