BEW Forum

Official Release Dates

• Early Access for funded Dinner and above: Monday, November 27, 2017 - Updated
• General release and download availability: Monday, Dec 4, 2017 - Updated

The bugs are real!

I'll try to update this post weekly-ish, which knowing me translates to "randomly."

This is a placeholder until I get around to standing up a near real-time page that pulls stats from the Trello dev board.
Cards travel from left to right.

The list does not note effort already completed in a stage. In other words, to clear image creation takes a total of 2.5 hours per card. If a card has only has .5 hours of work remaining to clear image creation, the calculations still show 2.5 hours remaining. It's possible to have 5-10 cards per stage that are 90% done, so the times given here are on the high side, or "Pessimistic" times. The work effort is "optimistic" meaning I'm Optimistically assuming 3 hours per day on average. In other words... The list has 0% accuracy in time estimates, but can be useful for getting a feel for how much longer it will be until release.

Glossary of terms: A Card is a block of effort averaging 5 game pages.
Estimate assumes 3 hours of effort from Wolfschadowe / day average, and average trending effort from others helping out.

Dates given in the image are computer estimates. Don't believe them! You have been warned.

Status: 2017-11-02
Closing in on the final Beta release. All writing is completed, and the last big scene has finished modeling. A lot of programming left to do, but most of that is simply verifying that the variables are being set properly on pages. That's why the average time per card is 6 minutes. There will be one card that takes 1 hour, followed by 10 that take 2 minutes or so. A final validation of the model between the big Wednesday Night scene through the morning coffee and office to reach the small final After work addition will take a considerable time though. Up to 12 hours, but after that the remaining modeling and programming will be less than 3 or 4 hours. So we're really close. I'll probably do an interim test release Friday or Saturday so that testers have this weekend to hammer on the big stuff, and then include the last scene and some bug-fixes on Monday or Tuesday. This is putting us right on track for the projected dates in the current status. ESTIMATED ONLY
Status: 2017-10-27
Still plugging away at writing and modeling. Many cards have migrated over to programming. Also, added Early Access and General Release dates to the estimates as earlier ones referred only to when the final beta testing would start. Also, the localization files go out to translators at about the same time as Beta Testing starts.
Status: 2017-10-18
Roughly half of the cards in Writing are in "waiting for approval" status, meaning that they are 90% done, but the chart assumes 0% for estimates.
Status: 2017-10-11
Another huge shoutout to GhostNote and Happy4Now for all the help!
Status: 2017-10-02
Huge shoutout to GhostNote and Happy4Now for all the help!

Around December!!

I say Halloween. When Azumi take a bite out of brad's neck.

Chazz wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 03, 2017 11:34 pm

I say Halloween. When Azumi take a bite out of brad's neck.

I said Halloween a month or so back. We'll have to see if we are right.

Status update in OP

Looking forward to the next status update as it will give us a good feel on burndown.
If there are 30 or more left in Writing or earlier stages, it probably won't be done before end of November. Although Halloween would be pretty cool indeed.

Wolfschadowe wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 02, 2017 5:32 pm

Status: 2017-10-18
Roughly half of the cards in Writing are in "waiting for approval" status, meaning that they are 90% done, but the chart assumes 0% for estimates.

spoiler: show

2017-10-18.jpg

Despite all its unaccuracy, we really appreciate this insights. Trust the Process

a now here are you ???is 27oct ???

macdelrioMc wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 27, 2017 3:08 am

a now here are you ???is 27oct ???

Wolf is still playing cards. Be patient, he will be back to work once his wife wins all his money.

Updated the OP with a new update.

Also, this will be the last status update that has SWAG estimates by me. There is now enough trending data to use machine tracked trending estimates which may or may not be more accurate than my TLAR methodology, so I'll be using the machine tracked, trending estimates going forward.

Once I get this episode out to Testers, I'll post a poll in a separate thread for feedback regarding the sizing of future episodes. With the new trending data, I can do scope planning and control. So something to think about before the poll hits in a week or so is the following question:

For future episodes, would you prefer if they are sized by time (Content ready at natural stopping points by time, every 3-4 months) or content bound (One full scene, even if a large scene takes 6-12 months)

Just something to think about.

Also, I added more dates to the estimate. The release process goes roughly like this:

Final Testing (When it's ready)
Early Access: First Monday following 7 days from Final Testing.
General Release: First Monday following Early Access start.

Definitions of SWAG and TLAR for those who may not know:
SWAG = Scientific Wild Assed Guess
TLAR = That Looks About Right

That SWAG acronym tho

I always thought SWAG meant - Sophisticated Wild Ass Guess IMHO

@Wolfschadowe I would prefer content at natural stopping points(3-4 months) as before and leaving the player on the edge of the seat vs. content bound releases(6-12 months) as you have posted before that you were ahead anyways in many cases anyways for many of the story arcs. Just my opinion, but in many of today's movies and shows they gain a large review good or bad for leaving the audience on the edge of their seats in such cases. Just my opinion I guess, and many thanks for the update.

Very Respectfully,
TheWrongGuy
Still awaiting my spanking from Faith and/or Jasmine and/or Azumi

TheWrongGuy wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 28, 2017 2:42 pm

I always thought SWAG meant - Sophisticated Wild Ass Guess IMHO

Scientific as heard here in Brit-land, sometimes it's Wise-Arse, tho (apols if you already knew, but Wise=UK-speak for Smart: to us Brits, smart=well-turned out, what our US cousins would call sharp-dressed).

TheWrongGuy wrote: ↑

Sat Oct 28, 2017 2:42 pm

@Wolfschadowe I would prefer content at natural stopping points(3-4 months) as before and leaving the player on the edge of the seat vs. content bound releases(6-12 months) as you have posted before that you were ahead anyways in many cases anyways for many of the story arcs. Just my opinion, but in many of today's movies and shows they gain a large review good or bad for leaving the audience on the edge of their seats in such cases. Just my opinion I guess, and many thanks for the update.

Very Respectfully,
TheWrongGuy
Still awaiting my spanking from Faith and/or Jasmine and/or Azumi

Sorry, but i hate serial dramas and films that leave things hanging, and people gagging for the sequel or next episode: i hate leaving anything half-finished. I Don't mind if the story stops at a natural break point like going for lunch or off to sleep, like the gap in BEW between Ep 6 and Ep 7. It's also OK if there are some running threads or a few loose ends are left flapping to make it clear that there is more to come, but to leave things at the 'will they won't they' point is the worst kind of frustrating for me.

So when I'm talking about natural break points for the shorter episode, I absolutely am not talking about Random cut-off's or suspense drops.

Primarily what I'm talking about is like in the office scene for Thursday. There's the morning activities --> Then they get some work done ---> and then the afternoon activities.

The Thursday office scene came in 3 Episodes, and that system would fall under the 3-4 months version of releases. The first release was the morning activities plus the Emily corruption branch, followed in the next episode by afternoon bar branches, followed by afternoon strip club branches.

If we look at Episode 8, the Thursday bar scene has a similar structure to the Thursday office scene. In the case of the Bar, the cut-off will likely be everything that happens before Emily Arrives at the bar, which is primarily alone time with Faith, plus the Faith Only branch which covers all the activities at the bar that include Faith without Emily. That will take approximately 3 months to deliver, based on current estimates.

Basically, breaks would occur where there are scene changes, significant time gaps (like working through the day), significant changes in tone, (i.e. A major character leaves or arrives) Note, I'm not talking cliffhanger type OMG So and So just caught us! What happens next? type stuff, but just common story shift elements.

I just wanted to clarify that the shorter release schedules would not be cliffhanger style teases, but more like normal chapter endings.