The Six Week Release Schedule

Hey everyone,
First, I want to assure you that the new version of BMO TV is right around the corner and that I'm making really good progress. It may be released either this or next weekend.

However, I want to talk about the release schedule today because at the start of this project's development two years ago, I set out a very ambitious goal of releasing a new patch every four weeks, which was already extended to every six weeks. While I did stray off this schedule a few times to make space for other project releases, like the BMO Files, I kept staying close to the original plan.

Don't get me wrong... I'm not saying I don't want to do regular releases like this anymore, but I'm noticing some issues with the fixed release times. Recently, there was a controversy at Linus Tech Tips, one of my favorite YouTube channels, which hadn't missed their ambitious schedule of one upload a day but faced problems with quality control. That made me think. It makes sense, right? If you really want to upload a video daily, some will have to be rushed. And so, doing a new patch for the game every six weeks and trying not to miss that deadline will lead to the same problem. In the past, I've definitely taken some shortcuts to meet the deadline. I often feel the need to finish something on time, but that can decrease the quality. Of course, here it's a little different because I can fix anything in the next patch, but that next patch also has to have new features.

The second issue for me is that I've been overworking too much. It was fine initially, but I've been doing this for over two years. I'm extremely happy that you all are deciding to support me for this long, but I just can't keep up with the workload. I need to find a normal work schedule, but whenever a deadline looms, I just go into overdrive and keep working until midnight for a whole week. That needs to stop. I need to find a way to start working in the morning and stop working in the evening every day when my wife returns from her job. Needless to say, that also includes the weekends. Whenever a new release came up, I always worked through the weekend before and the one after to fix bugs. I take a three-week holiday every year around September/October, but I keep working extra long hours the weeks before to give you extra content because we're missing a release date. I'm not getting younger, and this is starting to exhaust me physically and mentally. I'm not burned out yet, but I can't keep this up for another two years.

I also think it's vital for me in so many ways to be able to experiment with other game ideas every now and then. I'm very creative, and when I have an idea, my mind keeps telling me how awesome it would be to do it. Doing just one thing for a long time is also very bad for creativity. Taking some time off a project also helps with recharging the creative energy. But of course, these side projects are an issue for the release schedule. Last month, the Femdemic release kept me from developing BMO TV for at least three weeks. I'm proud of having released a finished project, though. BMO TV should also be completed at some point, but it just takes a while because it has a bigger scale. And when it happens, I also need to have another project lined up to take its place as the new main project.

You may also have noticed that this month's Alpha release should have happened last Friday according to the six-week schedule, so you already know where this is going: I need to stop the fixed development timeframe per patch. Releasing every six weeks just doesn't make sense anymore. That doesn't change my plan, but if a patch takes six, seven, or eight weeks... that has to be good enough in the future. Every patch is different, after all. This current patch in development (v0.6.1) is not as big as v0.6.0, but it contains a larger than usual amount of graphics that need to be implemented with new systems. And that just takes a long time. There are also always different kinds of side tasks, like writing this text alone took me 3 hours. It's different every patch cycle, so forcing it all into the same period doesn't make sense.

Making patches smaller to fit the schedule is also not something I think makes sense. It would just lead to more content where it's unclear whether it is finished, making the game less playable and enjoyable. So, the deadlines have to go, but I hope that doesn't change the release schedules too much. Just makes them a little more variable.

One other thing that has contributed to the issue, though, was my job as a game design teacher at a local school for game development for six hours every week. I kept it up as a backup plan if the support here suddenly disappeared. You proved to me over the past two years that that's not happening, and while there's still a little voice in the back of my mind, anxious that this could all go away in the snap of a finger, I'm confident enough now that I finally quit this job. That also means the one opportunity I had every week to meet people and leave the house is gone, but we'll see how that affects me over time.

So, on the one hand, my trying to find a more balanced lifestyle may slow down development time a little. Quitting my second job could be a way to mitigate that.

For the V0.6.1 release, I'm trying my best to finish it this weekend, but I'm also trying to stop working in the evening and not overwork myself. So it might also be next weekend. I hope you understand that this is a necessary change. I still look forward to putting the new content into your hands because I think it will be great. The new patch contains the most complicated player transformation I've done yet. I hope you'll see that and appreciate it when you do.

Best,

Rel