Only six months or less until Bloodstained comes out?

ghaleon Delays don't bother me at all as long as the funding to pay the developers is there. I put my money in so that IGA could release a game right, not soon. If they need more time, they should take more time. Years after the game is released, no one will care about the development cycle; only the end result will matter.

Ah, so expect early 2019
got it

hah, no no, we're not planning for 2019, just trying to keep people's expectations in check if they're going off of previous rumors / statements of wishes vs. official announce date.

freddythemonkey

Yeah I went through something similar with Star Citizen, in the end I just peek in periodically to see how they're doing, following a game's development so closely can indeed be stressful or a chore sometimes.

I would like to get an update that shows substantial progress (which I feel they should have at this point). I honestly have no idea where they are in development of the game (which is sad for a community-funded game with a forum such as ours). I know where I think they should be. But those two things are most likely no where near each other.

I feel like they should be pretty close to completing the main game at this point (or are already finished) and starting to work on the stretch goals and extra modes, etc.

it is fine if iga decided to delay but I hope he has something to show us, a demo or beta would be nice.

From the last update I generally don't feel that's the case, if they've already finished the main game, the Japanese themed area we've seen recently should be filled with enemies.

There are games that costs 4 or 5 years to shape up, and considering changing the developer might cost extra, I personally don't mind if there's another delay.

Redogan Elfina Ashfield For the purpose of showing off the Japanese themed stage, they may very well have removed whatever enemies they have prepared for that area. It doesn't have light fixtures for crystal/coin drops either, probably also so we can focus on the environment and the music. I imagine both of those things are pretty well finished, or almost to their final state.

The content of the updates isn't exactly to show us "from this you can tell we're 85% done", which if filled with all pieces of the game would give away exactly what will be in that part of the game, but the updates are rather to show singular pieces of the giant puzzle. As Astraoth said too, even if they wanted to give us a lot of granular data on exactly how much/what they've done, that'd be really hard to quantify. IGA is an artist that may take a while to be satisfied with the work, too.

The more hard data on progress they give out, as well, the more potential circumstances of backlash and upset when they need to change or redo something, which is almost an inevitability in something this big imo. Some of you may/may not remember "August" for last year's demo, which was never an official promise but mentioned and pieced together in two interviews out of hundreds. There's a reason that intention never got stated more than it did lol.

Yeah "Crunch Mode" can mean/include a lot of different kinds of work. If could mean things like doing an asset production/implementation assembly line where everyone's just getting all the extra stuff IN the game and setting it all up. At that point its a little like a burger restaurant kitchen where people are just throwing toppings on buns and sliding them down to the next guy. It probably looks more like data entry though. Dropping in this thing, entering its values, checking it for basic compatibility and functionality, slide it down and repeat.

It could also mean debugging. Figuring out why this one monster flips inside out and displays a McDonald's ad or something equally random. Considering the usual amount of enemies, visual effects, sound effects, etc. an Igavania has there's a lot of little things that can and will cause hiccups and that kind of work is usually a slog.

The only real universal aspect of "crunch mode" periods of game development is that they're not fun. Hours, days, weeks just grinding away at to-do lists. Often slipping over into nights, weekends, and holidays. It's definitely work.