This update has been a bit of a troubled one, but it’s finally ready, and going out to supporters as of this post. More supporters will gain access in two weeks, and it will go public near the beginning of July! Let’s talk a little about what’s going on with Project Matchmaker now. One thing you may notice immediately but is intentional: your saves from v0.01 won’t work for this version and should not appear. A lot of backend changes made it impractical to carry them over and they wouldn’t have made much of a difference anyway.
The first prototype for this game was sort of a teaser more than anything. The game looked very bland, you got some character development, then it stopped just short of the actual sex. Boo! Well, with this update we can finally finish that scene, including three completely different versions of the sex scene depending on what kind of anatomy these newlyweds have had hidden away. Speaking of which, the art has been expanded with a couple states of undress to let you see what all they’ve got going on!
As a matter of fact, the game has received a pretty dramatic facelift. The GUI has been almost completely replaced/upgraded, we now have backgrounds for your locations, and a few special moments have their own effects added in. The game feels much more like an actual, polished experience now, I think.
I’ve also been polishing up the writing and content in general, and there’s a little bonus at the end of the currently available story that gives you some extra bits to enjoy if you go poking through again. I’ve also added some basic cheats as rewards for supporters, and one alternate name is now available for one of the main characters in the options menu thanks to a supporter’s addition.
Overall, this update does feel skinny on content to me. Part of that is the many difficulties I’ve already grumbled about with getting this particular project to actually work the way I want, and I’ll be talking more about my future plans with that soon. Another part is just that so much of the work was either behind the scenes stuff or all the visual aspects to try and get the game looking more presentable. And if I remember right, getting started on this update was delayed a little since I had other business rearing up that couldn’t be put off any longer. In short, the last couple months have been a lot of distractions and frustration, but the update is finally done, and I’m feeling fairly good about it.
Now, it’s time to switch gears, and hopefully shake off that bit of funk with something that’s fun, challenging, and productive. I’ve recently posted a new Project Basics page for the next project up on my slate, and I’m planning on mostly focusing my efforts there next, with two caveats. One, I just got my second vaccine shot and it has absolutely floored me, so I’m not sure if that might delay some of the necessary work with this new idea. Two, part of the entire idea of this prototyping process is that I start getting a little more freeform with what I’m working on, and let myself drift between project a little more naturally. For example, I have to admit that I find myself coming back often to ideas for Project Wild One, but I’ve had to resist the temptation since I believed PMM needed priority. Now, I think I’m going to try giving myself a little more leeway there, and see if that does, in fact, increase my total uptime.
That’s one of the big upsides to this whole concept that I was trying to sell from the start, but I kept putting myself in narrow boxes for what needed to be done, feeling this or that project “deserved” my full attention at a particular moment to get an update out on it as quickly as possible. Now, I’m going to try to relax some on that count and see how it works for me to just… work on whatever I’m most motivated to work on at a given time. Some structure will still be important I think, I tend to appreciate a degree of planning and predictability, but not having to “force” myself in a particular direction when things start slowing down should hopefully yield some fruitful results. That said, that may mean the next update may be a little slower in coming:
Until now, I’ve focused all my energy on one update at a time to get it done as soon as I can. There’s little or no “partway progress” sitting around waiting to be bundled into an update on any of the projects right now. I choose a project and get it straight from 0 to 100% on its own. Going by this idea could mean that, for example, I might put in enough work for a full update, but 30% on one project, 60% on another and 10% on a third. If the idea of “flexibility = more uptime” pays off, then hopefully I’d reach this point sooner than usual, but that would still mean I’d have at least another 40% of an update of work to add before any game was ready to publish an update– which is to say, it had enough changes and new content to justify the extra work it takes to get the game playable and player-friendly.
So in the long run I’d be getting more work done and “more game made,” but it may mean a delay between this update and the next one. So far I’ve learned a lot about my own abilities, how I work in general, and what makes different projects work better both for me and for players, but this is a big experiment I’ve yet to really embrace. I do worry that the flexibility of all these weird development cycles has led to me slowing down some, since I don’t have my usual deadlines to drive me and keep me focused… but it’s also true that when I was working on PWO, deadlines went out the window, but I felt immensely productive just because the work was so engaging. So here’s hoping we can find a good way to harness productivity through positive means, rather than purely through pressuring myself with dates. That would probably be healthier for me anyway, honestly.
Anyway, I think that covers what’s new and what’s coming from here. I do plan to roll out a new vote or two in the coming weeks, though I’m not sure just yet to what extent they’ll be public or supporter-only. I’ve got some important decisions to make and I’m going to be very interested in input from you guys on these things. So keep an eye out for that!
For now, thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll enjoy the new Project Matchmaker! Cheers!
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