So, we’re already at the end of August!
Work on Planet Stronghold 2 is progressing nicely. In case you don’t know, it’s taking me so long to update the beta version simply because I decided to release both the last two chapters, the 3 and 4 at once. While the last chapter has a shorter main storyline, it has all the romance scenes and personal quests, so it’s definitely important!
Getting personal…
The personal quests are optional (you’ll be able to refuse them if you want), but still need to be written and tested. Also, for EACH quest, there’s going to be two variants depending on your alignment with that character (loyal/rival).
What happens if you’re neutral? There will be another choice in the quest itself that will force you to be either Loyal or Rival. So we have two different fights, and then also different texts.
The main reward (usually a powerful item usable only by that specific character) will always unlock, while the variant will provide extra different bonuses (money, epic items, grenade/medikits, special items, etc).
…and getting hot!
The romance scenes, since there are 6 love interests, are taking a long time (I have planned 5 romance scenes for each character for a total of 30 !!) and I’m also putting special care in the “final romance scene” with the CG offering two versions, a suggestive/mature version and a more tame/soft version.
This time since with the suggestive option turned on you can see fully naked characters (depending on the pose you might not see some details of course) I decided to make the suggestive text version much more spicier than any other games I’ve done in the past ! While the soft version will have still undressed characters but not fully naked and the text will reflect this.
All of this, as you can imagine, requires more text (both version must be satisfying to read) so for example one of the romance scenes I wrote is almost 3000 words long!! Even if they’ll be of varying length, if we consider an average of 2k words each for 6 love interests, that’s already 12k words just for that scene for all characters!
I’m currently around 250,000 words of story, and as expected (LOL) it’s going to be another SMALL GAME ™. I remember when I finished Cursed Lands and thought about its crazy size of over 300,000 words I said “I won’t make another game as big as this one”. Last famous words…!
Release date
The downside of all this is that the game will probably be ready during the WORST moment of the year to release a new game, that is end of October/November. I will still release it on itch.io of course, but I will probably delay the Steam release until after the holidays, since I think it might be a bad idea. I haven’t made my mind yet, but it’s very likely!
Would you say that the current version of the first two chapters is “final”? I never finished chapter 2, and I’d probably have to start over to do any meaningful testing of the rest of the game, so if you consider first two chapters “finished”, I start over soon(ish).
*might start over
Yes I don’t plan to touch the first two chapters unless to fix bugs ! 🙂
I will buy this the minute it is available. Can’t wait!!! I just finished a playthrough of the original game–it still holds up.
Thanks 🙂 The beta is already on itch.io but it’s not finished yet.
I personally believe your games are at best when you have your vision of the story and follow it.. rather than speculating to whatever ends of our freedom to whatnot.. Do the story with the vision and give us freedom meanwhile.. I feel that’s what you did with Loren and stronghold. I wouldn’t say you messed up with other games, I’d rather say they would’ve been better with more guidance, rather than freedom.. as much as i love freedom.. and tbh i really do love freedom but in games… (this is where you fill up your part, no?)