I’m freaking groovin’ to this set as I write.

It’s a great day here in Buenos Aires.

Comfy temps, sunny skies and hot chocolate got me in a super whitepilled mood. So what better moment to write another developer diary?

I thought this month wouldn’t be as productive as the last one, considering I took a week off so I could go to Amsterdam for a Tyler, The Creator concert. But here we are, in the middle of fine-tuning chapter 5 and testing a new sort of design for this part of the game that I hope people will appreciate.

It certainly wasn’t on purpose that every chapter ended up being their own thing. We were hoping that by having a predictable loop development would go faster, and to a degree it did, but the way the tools are designed allowed us to play around with all sorts of scenarios without adding new features outside of small things, such as “enable game object at conversation end”. I’m frankly super happy, and I expect players to appreciate what the planned seven chapters have to offer.

Our current plan for June is to finish what we can of chapter 5, then play the game from the very beginning over and over; cut-scenes and all. This is to get an idea for the game’s “progression balance” (skill, upgrades and weapon availability; Stat numbers, money, etc.) before we jump into the final two acts, which will exploit every single mechanic we’ve added so far. All for the sake of that very specific vibe only video games can achieve: The climax where all elements come into their own.

Thinking about it, that’s really what makes the medium so special. The fact that so many disparate elements can elevate each other in ways only possible when you’re holding a controller and moving the character yourself.

I don’t think there’s much else to say. Things are going well and comically fast. The programmer told me the other day that it was a little scary that we’re so close to hitting a proper beta build during the northern hemisphere summer, which makes me wonder… When should this game release? GTA VI is definitely gonna murder conversation for months next year, and I don’t want this game to be forgotten or be treated as some “overlooked gem”, so it’s been tricky to decide.

We’ll definitely know as time goes on. There’s a chance we get ahead of our internal schedule and surprise everyone, but life (and game development) can be unpredictable, so still no promises.

Regardless of the possible wait between “release candidate” and the game’s actual release, we’ll definitely polish as much as we can in the meantime. As well as jump right away into our next “flagship” commercial video game.

That one is coming, trust me.