Zarf Updates

I have been turning the crank hard and I am tired. Admittedly, there've been a lot of FTL breaks. They get some of the blame for me being tired.

As you recall, a beta version went out to testers on September 8th. Since then, I have gotten loads of transcripts... five megabytes of transcripts! With 16000 commands! All of which I've read through!

Yes, I'm posting these statistics just to impress you with my diligence. A lot of that transcript-reading was "skim through parser errors and player notes." Nonethless, a lot of useful feedback.

The backer surveys have gone out. I have heard back from 610 backers, about 85% of you. Thanks!

If you are among the disappointing 15%, please check your Kickstarter account for the survey, or send me email. I don't need your email address right away, but I do need the stuff about your iTunes account (Apple ID), Humble Store account, or Itch.IO account.

Also the question about "how do you want to be listed in the credits". It will be difficult for me to make corrections to the credits list after the game ships. For various technical reasons, when you update an IF game file, you break all the old saved games. So I will be doing that cautiously in the iOS version at least.

So, here's where I am with the game.

• I've dealt with most of the typos, bugs, suggested features, and other issues from the test transcripts. There are a few places where the game needs additional clueing; I have to think about those.
  
• I have redone the cover art. Have a look. This is the same design as I used in 2010 for the Kickstarter page, but it's snazzier and has more Dürer. So that's a win.
  
• I have built the iOS app and tested it on iOS8.
  
• I've done all the app icons and launch images. (If you're an iOS developer, you know what a pain that is.)
  
• The in-app catalog of alchemical recipes works, and correctly syncs to your game progress. It's still ugly, though.
  

Still to finish:

• I need to extract the backer names (and nicknames, and "anonymous") from the Kickstarter survey results and stuff them into the game.
  
• I've just barely started drawing the map. I've laid out the rooms and started laying down the graphical style, but there's a lot of work to do there.
  
• Then I will have to integrate the map into the iOS app. (Tap to go to a room, etc.) The map will also be downloadable as an image on the web site, so nobody will miss out on it.
  
• De-uglifying the in-app catalog of recipes. (Alchemy looks terrible in the default Helvetica font, and the font sizes are wrong on both iPhone and iPad.)
  
• The help text in the iOS app works, but it's generic IF help right now. (Actually it all refers to Dreamhold because that's what I copied over.) I will have to describe the HL-specific commands.
  
• Optimization. The game is playable as far back as iPhone 4 and iPad 1, but commands aren't speedy. I suspect the slowdown comes from the auto-save mechanisms (which allow you to launch the app and find yourself where you left off, and also support "UNDO"). I need to check into that and, if possible, speed up that code. If not, try to speed up something else.
  
• I will need to set up the http://hadeanlands.com/ web site. (Right now it's a redirect to the KS page.) It will just be a couple of pages -- links to the App Store, Humble Widget, and Itch.IO buying points, plus promo stuff. ("Why you want to buy this game...") And the map.
  
• I should probably write a goofy sample IF transcript like Infocom always did. Those were fun.
  
• Build a script to mail out Humble/Itch keys.
  
• Submit to iOS App Store. Await approval.
  
• Pull the giant launch lever. (The game will be simultaneously available via Humble, Itch, and iOS App Store. Or as close to simultaneous as I can get. Within hours, anyhow.)
  

So that's where we are. It's looking more like "mid-October" than "early October", and I apologize for the continued slippage. But we're converging. I'm counting in weeks, and the number is decreasing.

In the meantime, I hear that IFComp games will appear "mmsometime Wednesday", and that's today. So play some of those!