Overview
So, the quarter almost ends, therefore, it’s time for the quarterly progress report. Overall, it all goes smoothly, but with unexpected delays, so pretty boring and standard I would say. Coding in almost done, the game went into internal alpha testing and a demo was made for the Steam Next Fest. Due to the need for testing and demo release I adjusted my plans and started making content earlier than originally planned, so the starting continent is basically playable and even a bit polished (but not 100% finished yet).

What was done
All core features were implemented, well, a few are still missing but those are minor. There are several more new features I would like to see, but those are not critical. Actually, I could finish the code in like a week now, so what’s left is content. I have created the first game zone with a bunch of locations (it seems there will be more locations than in the first Amberland, but smaller ones, it just feel more lively that way, also those locations are more thematic).

Porting progress
I was told that all technical problems were successfully dealt with and that the alpha version of the game works on target consoles flawlessly and at a required speed. So, it seems the game will be released on other consoles than Nintendo Switch this time. But there will be a separate announcement about it with exact details later.

Alpha testing conclusions
There was a build made for a limited number of trusted testers. There were several iterations of the build, with fixes, feedback on new features and the like (BTW, thanks to all my testers! It’s a real pleasure making a game this way!), it all seems solid now.

Demo conclusions
That was surprising, but the reception of the demo was very good, way better than I anticipated. It was released on 7th June, a few weeks before Steam Next Fest and it included the first continent with surrounding islands. Exactly one bug was reported so far, which makes me very happy. At first I was worried about the new features and the changes introduced, but it seems it all worked out very well. I observed that the people who had some objections to those features during Alpha, revoked those objections after playing the demo. In short, it all seems ready to go without any redesign… which is a new thing to me, it never happened before, not that I complain of course.

Summary
Originally, I planned for a release somewhere around this summer, but as I was talking with partners I kind of got convinced to simultaneous launch for all platforms. Which is not guaranteed/decided yet, but I think, it’s worth to give it a try. Therefore, in such scenario, the safest date would be late Q4, mostly due to the need of localization, QA, submissions and so on. But we will see, for now the official release date stays “somewhere in 2023”.