The title of the post paraphrases the “Slow Food” italian institution, promoting quality food vs fast food.

If you follow me on socials, you might have already heard about our decision to delay At Your Feet 2 after Glamour Photographer‘s release. I listed the various reasons in the Kickstarter update, but in summary: I was too burned out, the wishlists amount was too small (releasing a game with not enough wishlists is always a bad move), I found some last minute things. On top of all that, I currently have some serious family issues, and in the end we didn’t want to rush a game out.

Definitely not one that was funded only two months before! I mean, do I have to mention that there are some project still not out YEARS after being funded? I guess I can take a few months more…

Learning my lesson

So this brings me talking about the title of the post. Because of how I am made, I always chunked out games quickly. I still remember back in 2016 when I released 5 ! (back then though I had five different writers and various external collaborators! I’m not a machine).

However, in hindsight, I think that for some of those games, I could have maybe done things differently. If I took my time to check and improve the story, the writing, polish it, etc etc the final result would have been better.

In my KS update I mentioned TFTU: After Midnight, but basically for most of my recent games like Hazel or An Elven Marriage, I used the same method: I wrote first draft, then I did something completely different, and came back with fresh mind to finish the story. Sadly, last year I couldn’t do this. I had just finished Thieves Of Dingirra which was honestly a pretty exhausting game to do, lots of writing and coding (and testing!).

I thought I wasn’t burned out back then… and started working on Glamour Photographer. But the burn out isn’t something that warns you in advance, you can maybe ignore it for some time, but then, especially if combined with some other serious personal life issues, it comes out violently.

This is what happened in the beginning of June. I thought I had under control, but I was wrong. I explained to the publisher the situation, and we agreed that it would have been a mistake.

Of course, the GAME IS NOT CANCELED! It’s just delayed. Probably early next year. In the KS estimate release I put January 2027. Not saying it will be out right that month, but I’m not late (the KS ended in June…)

So this is it. This whole thing however taught me a lesson. I always thought that the best thing as indie was to constantly release stuff. And I still think you need to regularly release things. BUT… not 2-3 games at once! Finish a game, then start the next one. And take your time. Also, wait at least one year from the announcement to release, since you need time to gather those damn wishlists for the “Steam algorithm”…

My main mistake was to boldly announce a release, knowing how burned out I was, not thinking about last minute problems or real-life issues (those are always unpredictable to be fair), instead of taking it easier and ultimately release a better product. But from now on, “Slow Dev” only!

Conclusions

So, the new plan is to release Glamour Photographer in November (with a beta in October) and after that At Your Feet 2, probably in January (releasing it in December I think is not a good idea? we’ll see). The good news is that I saw some of the finished animations for Glamour Photographer and are… really good!! Will maybe share one on my Patreon later this month.

That’s all for now, stay tuned for Glamour Photographer beta announcement next month.