The Redesign news

Hello everybody, Fennecai the lead dev here.

As I previously announced, I was taking a break of sorts from developing the mod... Well, I have been busy recovering, and I think its time to start working on this project again! How exciting!

Things are not going to be the exact same, however: After several weeks worth of careful consideration, I have made the decision to completely re-think how the mod's entire development cycle should work, in order to simplify the process and make it more enjoyable for both me and everyone else who wants to play the mod.

Essentially, what this means is a few things:

• The chapters will be significantly shorter- in fact, only one or two maps long each.
  • that said: the mod may be any amount of chapters long. I do not have a specific plan for the number, so as to ensure creative freedom for myself.
• How I handle playtesting internally will now rely purely on shared feedback, rather than recorded videos. this prevents my own perfectionism from slowing the mod down to impossibly slow development speeds by ensuring that my to-do list is always relatively small and contains only the most critical issues, along with a finite list of things that i'd like to add to the maps.
• The chapters will be released much, much sooner- due to the single-map-each formula, each chapter will now be released individually as modular add-ons to the first; which itself will serve as the base mod required to play the others.
• The in-game story will unfold more naturally, and overly ambitious storytelling goals will be avoided in favor of a more approachable storytelling style inspired by map packs often seen on the steam workshop, as well as partially inspired by the creative process behind the tv show "LOST".
• Public updates may also be more frequent. I am considering being more transparent with my development process. With a smaller scope for individual chapters, spoilers may not be as important due to the fact that a single play-through will reveal said spoilers fairly quickly anyway.
• Visuals in the mod will still be high quality, but I am going to avoid using custom assets and themes (where possible) in order to simplify and streamline the process into a less overwhelming endeavor, which will, in turn, result in more cohesive art direction consistent with the main game.
• other aspects of the mod will likely change due to all of the above.

So, all of that said, I look forward to continuing this whole thing! Im glad you are all still here, so hopefully, I can count on you all to play the mod when its first chapter is ready in the possibly-not-too-distant future. :)