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I state quite often on my Twitter that I believe it's my duty to be transparent and direct, especially since I am the sole creator and director of everything around NYKRA. So I felt I would take an honest moment to sit down and explain some happenings that are around me.

The complex part about releasing a game you've obsessed and fixated on for endless years, is that you will absolutely lack the experience knowing how to do it professionally. I have never done this before, so I had to go into it knowing that there's a good chance I'll mess up. I can't state that I knew what to do, because I didn't.
In saying this though, I genuinely try to learn and listen as fast and as effective as possible. But in the end, it's still only me making all the decisions and doing all the work. I chose not to work towards hiring people, which (to be fair) isn't something I should need to do. But there were many moments during development where I was desperate for someone to just tell me what to do. I became so decision-fatigued that even the thought of releasing the game sent me into a panicking spiral.

NYKRA has been a thing for far too long, and it's pretty clear that it's a very messy game behind the scenes. The project file is more than 6 years old, it has systems, code, and objects that date all the way back to the start. During the release window for it, I cannot deny that I was hopeful most of the issues I couldn't fix in time wouldn't surface. Numerous people have directly questioned me to ask if I have even played through it myself - of which I have - but there's important details I need to state. The beta testers I had play the game helped a lot, but some of the issues they reported I had a bad feeling were caused by something larger. For those who don't know, I've been wanting and trying to release this game ever since the Kickstarter in 2016, so there was a lot of desperation to just get this off my chest. And when you don't have someone to keep you on track, things tend to steer in odd directions.

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In saying all this though, I'd like to reference some reviews and talk about some points that I haven't explained.
Regarding the completeness of NYKRA itself, I'd like to reference this well written review of the game:
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/profiles/76561198018908619/recommended/867660/

The later parts of NYKRA's development have basically involved now-older me trying to fix and repair this game made by younger-me. To avoid any major future problems, I've been developing the game on 2 separate projects. The reason for this is because (as you may guess) the game breaks often, and more importantly the *.rmlvl files that contain all the map data become susceptible to corruption and incompatibilities. So it's interesting, and more importantly very fair, to see people in the data folders looking at what's going on - especially with all the bugs and crashes. The missing data files is because I didn't export the broken rooms, referencing my 2-project setup. Now looking at it (and reading the above review), I realised how this looks.
Along with the dialogue file, which was also examined, you can see that it doesn't have the dialogue for the last chapter. The final chapter actually doesn't have any dialogue at all (also, there's a lot of dialogue hardcoded into the game itself that I have yet to transition to the external file), so the combination of that and a few other little bits - I understand a lot of the worries people have been having.

Other parts of that review also contain valid criticism, which I appreciate the honesty for. I fully get that this pile of saturated colours and sounds isn't for everyone. But I hope people see that it truly is just a 14 year old's sci-fi obsessive day dream, and not much more. I failed English in school, but did great in architecture and graphic design - so surely that explains a lot of the broken dialogue and stupid shapes hahaha
But hey, this is the weird thing about big childhood dreams like this, you either fulfill it from the perspective of younger you, or force it to change to be more applicable to the normal modern game scene. I guess I chose the former, because I didn't want to disappoint younger me.

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There are numerous aspects of NYKRA's release that I'd also like to cover, with a few references to this other review (which is at the top of the Review List):
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/profiles/76561198110725954/recommended/867660/

As many know, I have tried numerous times over the years to settle on a release date. One of the biggest issues I brought up frequently with my therapist was how crippling having a release date was. I truly would have preferred to fiddle and pick at this game for another couple years in the background, but that very quickly became no longer viable. Despite all the seemingly-infinite hours I spent working on the game, it just never wanted to finish. Early Access never sat comfortably with me either, because again - younger me was adamant on a full release.
What's interesting to me, is that this whole release would have been many magnitudes times worse if I released it in July 2021 like I wanted to originally. So it's not that I feel like I could never win, it's more that I really just had to do it sooner rather than later. I really had no choice, because people started to genuinely question if it was ever going to be released or not.
And being solo, every decision I make is definitive - since I don't have a Director or Manager to help me through the last bits.

On twitter I very often talked about how mentally-cumbersome it was knowing I had to release NYKRA. In a sense I never really wanted to at all - it became too personal, and had too many deep-rooted issues that I couldn't bear to show people. 'September the 27th' was made the night before I went to have one of my final chats with my therapist - after more than a year of talking with him. In a way it was my last straw, and I was shattered in pieces trying to explain to him that I'm gonna try to make it work. I had to set it in diamond, otherwise I knew I'd let myself work on it for many more years with no end in sight.
Unfortunately this also felt rather hypocritical in ways, since I stated many times publicly that I don't enjoy release dates - amidst all the fuss around Cyberpunk 2077's delays. So of course I'm embarrassed this didn't go to plan.

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The future, though, is one I'd really like to quickly cover. Despite the issues this past month, I have made a large amount of progress to make the game stable. But there's also a lot more work for me to do in many different aspects.
One of the major topics I talked about in the PATCH_# updates was the save and load system. Many (if not most) of the reports I have gotten relate to the save system. During the beta testing phase, the testers never really opened or closed the game that often, and seemingly only reopened the game when I gave them an update. This meant that they never really encountered the most broken part of the game - the save and load system.
This meant I had to very abruptly drop the todo list to fix it, since you cannot deny that it's the most important part of a game. I knew that I would have to focus on it after the release, but I did not expect it to go down the way it did. As mentioned in the updates, I had to spend countless hours trying to fix a fundamental system made by a kid who didn't know what he was doing... Lots of fun.
But hey, in saying this, it's pretty reliable now. The only issue at the moment is saving EO's neural network data, which seems to break every time somehow.

