Category: Tumblr

What a crazy couple days it’s been. An emotional roller coaster.

BUT SOLAR SETTLERS IS FINALLY COMING OUT THIS FRIDAY BABY!

Been doing chill playtests with my girlfriend every evening and it’s really helping iron out some of the last kinks. Makes me feel much more comfortable about build quality and such too! Let’s rock and roll (just two days!!)

So the bad thing happened. Valve rejected the build due to a strange Cloud Save configuration issue. I’ve resubmitted with Cloud saves completely disabled, but the last build took 6 days to get reviewed.

This means that in all likelihood, Solar Settlers will not be launching on time tomorrow (at this point I’m thinking next week is the most likely outcome).

So where do we go from here? Probably will make an official delay announcement later today (feels pretty bad, first game I’ve had to delay), and I suppose ask YouTubers politely to embrace a new embargo date?

 Anyway, although I panicked a bit about his yesterday, this isn’t the first game in the world to ever have a delayed release, and it’s still going to come out soon, so I’m trying to see this as an opportunity to further polish the thing. Did a long playtest with my girlfriend and roommate last night and feel invigorated in a weird way to push through the adversity and come out with a stronger game for it.

 As always, onwards and upwards. Just gotta make the best of it I suppose! *Pained smile*

Just two days left before launch. Concerns:

1) Valve hasn’t approved the build, but the reason they denied the first time was actually a Steam Cloud configuration issue that is definitely solved. (volvo pls)

2) I’m polishing up some last minute things, trying to be really careful, but there’s always a risk I introduce some new bug!

Just crushing (CAREFULLY) through accessibility stuff before launch. My TODO list is now basically

1) Add a “basic” or “accessibility” mode

2) Add MOAR cards

Tom Chick mentioned Mind Worms from Alpha Centauri on his stream yesterday, and I had a cool idea for how they’ll work this morning. (Sneaky peek, they’ll be a deep space card).

Also, sounds like I’m going to appear on his podcast early next week, so that’s cool! Starting to feel slightly less nervous and slightly more excited for launch now?

Talking about the positioning of the “Open Space” text here.

http://www.strawpoll.me/13434659

Some of the last feedback I’m going to act on before launch has to do with accessibility. Specifically some people are having trouble reading the small text on the cards. Not that I particularly want to take UI advice from Magic the Gathering Online (sick burn… they have a tough row to hoe), but I think I’m going to just do the thing they do where your last hovered card is shown nice and big in the upper left.

It’s not a very common problem, but it still seems like a nice safe pre-launch polish thing.

Doing PR like crazy! Had an amazing day though, some really promising interest in Solar Settlers.

I’m really excited to launch this one!

Hopefully Steam approves the build soon.

Also doing scheduling for the SOLAR SETTLERS LAUNCH STREAM EVENT which is a very interesting thing. Lots of variables to juggle there. I’m sure it will be fun no matter how it turns out. Can somebody tell me why it’s so damn hard to get the contact info for Twitch streamers though??

Just one more week! Did a tiny-tweak update to Solar Settlers, and sent out another batch of press emails. Wondering whether the embargo is a good idea or a bad one, and how badly Steam Direct is gonna hurt sales…

Oh well, no sense worrying about it! 

Also gotta remember to contact people today about a potential Twitch stream launch event like for Minos. That was at the very least super fun!