After a much-needed break, I'm excited to announce that the editing phase of developing The Dragon's Last Flight has commenced as of... today! :O

I've only just begun to dig into the first round of revising, but already I've begun to experience that heady mix of déjà vu and despair that accompanies every writer's journey through the editing stage. Inevitably, I will come across a sentence that almost definitely made 100% sense to me when I wrote it--but now seems like a cryptic, poorly translated message from another dimension. Or, my (least) favorite: a sentence I really loved when I wrote it, and still think fondly of, but know I have to cut for plot, pacing, or just plain common sense reasons.

I know it's all for the best--and I certainly want nothing less than the best for this and any project I willingly pour my heart and soul into. But alas, editing is such sweet sorrow!

So what's the timeline looking like?

Obviously, how long the revisions will take will depend on how much editing needs to be done. That's the beauty of not working on a hard deadline. ;)

Of course, I know that those of you who enjoyed playing the demo are eagerly awaiting a full release so you can finally get answers to the questions asked in the opening act. Just what IS Tashka up to? What will Marius do? Will they fly off together into the sunset, or meet a more tragic fate?

I promise you, those answers are coming--with any luck, sooner rather than later. Once I finish preliminary edits, our lovely artiste Odd Lazdo will be looking over the draft (as will others) and drawing more beautiful art, while I get to work crafting the code for the remainder of the game. Given how much we accomplished in just thirty days with the demo, I still have reason to believe we can schedule a release before year's end. But should unforeseen circumstances intervene, we should still be looking at a release date of no later than early 2020 at the latest. Your continued support will help motivate us to finish writing, drawing, and programming faster--so keep up the commenting and sharing! :)

What to expect from the full release

Nothing is set in stone until publication, of course, but for now, here are a few of the things you can look forward to in the full game:

• More beautiful fantasy-themed art and background music!
• Meaningful choices--what you decide will have significant impact on how the story plays out, and especially how it concludes
• Multiple endings--the first draft contained at least 5 distinct finales, and more may be added during revisions
• Sound effects--in particular, I'm hoping to find some great growls for Tashka and, of course, some nifty sword clashes for the fights :)

There no plans, at least not currently, to include voice acting. It's expensive, particularly if you want it done right--and especially given the sensitive nature of some of the topics this story tackles, the voice acting would need to be pretty exceptional to get this one right. So while I'd love to pursue it if we ever had the adequate resources to do so, it's not something that's going to appear in the initial release. But maybe someday... who knows?

Anything else?

Not at the moment. As I said, editing has just started, but I will be sure to post more updates as we progress further down the road to releasing the full game--and afterward, you might even have some special behind-the-scenes content to look forward to as well...

But for now, we appreciate your patience and your enthusiasm as we continue to work to bring this game up to the (apparently) high bar we set with the demo. Here's to a productive next few months!