TRACHI

Hey Folks!

This will be a longer entry, so I'll get straight to the point.

First of all, I want to thank my dear friend jayseeffaye for featuring Trachi with a full play-through on his stream.

I highly encourage you to check it out. I had a blast watching it, and I'm sure you will, too!


Updated Release Date
On another note, there's a piece of (maybe) bad news I'll have to break to you.
Unfortunately, I'll be away for the 30th, since I have to attend a wedding (not my own ofc, you silly boys~).

Don't worry, though!
I won't be all boring and delay the release.

Instead, I'll just pull it one day forward.
For that matter, the new release date will be the 29th September, 2021!

As mentioned in the last devlog, I'm planning a few things to celebrate the release.
It's not set in stone, yet, but I'm planning to involve several people who have accompanied me part of the ways.
And I'm very keen on putting them into the spotlight as a way of showing my unending gratitude to them.

In any case, though.


Let's take look at where we're at:

The act itself is around 2/3 to 3/4 done.
It's hard to gauge how big it's gonna be, but I'll expect it to be at least 1 1/2 to twice as long as Act 1.
There's a shitload of stuff happening, and the biggest challenge is packing all of that into a single day.

As a rough guideline, the first half of the second day will be spent largely from the POV of a Trachian citizen (a very high-ranking and important one).
If you've played through Act 1, you might remember him from one of the closing scenes.

Again, the early sections will mostly focus on setting the mood of the day. It will feel very similar to Day 1, in that regard.

However the closing events of the previous day set a lot of things into motion.
Coupled with the early happenings of Day 2, the story will quickly pick up the pace around the mid-point and culminate in a bunch of back-to-back revelations shortly after.

For that matter, there's also a very specific character re-entering the stage:

She back.

Yup, shit is about to get real.

As such the late afternoon will then lead straight into the closing sections of the day.

However, I'm also planning to give players the ability to explore a lot more of Trachi after dusk.
In other words, the ending sections will hopefully be a lot more interactive.

Regardless of how it pans out, I'm going to shed light on a lot of different interpersonal dynamics between the characters.

I'm super confident that the players who have completed Act 2 will have a much better idea of the motives that push the characters forward.

As a friend once told me: "I'm weaving a lot of threads at once". And I think it's about time that I'm giving out a few definite answers.

Alright, I think that about covers our little peek into the events of Day 2.
I'm planning to wrap the story up around this time next week and then give out a few more details.

Afterwards, I'll do a few days of play-testing and then push a raw build for the testing crew.

And while these busy little bees make their way through this madness, I'll again put my focus on... *drum rolls*

QOL Stuff

These include new poses, improved sprites and faces, more interactivity and an auto-play function for dialogue sections, among other things.

Oh, and a new title screen:


It's still a work in progress and I expect to make a lot of small adjustements to it before release. Nevertheless, I think it's a huge upgrade and hope you'll come to like the new feeling of it as much as I do.

Anyways, I wanted to use this devlog to also have a look into the future.


1.4 (REDACTED)

As you might have guessed, Trachi 1.3 will be followed by Trachi 1.4.
The latter will also include Act 3 of the game and thus conclude the story of Trachi.
Naturally, I'm giga hyped to finally finish this project, but I'm also aware that there's still a long road ahead.
In any case, 1.4 is planned to for a release somewhere around December.

After that, I will fully focus on horizontal aspects.
In other words, the final update (Trachi 1.5) will mostly be comprised of QOL stuff and polishing.
I'm also still looking into ways to introduce more gameplay elements and will probably invest a lot of time into that.

However, I will ultimately stop working on Trachi on April 1st, 2022.

The reason for that is two-fold.
For one, I will likely enter a PhD programme after graduation.
Trachi has accompanied me through my entire curriculum, and I think it's fitting to have both of them concluded at the same point.
And let's be realistic here: I don't know how much spare time I'll have from that point, onward.

Now, as for the other reason:
Even though Trachi will be concluded sometime around next year, I've already accounted for two sequels.
In other words, Trachi itself is only the first part of a trilogy.
However, I'll most definitely switch engines, and with it, the development framework.
Which means I'm going to need a lot of time to get used to that.

Again, I'm not sure how much time I can invest into it, but I doubt I'll be able to stop working on the world I've created in the course of thousands of hours.

So in the future, there will be a point at which I'll have to make a choice.
Nothing is set in stone, as of yet.

However, I still want to raise the issue, since it's been on my mind for some time.

Prometheoi (Working Title)

When I started out, I never wanted to do this full-time.
This gave me a lot of leeway in terms of how structured my work needs to be.
In other words, Trachi was a hobby, first and foremost.

However, I've gotten more and more used to the idea of putting myself entirely behind the project.
But as every creator knows, this needs financial backing.

With that being said, let's talk about possible monetization schemes.

Trachi has, and will always be free.
And I want to go the same route with the sequel.
So let me state this with absolute clarity: I will never put a price tag on any game within the universe of Trachi.

However, I'm also not too fond of Patreon/Kickstarter-like tiers with rewards.
As such, I will never introduce any incentives for donations.

So I guess my point is: I'll leave it up to you whether and how you want to support this project.
On the January 1st, I'll switch Trachi payment model on itch.io from an unpaid game to a "pay-what-you-want"-scheme.

From that point onward, you're free to throw money at it, if you feel that the game is worth it.

In addition to that also working on all kinds of merch, ranging from clothing to flags to maps and other things like that.
These will however be commercial products with unlimited quantity.

Regardless, please know that most of the things here mentioned are at this point conjecture.
Apart from the game always being free to download and play, as well as no tiered rewards being offered for donations, all of the above might change, in the future.


In any case, I just wanted to shed light on some of the things that are coming waaay down the line.
For now, I hope you can join me in being super excited about the release of 1.3 in three weeks.

As always, thank you very much for your attention.
Trachi is, by far, the most important thing in my life.

I've always struggled to find something I'm not only good at, but also enjoy thoroughly.
And I hope that for you, as a player, it proves an enjoyable experience, too.

Alright, I'm closing here, for real, now.
Because, as we all know...

Certain things are better left unsaid.



Have a nice week, all of you.

Kindly yours,
Nory