Our Plans Going Forward!
In the previous announcement, I talked about changing the development focus.
We polled the community, and the overwhelming majority (79%) agreed that we should pivot away from prioritising new content and instead focus on improving core game systems, resolving gameplay issues, and fixing bugs.
Prior to Steam Early Access, we had the support and feedback of the awesome community following that grew over time alongside the game's development and helped us get to where we are today.
Releasing to Early Access has exposed us to an even wider audience, and along with that has come harsher criticism, and higher expectations.
This feedback was a driver for the aforementioned poll, and having heard your response and weighed our options we've taken the time to internally create a more solid framework of plans for how to improve the game and make it as fun as possible, whilst also addressing issues such as a perceived lack of/difficulty of reaching lewd content.
Early Access may have raised the level of player expectations, but we absolutely plan to exceed them by the time we leave Early Access.
Steam reviews are very impactful towards the project, and we are concerned about the recent influx of negative reviews which have raised many valid concerns.
The Recent / All Reviews metric on steam (e.g. Positive / Mixed) can greatly impact the visibility of games on the steam platform and cause projects and games to be lost to the void.
This means that even if a game is significantly improved upon, it may never get the chance it deserves if poor initial review metrics push it to obscurity.
We need to fix these issues NOW, and then push out new content, so people can enjoy the game during the early access, rather than be frustrated by ‘in development’ issues.
If you do enjoy the game, or are optimistic about its future. Please take the time to leave a review to support us! Feedback helps a lot :)
Earlier this month, all assets and story content for the Deepmount update were completed as planned.
However, we have made a decision against publishing this content update.
The reason for this is primarily that whilst the story/art etc assets are complete, it still takes a significant time investment to code these into the game, and then further time after that to bug test, refine, etc.
Our team had already agreed that the dungeon system in the game had to undergo major changes and so following an overhaul of this system, this work would then be made obsolete - and we would then have to spend that time again implementing the content with the new system.
Instead, we have been planning and experimenting with the new gameplay improvements, and creating the new assets required to implement them.
I apologise to those who were excited to play some new content this month, but please don't fret, as Deepmount Caverns will release in its entirety when the new expeditions system has been implemented.
Here is a teaser of some amazing new Deepmount artwork!
Based on feedback and reviews, the game is unenjoyable for many users in its current state.
When the concept of the game was first created, I didn't put enough time into planning an overall cohesive structure. Instead, I would create a variety of systems that I thought would be fun and then try to haphazardly 'link' them together into a 'game'.
Venture Seas was also a 'solo development' project for most of its lifetime, and so I rarely had the time to bounce ideas off of other people / developers, in order to refine them.
Now that we have a small team working on the project we are able to work together to improve every aspect of the game.
[h3]New Expedition System[/h3]
[h3]Combat[/h3]
[h3]Artwork[/h3]
[h3]Content Improvements[/h3]
[h3]Bugs and Issues[/h3]
The goal at the moment is to provide the players with an enjoyable experience during early access, achieved through building a stronger foundation, which can then be further tweaked and expanded.
However, transforming the current systems into this new foundation will take a significant amount of time and effort. Please keep in mind that we are not a large studio.
I can only give a rough estimate of how long this will take, but I would expect upwards of 2-3 months.
This is a lot more time between updates than the players may be used to, but we need the time to get this right, and we believe that it will pay dividends in future as new content is added on to a more refined base.
After this build, the game should be in a golden state where we will be releasing content patches and minor improvements until final release.
Please join the official discord if you wish to keep up to date with the development progress:
Discord Invite Link
Thank you so much for your attention and feedback!
Stay tuned for further updates about our progress :)
We polled the community, and the overwhelming majority (79%) agreed that we should pivot away from prioritising new content and instead focus on improving core game systems, resolving gameplay issues, and fixing bugs.
Prior to Steam Early Access, we had the support and feedback of the awesome community following that grew over time alongside the game's development and helped us get to where we are today.
Releasing to Early Access has exposed us to an even wider audience, and along with that has come harsher criticism, and higher expectations.
This feedback was a driver for the aforementioned poll, and having heard your response and weighed our options we've taken the time to internally create a more solid framework of plans for how to improve the game and make it as fun as possible, whilst also addressing issues such as a perceived lack of/difficulty of reaching lewd content.
