Kedemara - The Orphan's Ballad - Kragh
Hello all!!
My, oh my...if only game development moved as quickly as life does! I'd be writing up posts on Kedemara II if that were the case! Long overdue, but here's another update on Chapter 5's progress and some neat things to look forward to in it!
Life events (such as changing dayjobs and ALMOST moving again) aside, things should be leveling out a bit more now. My new job affords me more sanity (though less money and vacation time), but the quality of life and overall positivity of the environment is well worth the sacrifice. There's more consistent time during the year to work on Kedemara, but I am without massive breaks during the year like my last job. That aside, I believe I'm settling into the new schedule and things should be moving along at a better pace now.
But enough about that...time for a new feature that may be delaying the release, but is WELL worth it, in my opinion!!
Living History
Kedemara is a very story-heavy game, I'm sure anyone who made it past Chapter 2 is well aware of this! I like to introduce something fun or different into each Chapter release, and it's even better when it can be thematically consistent with the narrative concepts!! This new feature for Chapter 5 is definitely taking more time to flesh out properly, but I think it will be worth it in the long run.
As Deirdre ages, her awareness of the world and other contents therein becomes more vivid and complete. It only seems appropriate to do the same with experiencing detailed historical accounts. Without adding spoilers, there are different locales in Chapter 5 which make "enhanced storytelling" a plausible scenario for Deirdre to experience. As of right now, it will be roughly 4 or so "locations" where this happens.
Where automated events or "cinematics" occurred as a watch-only experience in prior chapters, Chapter 5 will immerse allow you to take control of historical figures at certain points to "play out" the story or account being given to Deirdre. You will move about a new map environment as this historical figure, able to speak with others, interact with their environment or experience events as they saw them in the past.
The numbers may fluctuate some, but thus far it's a sizeable amount. Four are already completed, with the final total being somewhere in the ballpark of 10 or so. Different historical figures may have multiple "stories" you experience, but here are a few notable ones you will get to experience:
King Robert MacLeod (father of Prince Edgar)
King Namath MacLeod (son of Prince Edgar)
Queen Cora MacLeod (Descendant of the MacLeod family)
Prince Edgar
Lady Anora Erling
King Phillip Norton
Izakael Thaen
Prophet Malakhai
Prophetess Tovah
[this one's a secret...]
Sahaiah of Myrador
Needless to say, while adding this in now is QUITE the undertaking, it will bring some fresh storytelling options that I'm sure the lore-lovers will enjoy. With the exception of 2 or so, these will be voluntary experiences, so you won't be forced to check them out if you don't wish to. Hopefully after trying one, you'll want to check the others out too!
Aside from the required ones, the others will be repeatable in their areas of origin. Later on in the game, you'll have the option to re-experience all of them from one place if you so choose. No worries if you missed a few here and there earlier!! You may also get something really nice for checking all of them out ;-)
Estimated Release Date
I would love nothing more than to pull a quick one and tell you it's coming out next month, but since Chapter 4's release time set me back (and the job I was working back then), I'll readily admit I'm far behind where I'd like to be on the release date. I'll give some context to where we are and give my best guess at what we can expect.
Since I was at ROUGHLY the halfway mark for the rough draft a month or so ago, I had one of my alpha testers do a quick run-through. I still felt the dialogue needed polishing and many things needed finalizing (background music, sound effects, minor interactions, etc.), but she was very happy and impressed with what I had thus far. Even without music to enhance the setting, she felt it was very powerful and emotion-invoking as it stood. I sincerely hope things will be even more profound when completed.
This was prior to having the living history portions (except one of them) in the game, and we were looking at roughly 3 hours of gameplay. There was also a large chunk of story near the end that was inaccessible because of a programming error at the time, so we are likely closer to 3.5-3.75 hours of content so far.
A lot of things are done out of order during creation, such as mapping, then graphical assets, then eventing/programming, map tweaks and music too. The finishing touches are usually smaller environment interactions, combat, items, and mini-games/secrets here and there. I believe, when all is said and done, we should be clearing 9-10 hours of content when Chapter 5 is done...EASILY. It's quite likely the whole of Kedemara will exceed 50 hours total.
So when are we looking at release, date-wise? I still need to go back over the earlier chapters (namely, 1 and 2) for text reformatting and a few other fixes that were minor but affect consistency. As far off as it sounds, it will likely be Winter of this year (2024) at the earliest that we'll see Chapter 5 completed and the game where it needs to be as a whole.
I really want to finish strong on this game, and my alpha tester's feedback about progress thus far tells me it will be worth it to proceed in like fashion. Hopefully the pace can quicken, as I get used to my new normal. I appreciate everyone's patience with me and sincerely hope the wait is worth it for everyone. Til next time...
