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Spontaneous Birthday Update! Vague Release Date And More!

Greetings once again, everyone!

Last time, I said I would give the next update in April after finishing Chapter Five. Buuut there have been several developments with the, erm, development of the game that I believe warrant an early update. But first thing's first! It's my birthday today! I am now twenty-four years of age! It's been almost three years since I've started working on Forge:Re and a good six or seven years since I first conceptualized it. Weird to think this game's been a part of nearly a quarter of my life. Time sure does fly when you get older. If I don't wrap this project up soon, I'll be dead and buried by the time it's out!

So, I think it'd be best to just section off the different parts of this update for your own convenience. Read whatever interests you! We'll start off with...

Progress in Chapter Five

You wouldn't know it by me telling you where I'm at in Chapter Five, but the fifth chapter in Forge:Re is coming along swimmingly. Presently, I'm writing the final 'real' scene of Chapter Five's daily life. By that mean, the scene before the body discovery. (Typically, I include the scenes leading directly into the body discovery as part of the daily life, but they're generally short enough that they don't take all that long to make compared to most other scenes.) And what a scene the final 'real' scene in Chapter Five's daily life has turned out to be. It's very hype, and it's very long. Like, I'm 99% sure this will be the longest scene in the entire game by a college mile. That said, I'm almost finished making it. I've been working on it all week and I'm in the home stretch. As such, the daily life of Chapter Five is just about finished.

Now, in my last update I said "Ohoho! Chapter Five will be done in April!" Yeah, that's just not realistic anymore. Chapter Five has quickly become several times longer than I ever anticipated. I was originally shooting to make the daily life be around three hours in length, which is the approximate length of the daily life in the game's early chapters. After feeling like Chapter Four dragged a bit, I wanted to trim the fat. Make a more lean, focused chapter. But as of this moment, Chapter Five's daily life is pushing seven or eight hours in length. At least, by my count. And this is after cutting two entire scenes from it. However, I'm not the least bit upset by this development.

Chapter Five is the culmination of so many things. So many characters see themselves either moving towards the end of their arcs or reaching the end of their arcs. The murder and everything leading up to it pulls from just about every prior chapter in some way, shape, or form. It's a cathartic, emotional, roller coaster of a chapter. One I believe is fitting of being called Forge:Re's climax. So, I'm fine with it being as long as it is. So much of importance happens in every single scene that I don't feel it should feel like a drag to play. Quite the opposite. I've a sneaking suspicion this will be many people's favorite chapter. And how very Danganronpa-like for the fifth chapter to be the fan-favorite! Huh?

But this all begs the question: When do I think Chapter Five will be completed? Well, no matter overly long the daily lives get, there's never too much variance among the lengths of the investigations and the trials themselves. So, as of right now, I'm thinking the investigation will be finished by the end of March and the trial will likely take around two months to make, which puts us in... June. (I would have said late May, but just being realistic... Unless I eat, sleep, and breathe Forge:Re, it's going to be June.) Sounds pretty far off, doesn't it? And yet, it feels like just yesterday that I made the last update, so I bet it'll creep up on us before we know it.

This leads us to two different topics that I'd like to briefly cover. But because the one leads right into a fourth topic, we'll begin with...

Current Estimated Length of the Game

I feel like I've been saying this with every update. "HOW ARE THESE CHAPTERS BECOMING SO MUCH LONGER THAN I EXPECTED?! WHEN WILL MY SUFFERING END?! NEXT CHAPTER, WILL YOU BE THE ONE TO BREAK THE CYCLE?! OH, NOPE. GUESS NOT." So then! A very good question is: How long will the game as a whole be now that all these chapters are turning out to be significantly longer than expected? Welllllll...

According to my notes here, the game was around 35 hours and 20 minutes long as of the end of Chapter Four. Adding Chapter Five, Six, and the Epilogue into the mix, and we're probably looking at a 50+ hour Danganronpa game here. That's a long game! In fact, I'm pretty sure that's longer than any of the official games! And they actually had you running around stuff inbetween dialogue! Isn't that crazy?! What am I doing with my life?! Please send help!

