Update #7: Release aftermath, and future development.
As a one-man team I can tell you this has been a crazy week; in particular the first 48 hours were pretty intense, with all the patching and large volume of feedback to handle. But at this point it is safe to announce that the launch has been successful, going well beyond my estimates. I want to say thanks to all the old-school roleplayers that supported the game and to the ones that wrote reviews (good and bad!), and I hope each of you is enjoying the little adventures, surprises and twists hidden in the remote corners of the Kingdoms.
Future development
Until a few months ago, my plan was to hold adding more content to the game when I released version 1.1 (which featured the Mage class and the Kingdom of Thuram). It's not that I don't enjoy making EK larger and more detailed, but I have a new game to work on; this new project is still in the "sketch" phase, and will be quite different from EK, even if it's also an RPG taking place in the Exiled Kingdoms setting; it'll have a larger scope, 3D graphics and be party-based, as well as some innovative gameplay elements, yet it'll stay faithful to design you've experienced in EK.
However, after the success of PC release I will stay focused on Exiled Kingdoms development for the next months. It's the least I can do in exchange of the awesome reception the game had! I can't realistically work on two games at the same time, so I'll postpone the new project until summer.
Here is a quick list of what I will work on. This might be released in small or large updates and in no particular order.
- New areas will be added. Most of the content will be targeted at level 18+, and playable after completing the main quest.
- Companion-related quests. These will be high-level (18+) quests that will enable advanced skills for your companions (a fixed set of them).
- New resolution options for PC. At the very least I'll add 1920x1080 mode and maybe higher modes, but please, don't expect miracles here; The UI will be smaller and sharper, but the hundreds of existing game assets can't be increased in resolution. I might zoom out slightly the game window in high resolutions, but I don't want to provide a noticeable gameplay advantage so this will be limited.
- Fixing some existing PC issues, like the ranged attack calculation and a few other reported issues.
- Improving controller/keyboard support, making the game menus also navigable with keys/controller.
- Improving existing localization, and maybe completing new ones.
- Steam Cards: PC version will offer badges and cards with cool original art.
There's a deliberate omission in the list regarding cooperative multiplayer mode. I will try to add multiplayer, and will experiment on it after the features above are complete. However, I am not certain it can be done without a large and complex coding effort that could also risk the existing stability of the game, so I'd rather not include it in any list of features yet, nor make any promises about it.
