Progress Report: 4th of October (Patreon)

Hey everyone,

The beast has been slain, and by that I mean Felicity's event has been finished which puts me up to one freaking event done. I can't be that mad, though. I've been working on Steam around the clock and I should update all of you on that since that is the real progress.

My first attempt to get on the platform was rejected. I got that message last Tuesday. The rejection was worded... harshly in some places and I needed to take a good chunk of that day to decompress. I focused everything back on Felicity's event, finished it Thursday, and then spent Friday to today addressing all of the issues they had with the store page and game build. I resubmitted both and they're currently back up for review.

I had a feeling this would happen. It's my first time getting a game on Steam and there were various points of failure. Some were minor, for example, I can't mention Patreon anywhere in the game and so needed to remove all references to it. Some were tedious, like rewriting the entire Early Access portion of the storage page. It wasn't "professional" enough, which makes sense, I suppose. Others were very difficult, like fulfilling certain legal obligations.

It turned out to be fortunate that I removed the Public Build as Steam would not allow me to sell the game on their platform if I offered a free version. That does make sense, but it also required me to scrub every public build from Patreon, which took a lot of time. All of those links are dead now, not that I expect anyone but "legal" to comb through them. The Steam version also has to be "distinct" from the Patreon version since you can access the Early Build at five dollars. It would need to be fifteen dollars to satisfy them, and I am not raising the price to that ludicrous monthly level. Steam exclusive menus have been made, and there will be some Steam exclusive events in the future so that I don't get deplatformed. I'm not happy about this. These "exclusive" events will double the workload when I begin on them, but there isn't much I can do.

This goes without saying that the "Stable Builds" which were always meant to be temporary until the Steam version arrived... are definitely going to be temporary, as offering them is tantamount to sabotaging my relationship with Steam. Once the game is wishlistable, they will be removed.

Fairly melancholy note, honestly. I've spent a good portion of this development cycle frustrated and depressed, but I think we're almost out of the woods. The new build is awaiting review, I have complied honestly with all of their requests and I expect to receive a good message from them by the end of next week.

Which is also the Early Build release! Two events, if I'm lucky at this point. Felicity's is actually quite large and I would like to get another good sized one so there is at least ten minutes of content. Content wasn't the goal, Steam was, but it would still make me feel better.

If everything goes well, I will be posting a "wishlisting" link here after the Early Build.

I'm tired.

I'm going to follow Harper's example and eat an unhealthy amount of ice cream and get some sleep. Tomorrow begins crunch week, I will destroy it with passion and fury, and then claim victory over Steam's verification process.

Also, I am apparently going on a trip the first two weeks of December. I want to make that announcement now before the Steam release. Why? Why not.

Thank you for all of your support,

~Solace