12/5/22 - Chaos Chain Devblog
Chaos Chain
Hey everyone!
TLDR: I'm putting out one last major update before the new year and it will focus on questing content. I'll have it ready sometime near Christmas. NO - IT IS NOT THE LAST UPDATE FOR THE GAME, IT'S JUST THE LAST ONE FOR 2022. I'm also doing some FREE upgrades on my original game, Waste Walkers, but that won't affect my work with Chaos Chain, so if you see that, relax.
I wanted to stop by for a sec and let you know about what's going on for the next update to the game and where I'm at. This is kind of a long post, but I'm writing it personally as if I would be talking directly to you in person. This work is very personal and important to me, so my correspondence is going to start reflecting this a bit more.
I plan to release one more giant update before the new year. That means I have slightly less than a month, but that's totally doable as long as everything goes well. With how the game is in its current state, that shouldn't be an issue - it runs smooth as butter, has a lot of content, a lot of room for growth in terms of both improvements and more gameplay content, no crashes or bugs that I'm aware of, and so on.
My plans for the next update are almost entirely just focusing on playable content - the main story and side quests. I know the main story leaves a lot to be desired right now, but as I have said before, I'm trying to build the ENTIRE game as I go. Gear, weapons, skills, locations, characters, plots and subplots, factions, fights, RP opportunities, etc. Not just one portion and then go back and fluff it up. I think that method of development often leads to unnecessary rushes and a lot of the content feels "not touching" and what I mean by that is that it feels like it's not connected and like it doesn't mesh well. I prefer doing little bits as I go, all directly related and connected together.
Yesterday on my day off, I decided to go back to my first game, Waste Walkers, and start a side project to work on overhauling some things and doing some improvements on that game. It's been almost 8 whole years since I released it, but I wanted to go back and do some touch-up work to bring the quality up... Significantly. There have always been flaws with it and there still are, but I wanted to do something special for the people who have supported me and the game that got me to where I am today. If you're interested in reading about it, check out the link below.
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/371100/view/3651886049862159185
Now, that said, it won't interfere with my work on Chaos Chain or my focus on it. This is, and still will be for AWHILE, my current passion project. I think it's at the point now where I'd be comfortable betting money that this is probably one of the if not THE most advanced and innovative use of the engine to date as a whole. Now with THAT said, it still has a long way to go. Next year will be a busy one for me to say the least.
Chaos Chain still has a lot of growing in terms of the main plot, side quests, and the game world. I only have a few of the locations in the game right now, and only the very tip of the iceberg for the main story. The side quests number has been steadily growing for awhile, but I still have A TON of them to do. I also want to move to making larger, multi-stage side quests that are more like small missions entirely of their own. I have 4 of those planned as of right now and many more ideas that I've been toying with for sometime. I also need to still implement the hacking system (for doors/cameras/etc) in those future quests and story sections and that is going to be a serious bit of work, but I'll get to it when I can.
I know the development of this game is taking a bit longer than my previous titles, but in all honesty, this game blows all my past work out of the water. The scale, the polish, and level of detail, the huge amount of custom systems and features, etc. I'm trying to make this game as very high quality as possible. Just remember, I'm one guy. I'm an indie dev, the game is not intending to rival AAA studio games especially for this price, but I'm doing my absolute best - and pouring my heart and soul into it.
2023 will be momentous in terms of progress on Chaos Chain. Since I released it in EA in Jan, 2022, the game has completely evolved - both in scope and quality - of what it originally was. I've released somewhere close to 50 updates now, and at least a fifth of them have been ABSOLUTELY HUGE. This will continue steadily all throughout next year, until the game is eventually done. I don't have a direct timeframe on when I plan to finish the game, but I hope you don't view that as a bad thing. In my eyes, that allows me to not rush, focus on making the game as good as it can be, adding even more community requests like I already have been doing like with the bioware, the drones, etc, and just make it bigger and better than I originally even thought was relatively possible.
Thank you for reading, and I will continue to keep you all - and the game, of course - updated.
-Corrosion ːCStudiosː
