As we boldly voyage into the waters of 2018, it's time for a good old review-and-reflect on what last year brought us, and hopes for the year ahead...
Last year was Bullion's debut year in front of the public - okay, we announced it back in September 2016, and for about two-thirds of the year we we running on what was effectively a prototype of the first island, polished up and wrapped in enough placeholders and hacks to be demonstrable. But the feedback we received from the various events we showed it at proved that the "slow-agile" process is working; we have been able to revise our plans and expectations on the run and continually improve both the concepts and the technical sides of the game (even if it did mean several large rewrites of the code!)...
GEEK was definitely a highlight of 2017, and also where we started realising just how fortunate we were having Matthew and Ben H on board; both stepped up and ensured that we had all the 3D art, animation and sound/music assets required to get us demo-ready, and then joined us on the stand at the show. And despite a large number of bugs being found (prompting the largest of the aforementioned rewrites), pretty much everyone who played that first demo had only positive things to say. Taking third place in the show's Indie Awards was an added bonus!
Our other "big" show of the year was, of course, Play Expo in Manchester, by which time we had had a chance to address all the issues that had come up at GEEK (albeit by the skin of our teeth), and also start replacing some of the placeholder sections with more finalised work. Again, loads of great feedback, and we fulfilled a long-standing dream when Jeff Minter - creator of games that inspired us back in the 90s when then-Ledasoft Developments was first starting out - came and played. It was just a shame that Matthew and Ben H could not be there this time, but given the situation (Ben H having returned to the USA and the short notice of the decision to go), it was not a surprise. Maybe this year...
We also had a number of smaller events: WeGeek in London resulted in a highly-polished video interview, and Reading and Aylesbury Comic-Cons gave us a chance to catch up with Noaksey - indie affectionado extrodinaire and friend of Leda Entertainment since our breakthrough with Bopscotch at GEEK 2014. These smaller shows were no less valuable than the "big" ones as they offered plenty of opportunity to network with other developers, and also spend time chatting with those who had played the game, getting more detailed feedback to fuel the next wave of development.
However, 2017 also brought its share of frustrations, mainly related to the speed that the project is going at and team communication. Bullion is Leda Entertainment's first 3D project, and by the start of 2017 we had already learned enough to significantly revise our rather insane initial expectations (four fully animated characters and two islands in six months!) into something more realistic. But thanks to the team maxim off "life comes first", we ended up having to re-plan in such a way that various pieces of work were left dangling in limbo, rather than being completed and plugged into the game. Nobody's fault, but none-the-less, very frustrating, especially when the most-often asked question at the expos had been "when will this be coming out?". At the same time, we had also realised that we were going to need to find Matthew some assistance, and we do have a number of other artist/animators in various states of engagement with the project - but with the high bar set by Matthew's work to date, it is proving challenging to meet that need! Again, maybe this year we will get a breakthrough...
Life events had a huge impact on the team: Ben H had study commitments for a number of months in the first half of the year, following which he ended up having to return to the USA - however, he had made it clear that he is determined to stick with Bullion and is just waiting for his situation to settle down... once again, we realise just how fortunate we have been with those working with us on Bullion! And similarly, Winter's job situation meant she has had to step back before she could really get involved - so that's another hope for the year ahead: that she will the able to join back in at some point. Add in family, health and other employment/work related issues, and 2017 ended up being considerably more challenging than anticipated! But once again, the slow-agile process has allowed us to revise our plans and keep things moving.
So what's next? Well, GEEK 2018 is looming on the horizon, and once again it looks like it will take a big push to get the next round of features ready in time... but we will keep on adapting, revising and updating, and see just what can be done in the six-and-a-half weeks we have left. In the longer term... well, hopefully we will have the people in place to pick up the pace and forge ahead into 2018. Ultimately, we hope to have some kind of early-access preview available at some point this year... here's hoping that the winds and tides favour us!
