Ambition and Adventure

First of all, I want to say thank you to all my early supporters, you've exceeded my expectations!

Ambition & Adventure

Accidental Woman is an ambitious project to be sure, but I believe that it's ambitious in a good way. Everything I've proposed is completely feasible, and the scope is constrained with a plan to get to the finish, so it isn't ambitious in terms of what is possible. I think it's ambitious in terms of making a really good game. I want to make something that people enjoy playing, that captures a certain narrative spark that happens when a game and its players interact to create an experience.

Before ever writing a word of code or story for Accidental Woman, I took a good amount of time to do some preparation. Thinking about how the game should be structured, what sort of features and mechanics should be included, and the fictional environment of Appletree and the individual stories of its inhabitants. This planning gives me a road map of how to get to the finish line, and informs how I go about building each piece along the way.

Experiencing Adventure

As far as time goes, I've known from the beginning that development wasn't going to be over in a few months, but instead was going to take two or three years to finish. The game will certainly be playable well before that, but the narrative content will take time to flesh out.

I've worked on long projects before, professionally and for fun in the game modding community. I think the most relevant experience I can liken to Accidental Woman is playing Dungeons & Dragons (or Pathfinder and other tabletop RPGs). I've been GMing campaigns in one way or another since 2000, and quite often these campaigns last for more than a year, and some have lasted for two or three. Working on Accidental Woman is very similar in a few ways: It requires dedication and forethought to seeing it through, it weaves a lot of story threads together inside a larger fictional world, and it depends on working together with players. (Also, it's fun to work on, and I'm sure there'll be drunken shenanigans at some point.)

My plan depends on building a community of players, and listening to them. Interacting with people who enjoy what I'm doing helps me improve, but most importantly it's what motivates me to keep going and put in my best effort. The support so far is extremely encouraging!

My Promises to Supporters:

1. I'm not perfect, and like anyone else I will probably make a few--hopefully minor--mistakes along the way. I will do my best to focus on fixing them when they happen, of course, but I will be honest and forthright about it with all of you as well. If I screw up, I'll tell you without a bunch of excuses or bullshit. (And I won't ignore you when you point out a mistake that I haven't noticed.)
2. If something major happens, or I need time to take a personal vacation or deal with family matters, I won't take your money. I only want to accept your patronage if I've done the work to deserve it. I'll try to tell you in advance and set up Patreon not to charge you, but in case of a sudden unknown or bad timing making that impossible, I'll stop charging for the following month instead.
3. It's too early to have a firm release schedule just yet, but once I establish one, I'll meet or exceed it. If I don't, I'll come up with some recompense for you. For a major lapse I'll go with promise number two in regards to billing. At some points the release schedule may have to change due to the nature of development. Occasionally the next new build may take longer because I'm working on a large 'chunk'. In both cases I'll tell you well in advance, not a few days before the next release is due.
4. I won't drag on development to take advantage of your donations. I know the goal I'm shooting for, and I'll honestly work on getting there. I will check with you towards the end in regards to adding more content, but my plan is to wrap up AW and potentially start working on a new project.
5. I will communicate. While the time I spend answering questions, writing blog posts, and doing other communications-type stuff does take away from time I'm working on the game, it's also important to keep you informed. Communication is a two way street, so to take advantage of the community to make the game better, I'll have to participate! However, I also won't spend a ton of time on it, as that would become counterproductive. If I can't answer a question or message right away (or it falls through the cracks, so to speak) know that it isn't because it isn't valuable, but because I only have so much time and have to prioritize development.