Tracon, Ropecon & the future

Tracon and Ropecon both passed again. Tracon demo was in quite quiet room, but the experience was invaluable. Tracon demo was at as well represented location as the last year, and a bit shorter demo time was nice as the noise was even louder than last time, forcing me to shout all the time to get through the cacophony. Due to few last-minute changes Tracon turned out to be more playtesting event than actual Demo, and gave some invaluable experience. In Ropecon e2o gathered again a lot of attention. Below a few pictures from the events.

Heikki (left) and Markku trying e2o out in Tracon 2010

Jaakko (left) and Tuomas at the demo table in Ropecon 2010

And then, to bad news - unfortunately the game will be delayed again. Life interferes big time, and the game still needs chages to be GOOD; There's too many mediocre games out there already. I'm satisified myself if I can get the game out this year. This is my first commercial release and it's been hard to estimate real time of the release - I'd like to apologise for this.

The game development goes on and I've got a really good feeling about the latest features of the game; Amount of math has been reduced again, which will unfortunately move the game a bit further from the rpg-fittingness; I believe this improvement in playability is 100% worth it though.

Feedback from Ropecon Demo gave me some interesting ideas to add a new 'Tactics' element to the game. This is still uncertain, needs development, play-testing and some more development, and I'm not willing to reveal any more about it until the idea has been tested. If it works as I figure it, it will add all new dimensions to the gameplay, encouraging each player to get into position of gaining the most out of his tactic while trying to minimise his opponent's benefit for his tactic.