Hello Villagers!
It’s been exactly one week since Village Monsters v1.0 was released.
Village Monsters is my first ever creation. I am very proud of the work I did, and the many kind words I’ve received from players has been beyond heartwarming.
I have notebooks from back when I was in 1st grade detailing a game where you live with video game monsters, and now nearly 30 years later… it’s real! People are playing it!
But, to be frank, Village Monsters is in a very rough state right now. I’ve already released 5 bugfix patches, and after looking at the reports on my desk, I have a long way to go.
I want to use this post to address the biggest problems, how they came about, and what I’m doing to fix them.
The Problems
My top priority right now is fixing the issues that were introduced during the final push.
For context, a technical bug with my developer tools caused me to lose 2 months worth of work the literal night before the original launch date. It sucked. You can read more details here.
I had already been crunching for months, so this last-minute disaster nearly broke me. In a fit of reckless optimism, I opted to manually stich the game back together over the course of a week. I had hoped adrenaline and the code being “fresh” in my mind would help pull off a miracle.
I was stupid and exhausted. While my approach ultimately was “successful”, it has (predictably) introduced far more problems into the game than before.
Over the last week, I’ve identified two of the largest ones.
Problem #1
World Flags are not working properly across the board. These flags control nearly everything in the game, such as holidays, events, and story cutscenes. The knock-on effects are tremendous, and it’s my top priority to fix.
Problem #2
There are many features that were disabled in the final moments of release. Some intentionally (due to time constraints), others due to bugs or source control issues. There are many lingering issues due to this. My next priority is to test, fix, and reenable these features.
The Solution
I’ve been investigating my code and player save files since last week. I have a really good idea of what needs to be fixed and how, and I’ve already started on working through it. Things are going very well, especially now that I’ve had a chance to sleep and regroup.
You guys deserve a fixed and polished game, and no amount of words, roadmaps or timelines will get you that faster. To this end, I’ll continue doing rapid smaller patches to fix crashes and urgent bugs, but I’ll otherwise keep a low profile until I’ve finished the work necessary.
I want to extend an enormous thank you to everyone who has supported me. From the very first Kickstarter, to 2019’s Early Access release, to last week’s v1.0 launch. I don’t take any of you for granted, and I won’t stop working on Village Monsters until it’s in a state worthy of your support.
