The feedback coming in was very positive- people were really liking the new combat mechanics, and the game's overall concept, tone and feel. Which was great!
Watching dozens and dozens of consecutive playthroughs made it obvious what wasn't working- the tutorial needed more clarity, there were UI quirks, and the simultaneous execution still had some bugs that needed fixing.
That said, I went home with my notes feeling pretty good, knowing exactly what I wanted to fix, thinking the next build would be ready in a week or two, tops.
So what happened?
It turns out, knowing what isn't working is very different from knowing the best way to fix it! I spent a lot of time in March second guessing things and trying out different ideas, which led to a pretty bad case of design paralysis. That and a bit of burnout from the hard crunch leading into GDC/PAX made March a slow month.
Eventually I pushed past this, and as I continued refining the opening sequence, a few shortcomings and pain points in the production process became clear. I began spending some time streamlining the tools and workflow to address these issues, and this eventually turned into a significant overhaul of parts of the game's underlying technical architecture.