BUT. Here's the big BUT. We all know what game developers are like. They like to twirl their moustaches and go "Honh Honh! Our epic masterpiece of a game is going to be an unforgettable 100 hour long journey!" And then it turns out not being anywhere close to that (unless we're talking about Persona games. God, Persona games are long.) So, just to be safe, I'm going to trim that estimate a bit to account for differences in reading speed and all that good stuff. With that in mind, my official estimate is that the game will be 40-50+ hours long.

I'm kind of cheating by tacking that '+' on the end there, but I don't care. This way, none of ya'll can call me a fibber. Not unless you speedrun the game and finish it in like 20 hours. Please don't do that. Okay, maybe do it on a second playthrough but definitely no your first.

Next topic of discussion!

Vague Release Date

Now for the question on everyone's minds, my own included! When is Forge:Re coming out? As I said in the first section of this update, I now predict Chapter Five to be done in June. Chapter Six will naturally be shorter than Chapter Five (THANK GOD) because it has no daily life, so I don't see it taking more than another three or four months to make. And, I mean, there's an epilogue, too, but that's probably going to be like an hour or two long, top. Not really even worth mentioning compared to the behemoths that precede it.

SO. With every fiber of my being, I will work hard to ensure that Danganronpa Forge:Re is out BEFORE the end of December 2019. You heard it here first, folks! We're shooting to launch this year! Of course, that depends not only on me, but my beta testers as well! And rest assured, I'll be whipping them harder than ever with Chapter Five and Six to meet that vague-ass release date I just arbitrarily set for myself.

To summarize, the current gameplan is as follows:

  • March to Mid-June: Finish Chapter Five, give it an editing pass, and hand it off to the beta testers.
  • Late June to Mid-October: Make Chapter Six, give it an editing pass, hand it off to the testers. In the meantime, have my first group of testers test Chapter Five and my second group work on the second round of editing for Chapters 1 through 5.
  • Mid-October to Release: Have both groups of testers get Chapter Six tidied up. Do one final editing pass of the entire game myself to catch any stray errors. Once that's finished, release the game.


"But wait!" You say. "Aren't you forgetting something?" Yes. Yes, we are. And that's the final point I would like to address in this update.

What About School Mode?

Ah, yes! The elusive 'School Mode' that I've kept under wraps for so long! What about that? Well, you'll be happy to know that I have absolutely no intention of cancelling, trimming down, or doing anything that would compromise my creative vision for School Mode. I'm not going to condense it and turn it into some throwaway thing just so I can cram it in there with the main game in time for release. Hardly. By all right, School Mode should be a blast to play and an experience unlike any other. I won't release it if that's not what I think it is.

The problem is, School Mode is pretty sizable in scope. All the more-so if I don't want to half-ass it (which I don't). I'm of the opinion that it will take a good half a year... upwards of a year to make. And as cool as it would be to release that at the same time as the main game like I originally planned, I have to face the music. It would be pretty idiotic of me to hold out on you guys for an entire year if the main game is sitting on my hard drive all ready to be set loose in the wild. With that said, School Mode will be developed after Forge:Re's release. It will release both as a standalone game and as a package with the main game.

There you have it. You'll be able to (hopefully) satisfy yourself with the main game for a while and get School Mode served for dessert a (relatively) shortly thereafter. In a way, I'm disappointed I can't release School Mode at the same time as the main course, but I really do think it's for the best. So many of you have been patiently waiting for so long, it just wouldn't sit well with me. Heck, even if I tried to restrain myself, I'd probably say "fug it" and spontaneously release it one day. That's just who I am. I'm a patient guy, but when it comes to self-control? Thaaat's a bit of a different story.

In Conclusion

In conclusion, I've spent like the past three hours writing this update. I'm tired and I want to go to bed. Thanks for reading, and see you in another month or two with a progress update! (I won't leave you hanging until June to find out whether or not Chapter Five is still on track, I promise!)