Early Access may have raised the level of player expectations, but we absolutely plan to exceed them by the time we leave Early Access.
Steam Reviews
Steam reviews are very impactful towards the project, and we are concerned about the recent influx of negative reviews which have raised many valid concerns.
The Recent / All Reviews metric on steam (e.g. Positive / Mixed) can greatly impact the visibility of games on the steam platform and cause projects and games to be lost to the void.
This means that even if a game is significantly improved upon, it may never get the chance it deserves if poor initial review metrics push it to obscurity.
We need to fix these issues NOW, and then push out new content, so people can enjoy the game during the early access, rather than be frustrated by ‘in development’ issues.
If you do enjoy the game, or are optimistic about its future. Please take the time to leave a review to support us! Feedback helps a lot :)
Where is the Deepmount Content Update?
Earlier this month, all assets and story content for the Deepmount update were completed as planned.
However, we have made a decision against publishing this content update.
The reason for this is primarily that whilst the story/art etc assets are complete, it still takes a significant time investment to code these into the game, and then further time after that to bug test, refine, etc.
Our team had already agreed that the dungeon system in the game had to undergo major changes and so following an overhaul of this system, this work would then be made obsolete - and we would then have to spend that time again implementing the content with the new system.
Instead, we have been planning and experimenting with the new gameplay improvements, and creating the new assets required to implement them.
I apologise to those who were excited to play some new content this month, but please don't fret, as Deepmount Caverns will release in its entirety when the new expeditions system has been implemented.
Here is a teaser of some amazing new Deepmount artwork!
What is going to Change?
Based on feedback and reviews, the game is unenjoyable for many users in its current state.
When the concept of the game was first created, I didn't put enough time into planning an overall cohesive structure. Instead, I would create a variety of systems that I thought would be fun and then try to haphazardly 'link' them together into a 'game'.
Venture Seas was also a 'solo development' project for most of its lifetime, and so I rarely had the time to bounce ideas off of other people / developers, in order to refine them.
Now that we have a small team working on the project we are able to work together to improve every aspect of the game.
[h3]New Expedition System[/h3]
- We are majorly reworking the 'dungeon map' / expedition system
- Streamlined, more tactical (and fun) experience
- Crew progression - power growth throughout the game you can really feel!
[h3]Combat[/h3]
- Combat will be improved. Improved feedback (audio and visual), particle effects etc...
- There will be changes to the user interface and game balance
- New rune card layout, with concise descriptions
- New leader and crewman perks, tweaked class system
- Combat will be easier to understand, with a dedicated 'step by step' tutorial
- Improved visual clarity / context sensitive player cues
[h3]Artwork[/h3]
- Toxxy will update existing, dated, art assets, and 'filling gaps' for missing lewd scenes
- Animation will be improved on some existing lewd scenes, by our new animator!
- All lewd scenes will be repeatable, and also much easier to access
- Lewd scenes will be spread evenly throughout the game (no more dry spells!)
[h3]Content Improvements[/h3]
- Existing story content will be refined, and reworked slightly to fit new changes
- Each major character on ship will have a full dating progression (with lewd scenes)
- Notifications to lead player towards ‘missed/available’ content (especially lewd stuff)
[h3]Bugs and Issues[/h3]
- The game will be easier to understand, without the need for 'walls of text' tutorials
- Many older blocks of code will be updated to latest standards
- Removing bad code with potential for issues
- Every aspect of the game will be balanced AS IS, accounting for future content.
When is the next build release?
The goal at the moment is to provide the players with an enjoyable experience during early access, achieved through building a stronger foundation, which can then be further tweaked and expanded.
However, transforming the current systems into this new foundation will take a significant amount of time and effort. Please keep in mind that we are not a large studio.
I can only give a rough estimate of how long this will take, but I would expect upwards of 2-3 months.
This is a lot more time between updates than the players may be used to, but we need the time to get this right, and we believe that it will pay dividends in future as new content is added on to a more refined base.
After this build, the game should be in a golden state where we will be releasing content patches and minor improvements until final release.
Thanks again for your support
Please join the official discord if you wish to keep up to date with the development progress:
Discord Invite Link
Thank you so much for your attention and feedback!
Stay tuned for further updates about our progress :)