Things are happening!! As I write this the biggest BISC update since adding Sleds is on it's way through the Testing pool (Thank you testers, you're cool as hell) after which it'll be dropped into production for everyone to play. 

Before that happens, I wanted to take a few minutes (for the 11 people who read the blog updates) to explain some of the new changes.

If you haven't set your options for the Home menu, first thing that should happen is you get these two screens, which let you choose between the old Menu interface, and the new Explorable interface. If you choose Menu, your experience will be mostly unchanged from the old system. However, if you choose Explorable, you get the new stuff we've been working on.

You also get to select your gender, which really just slightly changes the in-game model for your character. We've decided to include a nonbinary option. If you don't like that or it makes you mad, we reccomend you take a moment to look deep inside yourself and ask "Why do I really care" and go about your day.

Since the new Explorable layout requires a bit more interaction than just scrolling down a menu, we included some quick text about how to navigate the world and interact. All the interactions that were on the Menu interface are now actual buildings around the explorable home

That's most of the big stuff in Update 1.2 at this point. As always, happy people have been ejoying BISC, and I hope that with this update we've addressed some of people's complaints with the game overall. We've got some idea on expanding some of the high-level loops for BISC, but like everything else, it depends on where people's interest leads, and if/when we get a new project into development.

Alright. All that said, BISC update 1.2 will be available 12/15/2020 on Google Play.

Thanks,
Wyatt White
Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla

Alright, quick lil' drop here today. Just wanted to put out some external communication that the folks on BISCord have been getting for couple days now.

BISC has a 1.2 update coming soon!
//put cricket noises here

"But what does that mean!?", you ask terrified and trembling at what this implies. "Deep breath, my friend, it just means we're adding a physical home-base to explore, and gener select options."

It's been a criticism of BISC since like week 2 that's practically just menus and mushing. Now I'll admit, my first reaction to that criticism was along the lines of "Well excuse me for making a free game with intentionally non-exploitative microtransactions and not spending an entire year finely tuning the non-mushing aspects. Eat shit." but after some reflection and deep breathing, I really have come to agree with that thought. I should put more BISC into BISC. 

So that's what I've been doing. Since Trident is on ice for the forseeable future, I've decided to go back to BISC and expand on the elements around the core mushing. Right now that just means adding in some cool explorable area around your home base, as well as giving players a lil' avatar to control directly, but in the near future the plan is to create some other characters to live in this lil' area and encourage players to help them out, run deliveries for them, and generally have more diverse things to do in BISC.

Though, I'm getting ahead of myself. For the time being, it's an explorable camp, a lil' avatar, and some fixes to bugs that I've been ignoring, This update should be ready by December 20. I mean, it's mostly ready now, but I really want to take extra time to make sure it's as good of an experience when it launches wide as possible.

IF you really want to try it now, check out our BISCord here, and opt into the Open Testing branch on Google Play.

Thanks,
Wyatt White
Very Tired

Hey, turns out, games are really hard to make. Who knew!? Games with intricate story and character interactions are double hard to make, because if any of those fiddly little details are off, it immediately kinda breaks your investment in the plot and the world. So add on top of that scheduling conflicts with Jesse, the other writer working on Trident, have led to a lot of the strain on Trident falling on me. 

Unfortunately, it's a hell of a lot more than I can really do in a timely manner, so we're postponing it. We still both really like the charcters, script, concepts and basic gameplay, but we also agree that we should do it right if we're gonna do it, and if we can't then we should wait till we can. Now, that might mean it never releases, might mean it releases in 10 years. I don't really know at this point, but either way, don't hold your breath. 

In the mean time, I'm going to be working on updates and expansions for BISC, as well as updating all my tools for the newer updates to the GameMaker engine. I'm aiming to start working on a new project soon, but at this point I'm really unsure of what form that'll take. 

Thankfully, BISC is never really done. In the coming weeks I'll be working on fixing bugs, addding in new features, and  expanding some of the run-elements, so stay tuned for that.

All in all, I'm really dissapointed that Trident didn't really work out in this timeframe, but I'm really happy with each individual mechanic and system, and a lot was learned in the proccess that I'll be sure to apply to future titles.

Anyway, thanks for following my ranting and raving.
Wyatt White Minor Breakdown-haver