Issue #23 - Bear Obscure
Yes, I only think about Claire Obscure now. Je suis désolé.
PAX is over and done with which means that I am flying towards my demo release in early July. I theoretically want to have the whole thing packaged and finished in a month from now so that I have time to market it to streamers and press before the public release. But that of course means that it needs to be PERFECT by then.
No Pressure!
Post-PAX Recap
PAX East was a couple weekends back and the experience was okay! If you read last newsletter, you'll know that my plan was to enjoy my time there, and if conversations about Barty came up then I could go into dev-mode.
I decided to bring my oldest daughter (who is obsessed with games already), and that ended up being the best decision I could have made. Honestly, PAX as a participant is fine, but it's a lot of lines and stores, with some interesting games interspersed throughout the floor. But seeing it through the eyes of my soon-to-be five year old was a game changer.
You see, I had forgotten to tell her about the cosplay. And boy there is a lot of cosplay at PAX. To a kid, this is absolute magic. From seeing Cloud and Tifa in the security line, to repeatedly searching for Mario and Luigi, the costumes were easily the highlight of her time there. And her getting excited helped me get excited as well.
I went back in the next day, this time with a longtime friend, with the purpose of attending Remap Radio's community meetup. It was a bit of an awkward time, but I did meet Patrick Klepek in person after chatting with him a bit about my Crossplay piece. He was the nicest guy and overall the event was worth heading in for.
So... no big PAX Barty break, but that wasn't the goal. I ended up having fun on both days in different ways, and in the end I'd do it the same exact way.
Demo Dive
Oh god this demo release is coming up so fast. Now that I'm past PAX, I've been crunching a bit on the demo. I received amazing feedback from the testers of 0.1, and I've resolved all of their bugs and incorporated most of the feedback into the build. Version 0.3 (don't ask about v0.2, we don't talk about it) should be ready for this weekend, so if you want a slightly less buggy experience just let me know!
The overall timeline is to have the build fully ready by June 20th. That will hopefully avoid the June 5th Switch 2 release and the Summer Game Fest celebrations in mid-June. I'm looking to send to streamers and press soon after that and then release to the general public in mid-July.
I commissioned some new marketing art and I'm in talks with an editor for a revised trailer, so #SummerOfBarty is officially ramping up!
Another Art Tease
Just a quick blurb to let you know that the art refresh is almost done as far as demo characters go. Rufino has been amazing and continues to turn around high quality work super quickly. At this rate, he'll be done with the demo this week and moving onto the other hundred or so other characters found throughout the game.
Seabass Picks
Games: Claire Obscure: Expedition 33 has got its French HOOKS into me. What a wildly creative game.
Books: Still working through The Time Traveler's Wife... uhhh.. I mean the Ministry of Time. It's okay!
Shows: Also the same as last time - The Last of Us (unsure about the reworking of timelines), Friends and Neighbors, The Studio, and The Rehearsal.
And that's it! We are hurdling fast to actual demo release, but there's still time to test it early. Let me know if you want a janky taste of the meal before it's served 😄
This newsletter is an update series for the development of the game Barty's Adventure. Please wishlist on Steam here!
If you are interested in continuing the conversation, please join the community Discord server: https://discord.gg/M7p2Mtgkyx. Your input in these early stages of the game are invaluable and much appreciated. Thanks!
