Ob Iter

It has been one week since my last update, so i thought it time to post another.

I wrote earlier that i thought there was maybe 1,000 hours of work left to do in the game as a whole, but i badly under-estimated that number. It is likely closer to 3,000 hours. In any case, i am committed that the episodic release format is the only way this story will ever be completed. For Chapters 1 and 2 i believe another 200 hours work should do it.

My immediate goal is to have the graphics design largely completed in time for the Olympics. Given that i am now re-modeling the last area of Chapter 2, this should easily be met.

During the Olympics, i will be glued to the TV to watch them constantly as i always do, but fortunately i have 3 monitors. This means that production on the game will continue on one screen while i watch the Olympics on the other. It's a good multi-tasking approach which has always served me well. Currently i am catching up on my favorite radio program while working on the game.

As i am preparing this for a release, i'll need to comb through the database and fix up all the small things that i've been 'leaving till later', so this will easily be accomplished during the Olympics. It's a small task, maybe 20 hours worth and easily suited to the situation.

I've also got a couple areas i want to fix up graphically, but nothing hugely complex. I also need to add a couple cut-scenes, most especially in chapter 2 to glue everything together properly. There's a lot of characters and it't important i keep track of them so that no one is forgotten for extended periods, or their locations at crucial times unexplained. I may want to flesh out relationships a bit too, we'll see. All small things adding up to i'm guessing about 50 hours work.

So there's 70 hours there, and largely i feel i can accomplish this during the Olympics. That way i can go into final testing afterward. I might at some point feel compelled to add a new area or something, but in general, that last leg isn't too complicated. It's still 10 hours of game time though and i'm aiming to play through it 3 times, but maybe 2 will do, it depends. The final test through will be off the game disk i create. A couple weeks should do it, so for now i think Mid-March is pretty realistic.

My body might fight me pretty hard trying to adjust to Russia time though, and if that's the case, i'll be zombie brain and things will slide back to late March. I'll keep you posted.