Hey dear Tomb of Destiny afficionados! I hope you're all doing great! 🤗
I wanted to give you a development update and heads up of what to expect in the coming months as I'm sure you're all waiting eagerly for Chapter 3.
I shared this before with members of the supporter tiers but also wanted to get everyone else up to speed with what's going on behind the scenes at the moment, so here's a quick recap:
The sandbox-ish structure of Chapter 2 allowed me to have more or less regular updates, as there were many possibilities to add content and titbits here and there, that were often independent from each other.
For Chapter 3 however, the situation is different, as it will contain 3 storylines for the 3 different endings that play out mostly linear with some dialogue choices and scripted interactions - very much like Chapter 1.
So after finishing Chapter 2, I posted a poll for supporters to get a feel of what the best roll out plan is, and the majority voted for having those story pieces released in their complete form rather than successive updates that potentially stop abruptly mid-way through their storylines.
Which makes sense, as I really aim for those endings to be an exhilarating rewarding experience, not just some quick lines to wrap up the story and then move on.
The "Clara romance" ending will be the first to be released and I finished the first draft of the script which already includes more than 400 lines of dialogue with over 4.300 words (!) 🥵
That is roughly the same scope as the entire Chapter 1.
Overall I am very happy with the script after it went through several iterations - there is some EPIC fanservice waiting for you, that much I can tell you already! 💥🔥😎
Action, Crime, Love, S3X, Intrique, more S3X - it has it all. And a lot of more or less obvious references to the TR games.
Some of the art is also done and now added piece by piece to the scenes, while I'll do some refinement/proof reading on the text and then - last but not least - the voice acting, which will also be a big chunk of work with these dialogue-heavy scenes.
So, coming to what is likely your most urgent question - when will you be able to get your hands on this?
It's really hard to tell due to the complexity of some of those new scenes but if everything goes smoothly, I should have an Early Access version ready later this month.
This version might not include 100% of the art yet, or may be missing some smaller scenes, but definitely includes all the important stuff for a cohesive story that wraps up the main game (for the "romance" route).
In any case, to compensate for the lack of smaller incremental updates, I plan to release some spoiler-free sneak peeks in the meantime to supporter tiers. Like the image in this post☝️😉 .
Speaking of supporter tiers, I also have plans for introducing a new tier with some cool perks that I will announce soon. Stay tuned!
I also wanted to quickly address something else:
You may or may not have caught it in the news, but there's quite some turbulence around adult content monetization at the moment.
UK introduced this new age check thing that is total bollocks if you ask me. 🔞
Even more concerning is the recent removal of a lot of adult games from Steam and itch.io due to pressure from banking card services. 👎
Here's a good video by Alanah Pearce in case you want to know more about this topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKD4fYc8xV4
Why do I mention this? Because it only substantiates my approach to keep this a free, fan-supported game for the foreseeable future. 👈
Although I would not totally rule out to have this game on a platform like Steam or GOG at some point (albeit probably with a lot of modifications), as it could reach a bigger target audience this way - anything that involves purchasing a game of an adult nature seems risky at the moment. Plus, aside from the mature content issue, this being a parody game also offers some other challenges (although I tried to not directly use any IPs, as you probably noticed).
So long story short: Keeping the current structure, where I do 'my thing' with full creative freedom, and you throw a couple of bucks my way as a token of appreciation and to keep the coffee flowing, is great and I cannot stress enough how extremely grateful I am for your support! ❤️❤️❤️
On a totally unrelated side-note: What is going on with the next mainline TR game? 🤷♂️
This post might not age well when they suddenly announce a release date at Gamescom this month...
But I highly doubt it...
So it looks like we have to stick together to make Tomb Of Destiny the best tomb-raiding-related game for a while, as 'that other british female archeologist' seems to stay M.I.A.
(see end of this post ☺️ )
I'll be back with more posts, bonus content etc. soon - until then, have a wonderful day! ✨
