July Status Update

Six Age has a lot of art, and it’s almost all complete. I just sent out the final assignment today. We may still do a little reworking of illustrations and UI assets, but technically what’s there now could ship.

The music is in similar shape. We’ve been trying to track down some bugs (are they in the underlying engine? my code? the music itself? the operating system?).

QA is still pushing to get all scenes and events exhaustively tested. Bugs range from typos, to logic flaws, to “after a failed, interrupted cattle raid, the news after a heroic combat doesn’t show up at the right time.” (That’s not quite how it was reported, it took much of a day to figure out the first part.)

We’re also playing the game. It’s quite possible to win and to lose. Unlike when we did KoDP, I’m capturing data so I can see what went wrong (or right) — a recent loss was an event that turned out to be much harsher than we expected. There’s a lot of randomness in the game, but I’m trying to tune it so one unlucky break (or one bad decision) won’t sink you.

Not yet. Sorry to interrupt, but I know you were going to ask if you could beta test. There are still a few last features I want to get finished. (In theory I could drop difficulty level, but it’s on the list to go in.) And there is no point sending it out with known bugs. At some point we will be looking for outside testers, but it will still be a while.

Author: David

Creator of Six Ages and King of Dragon Pass

21 thoughts on “July Status Update”

  1. Progress is being made, that’s good to read. I was kind of hoping to play (or beta test) on my summer holiday, but following a blog like this can make a person impatient.

    I guess the end game is fully developed by now? Hope it has a diversity of endings. That would certainly make my day.

    Good luck finishing up!

    1. “Hope it has a diversity of endings.”

      I think this has been somewhat addressed in comments on previous posts.

      1. Hi Jan,

        While it has been adressed by Stephen Tan Cheng Keat and myself in the comments on the “Difficulty-setting”-post, David responded that it had their concern. I was just trying to get a bit more of the veil lifted now that the game is being finished, … and if possible give a little nudge in the right direction.

        I admire you for seeing this ambitious project through, David. Do you combine this with your job at Shenandoah studios, or is A sharp (thus Six Ages) your full job at the moment?

        1. I’d rather people experience the game without too many preconceived notions…

          And my philosophy is that there’s no point in getting people too excited about a game they can’t buy and don’t know when they can buy. While still trying to keep the loyal fans aware of the long development process.

          I began Six Ages after Shenandoah Studio shut down. It’s been my full time job since then.

          1. Excellent philosophy, David, I have to concur.

            All good things come to those who wait.

          2. David,
            Sorry if this was discussed before, but which platform will Six Ages launch on?
            Will it be on all PC, Android, and iOS?

            PC version is my cup of tea, I like to fill my room with kodp bgm back in the days.

  2. super excited for this game, glad to hear you guys are in the final sprints to get things up and running! I was a huge fan of KODP and im pumped to finally get another game set in the excellent setting of Glorantha!

  3. Looking forward to this game too. Happy to wait until it’s done! 🙂

  4. I really, really hope it will be possible to choose a very high level of difficulty! That makes the game replayable for a much longer time.

    When I switched from the GOG version to Android, I found the (hard) game much easier. That took away much of the tension, I didn’t feel each decision was as important any more. So I switched back to GOG.

      1. That’s great to hear! I’m very glad.

        Incidentally, as a player I’d love for the higher difficulty to be caused by economy, and by other things one can influence as a player, rather than just worse luck during event decisions.

        A higher occurrence of bad events, though, I wouldn’t mind.

        But of course it’s all very complicated and I’m sure there are other concerns.

  5. As to modding, I know it’s been said that that was difficult to implement. But that would probably greatly lengthen interest in the game, and probably also revenue in the long term! Replayability and community-building become endless if people can create mods.

    1. No matter what the benefits, it would be one more development task. And there is only one developer on the team (me). So the producer (me) is making a decision that shipping 1.0 has more benefits.

      1. That’s entirely understandable! I would choose the same priority. (I’ll keep dreaming of this prospect for the long term, though…)

  6. Oh, by the way, now that I’m here: “regalia” is plural, as it means “things royal” in Latin. The king’s regalia can’t be one object. So it should be “regalia are” if pedants (and historians) are to be pleased.

  7. Can’t wait to play this game. I am searching for a game that feels like King of Dragon Pass for years!
    Tell me David, is the story, art and programming all done by you?

    1. Absolutely not! I got Robin Laws to do the writing (I’ve done a handful of scenes). I have a number of talented artists. And I got help with making sure the scene scripts were coded. (I am doing all the “programming language” programming.) And there’s also a QA team. And Stan LePard for music.

  8. I have a question about accessibility. I am totally blind. I use IOS with VoiceOver. I think that KoDP is absolutely amazing. Is Six Ages going to be accessible to those of us who are blind, just as KoDP is?

    1. We have not yet made any announcements as to what platforms we might ship on or when. But I can say that we care very much about having the game Accessible to blind players.

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