New year, new stuff.
A progress update:
We are heading toward the final segment of the project but a significant amount of work still needs to be done.
Here is a projected roadmap of what will happen in 2020:
1) Finishing up quality control
There is a lot of text in this game that all needs to be checked not just for English and translation quality, but also for typesetting and other tech issues.
I'm playing through a fresh save of the game and going through every chapter trying to find ways to break things, which brings to light small issues which we fix along the way.
2) Working out the last UI issues
Some bugs with the UI still need to be fixed, such as text overlapping or specific windows being too small to fit all potential variables.
3) Dealing with miscellaneous tech issues
There are some non-gamebreaking issues such as the music stopping after idling for a long period in the same area.
This may be an issue with the emulator I'm using as it apparently also happens in the JP version of the game.
The above may not be addressable and isn't an issue in normal play, so we'll see what will be done with it.
4) Touching up movie subtitles
Movies with soft-subs don't seem to work on the emulator, so we've created hardcoded versions of them.
These still need some timing adjustments and testing.
5) Testing multiplayer
Unfortunately I never got MP to work due to the infinite loading bug that plagues some setups, but some tests concerning the MP content need to be done.
I'll see if I can work some things out to access the content.
6) Final touches
After all of the above has been addressed, a patch will be made which marks the end of our internal testing and we can move on to external testers.
We're projecting this to be within the first third of the year.
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7) Recruiting testers
We will probably want 3 or 4 people who are willing to spend 3-4 months to intensively test the game and find things that we overlooked.
Please don't message us now asking to be a tester, as we'll make a post when it is time.
8) Test period
As mentioned above, several months will be needed to test the game.
This should be attainable in the second third (2/3) of the year.
9) Incorporating feedback
Any issues that are found by testers that need to be fixed will be done here.
10) Public release
If everything goes on schedule, the patch can hopefully be released in the last third of the year.
This is not a hard promise as unseen issues can always pop up in a project of this size, and our available time to work on it varies so sometimes more headway is made than at other times; the progress is not linear.
It's been a long ride and we still have a ways to go, but the end is finally in sight.
A thank you to those who have steadfastly stuck with us over the years.