Infamous Quests
The Games => Quest for Infamy => Topic started by: rugged on February 14, 2013, 07:30:09 PM
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Is production going to schedule? In years of following both fan and commercial games I have found that things always tend to take a lot longer then first thought. Is q2 still a realistic release date or is it more likely to be q4ish?
Had the extra content stretch goal not been met do you think the game would have released by now?
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Yes, production is going according to schedule, I feel. Things do tend to take longer than you think, but I've always put in some padding in our estimates. Late Q2-Early Q3 seems right on track with how we're progressing now.
I can't really say if it would be finished now - I'd hope so, but I don't know! I did add a significant amount of content - in the size of the game (rooms) and in terms of story. I'm glad we did, though, because this is a much fuller and richer game - and closer to the intentions in my head. Of course, I also think if we had a larger budget we'd be able to get it done faster, as we'd have more people that could work full time on this. Many members of the team still work regular jobs, and work on multiple projects. The truth is money does equal speed in this business, for sure - but we're used to working under such constraints, and the budget we did raise allowed us to come much further than we did working as I!. I mean, this game would have taken us like five years to make if we made it no-budget like we did at IA!!!
Bt
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Awesome! Thanks for the info. It,is cool to be able to get insights from the developers. I was also wondering how many copies excluding backers would you want to sell to make the game a success? Would 5000 be enough or would you be hoping for more?
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The advantage of running a Kickstarter is we didn't have to supply a lot of money up front ourselves, so the number of units sold will need to be less (although this does balance out because we have to give so many copies away as part of the swag with KS.) At this stage, I can't give you a number because we haven't finalised the price point of the game, as this will be somewhat determined by the avenues we distribute the game through. For example, Good old Games and Steam take about 30% of the sale price.
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Same with Desura. However, the Humble Store is supposedly around 5%, but you do all your own marketing (like a BMT Micro but with managed hosting & customer service).
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How are things going with production? Is an early q3 release still a reality?
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That's still our goal, yes!
Bt
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Awesome! It is very impressive for an indie team to at least have a shot at meeting their deadline!! Most projects blow out, so if you are even close to your release date then well done!
I would love to hear about what some of the challenges during production have been? What things have ended up being causing headaches?
Also I see that the beta testing reward mentioned versions (plural) does this mean that the first beta release will be happening fairly soon?
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Hey mate,
The biggest challenge from my side of things is making sure the RPG elements all play out properly and that the combat is fluid, challenging yet also simple. Just because combat with a particular enemy works fine in a testing environment doesn't mean it's going to work well when the whole game is played as one piece. Taking an element out and testing it on it's own doesn't show the game working as a whole.
Honestly, I don't really have many issues or headaches with QFI. Steve and I brainstorm ideas about how certain things are going to work every few days but even that's not an issue. In fact, I enjoy it! We have millions of ideas and our conversations always finish with "Dude, we are brilliant people." Which is true.
Shawn
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Hey! Now, to provide a more detailed answer (I was out and about last night, posting from an iPhone)
I think the biggest headache people have is just time - time to work on this. The money we raised isn't enough for all of us to work full time on it, so it's still be made in people's spare time - and you know, everyone on the team - well, their lives are full and busy as hell this year! Seriously, everyone's got major stuff going on right now. So people produce work for this at a sacrafice of their free time, heh, and often their sanity. We've got new jobs, school finals, marriages, babies... heh, it's been a crazy time for the IQ team. But I'm still overwhelmingly impressed with everyone's dedication to the project and the amount of work we do. If we had a really respectable budget, where everyone was working 100% full time on it, with the way everyone works, it'd take us only a few weeks! Hahah, that's a joke, really - but I'd say time is a major headache.
As for Beta Testing, when we get closer to that, people will get emails from us.
Bt
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It's worth mentioning that, despite all that Bt just mentioned (which is totally true, by the way, and then some), production of QFI has been running consistently smoothly and at an exponentially faster pace than anything we ever did at IA, and at much higher quality. We really are keeping a good pace, despite the ravages of all of our day job & family life schedules.