- Andrew (Creator)
My, oh my...if only game development moved as quickly as life does! I'd be writing up posts on Kedemara II if that were the case! Long overdue, but here's another update on Chapter 5's progress and some neat things to look forward to in it!
Life events (such as changing dayjobs and ALMOST moving again) aside, things should be leveling out a bit more now. My new job affords me more sanity (though less money and vacation time), but the quality of life and overall positivity of the environment is well worth the sacrifice. There's more consistent time during the year to work on Kedemara, but I am without massive breaks during the year like my last job. That aside, I believe I'm settling into the new schedule and things should be moving along at a better pace now.
But enough about that...time for a new feature that may be delaying the release, but is WELL worth it, in my opinion!!
Living History
Kedemara is a very story-heavy game, I'm sure anyone who made it past Chapter 2 is well aware of this! I like to introduce something fun or different into each Chapter release, and it's even better when it can be thematically consistent with the narrative concepts!! This new feature for Chapter 5 is definitely taking more time to flesh out properly, but I think it will be worth it in the long run.
As Deirdre ages, her awareness of the world and other contents therein becomes more vivid and complete. It only seems appropriate to do the same with experiencing detailed historical accounts. Without adding spoilers, there are different locales in Chapter 5 which make "enhanced storytelling" a plausible scenario for Deirdre to experience. As of right now, it will be roughly 4 or so "locations" where this happens.
Where automated events or "cinematics" occurred as a watch-only experience in prior chapters, Chapter 5 will immerse allow you to take control of historical figures at certain points to "play out" the story or account being given to Deirdre. You will move about a new map environment as this historical figure, able to speak with others, interact with their environment or experience events as they saw them in the past.
The numbers may fluctuate some, but thus far it's a sizeable amount. Four are already completed, with the final total being somewhere in the ballpark of 10 or so. Different historical figures may have multiple "stories" you experience, but here are a few notable ones you will get to experience:
King Robert MacLeod (father of Prince Edgar)
King Namath MacLeod (son of Prince Edgar)
Queen Cora MacLeod (Descendant of the MacLeod family)
Prince Edgar
Lady Anora Erling
King Phillip Norton
Izakael Thaen
Prophet Malakhai
Prophetess Tovah
[this one's a secret...]
Sahaiah of Myrador
Needless to say, while adding this in now is QUITE the undertaking, it will bring some fresh storytelling options that I'm sure the lore-lovers will enjoy. With the exception of 2 or so, these will be voluntary experiences, so you won't be forced to check them out if you don't wish to. Hopefully after trying one, you'll want to check the others out too!
Aside from the required ones, the others will be repeatable in their areas of origin. Later on in the game, you'll have the option to re-experience all of them from one place if you so choose. No worries if you missed a few here and there earlier!! You may also get something really nice for checking all of them out ;-)
Estimated Release Date
I would love nothing more than to pull a quick one and tell you it's coming out next month, but since Chapter 4's release time set me back (and the job I was working back then), I'll readily admit I'm far behind where I'd like to be on the release date. I'll give some context to where we are and give my best guess at what we can expect.
Since I was at ROUGHLY the halfway mark for the rough draft a month or so ago, I had one of my alpha testers do a quick run-through. I still felt the dialogue needed polishing and many things needed finalizing (background music, sound effects, minor interactions, etc.), but she was very happy and impressed with what I had thus far. Even without music to enhance the setting, she felt it was very powerful and emotion-invoking as it stood. I sincerely hope things will be even more profound when completed.
This was prior to having the living history portions (except one of them) in the game, and we were looking at roughly 3 hours of gameplay. There was also a large chunk of story near the end that was inaccessible because of a programming error at the time, so we are likely closer to 3.5-3.75 hours of content so far.
A lot of things are done out of order during creation, such as mapping, then graphical assets, then eventing/programming, map tweaks and music too. The finishing touches are usually smaller environment interactions, combat, items, and mini-games/secrets here and there. I believe, when all is said and done, we should be clearing 9-10 hours of content when Chapter 5 is done...EASILY. It's quite likely the whole of Kedemara will exceed 50 hours total.
So when are we looking at release, date-wise? I still need to go back over the earlier chapters (namely, 1 and 2) for text reformatting and a few other fixes that were minor but affect consistency. As far off as it sounds, it will likely be Winter of this year (2024) at the earliest that we'll see Chapter 5 completed and the game where it needs to be as a whole.
I really want to finish strong on this game, and my alpha tester's feedback about progress thus far tells me it will be worth it to proceed in like fashion. Hopefully the pace can quicken, as I get used to my new normal. I appreciate everyone's patience with me and sincerely hope the wait is worth it for everyone. Til next time...
- Andrew (Creator)
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