Games aren't released... they ESCAPE!

There's an old phrase in the world of film-making that goes along the lines of "Films are not released, they escape". In other words, a film is never truly finished, but release dates and marketing spends mean that the director has to let their creation loose into the world.

I've been working on a game that really should have take a couple of weeks. And here I am, four months later, still trying to polish every slightly hard edge, agonising over dialogue and story, and finding edge case bugs in the most obscure places. The perfectionist in me wants to keep working on it, but the realist in me wants to move on to something bigger and better.

When I say four months, this really has been on and off Mainly off. I'm not working to a deadline, which is probably a bad thing because no-one is demanding to see the final product by a particular day.

But ultimately my game is telling a story, and that story only exists when someone else plays it. As a Unity file it is inert, undiscovered, imperfect, unknown. But as a published game it has the chance to create stories and images in the minds of whoever wishes to spend time playing it. I hope that includes you :)

How Do I Know It's Ready?

The reason I'm about to push publish is because:

• The changes I'm now making are not changing the story.
• The changes I'm now making are not changing the aesthetic
  
• The changes I'm now making will not change the experience for almost every gamer (just those who look hard for bugs)

And, perhaps most importantly...

• My mind is now thinking more about the next game than this one.

So I'm finally grabbing screenshots, creating gifs, and readying it for release this week. And then I can start the process again.

As ever, I hope that if you found this post interesting you'll consider playing the game once it's released. Which is in the next few days (Feb 2022).

Thanks for reading,
Rich
Ranger Games