PATCH_6 will be ready for the weekend, and it will fix most of the broken rooms - now that I'm able to finally work on them, making sure they're actually connected and exported properly. It was extremely hard to put it down the priority list, because I knew people were going to hit Chapter 6, and not be able to continue. The balance of 'fixing things for new players' and 'fixing things for current players' is something I have little to no experience on (or at least to this scale. The demo had a lot less attention haha)
NYKRA's gamepad system is also fixed, and will be in PATCH_6 too.

PATCH_7 will be the first stable release, which will accompany the game going on the itch store too. And it's something I'm going to work really hard towards in the coming week. I hope to release it early November.
I really appreciate that I was able to put this game on Steam, and receive a large amount of feedback. It's overwhelming, yes, but it's also very valid and important. I truly believe that I will not get better as a developer until I fully listen and unpack what/why/how people feel about the game, along with aspects that didn't work for them.
There are many parts I agree with too. It's just it would be unwise of me to remake the entire game... hahaha

Anyway, I also plan on releasing the game on Switch and Android (have a Switch Dev Kit coming soon hopefully, but y'know - covid)

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I know there may still be questions and complaints, but I hope this clears up some info regarding the release and how it just simply didn't go to plan.
But I'm working towards fixing everything, and making sure that the game can be playable for anyone.

Thank you so much for your understanding, and I hope you can stay by my side as I fix up this mess around me. I have many more things to show, and I can't wait to involve others.
Who knew making and releasing a game all by yourself was complex hahaha But hey, I've learnt so much these past months. And I'm very grateful for all the support, despite the chaos.

Much love from your small dodecahedron friend,

-EDG

After PATCH_4 I had a few days break to come back down to Earth after all the intensity the release brought. It allowed me to come back with a fresh mind, and fix some of the most annoying issues.

As I've explained a few times on Twitter, unfortunately some of the major bugs in the game revolve around code that I poorly made when I was younger - so it's been a real pain!
(No comments either, so I have to spend ages going through to even understand what's going on. Comment your code please! Future you will thank you)

PATCH_6 is hoping to finally fix the last few progression-breaking bugs, along with gamepad support. I'm gonna also try to export it to macOS - as much as I hate Apple...

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• Aenox terminal in the VEN room constantly broke
  
• Loading old saves broke (can still break!)
  
• Certain objects with temporary variables got saved by accident, causing crashes
  
• All the tiny little errors that people in the NYKRA Discord found
  
• More typo fixes

• Added some extra music to rooms that were too silent
  
• Added LOK and DOR, 2 npc characters who guard Moriiem

• The first rooms on planet Irnem are broken
  
• Accessing Pod 7 within Moriiem crashes the game

-------o

Thank you all for staying with me on this journey! It was a rough launch, but I appreciate everyone who believes in me <3

-EDG

This patch is a chunky one, and adds the much-requested Chapter Select. It took a good couple days to plan, make, and integrate, but I managed to interject it quite nicely into the Main Menu.
Obviously it'll show spoilers, but feel free to jump anywhere you want now with it! I hope this means you can continue where you left off, despite the ongoing bugs.

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• Save and Load system still saved the wrong things sometimes
  
• More typo fixes

• CHAPTER SELECT!
  
• Now displays which patch in the top-left of the Main Menu

• There are still certain rooms that are disconnected - causing crashes
  
• Accessing Pod 7 within Moriiem crashes the game
  
• EO's neural network still doesn't want to save properly...

-------o

I hope you all had a great weekend <3

-EDG

The aftereffects of the release have decided to finally hit my body it seems: as I woke up this morning feeling like I've aged 70 years. But after a quick walk around the block in my small city in New Zealand (any kiwis here?), I managed to recover somewhat before starting on today's bug list.

My list is in an order of priority, so I've really only been able to spend all my time on things like the save system - which desperately needed to be fixed.
Save files from previous patches should work now, and saving and loading the game in general should be less problematic. NYKRA's save system is really odd - and I don't know why past me decided it was a good idea to save everything in compressed chars, rather than something legible and easily debuggable... Anyway, it hopefully works now.

Though, I did manage to quickly fix the middle room in this part of the story.
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• Saving and loading just didn't work
  
• Lots of typo fixes

• Added the puzzle from the NYKRA demo to the middle EO room (in screenshot) as a little throwback

• There are still certain rooms that are disconnected - causing crashes
  
• Accessing Pod 7 within Moriiem crashes the game

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I hope you all had a great week <3

-EDG

Well, what an intense couple of days! I've been really trying my best to keep up with everything, but there's just so much! Thank you all for the support. I know it's been initially rough, but I have plans!

So the launch didn't go to plan, because Steam unfortunately messed up the visibility of the game (in fact, as of writing this, it's still not visible in Australia). It's getting sorted asap, and I appreciate the patience - as always.

This patch was meant to be beefy, but I encountered a series of issues that ended up taking a solid 6 hours of work to untangle. The save system seems to be a lot more broken than I thought, which is deeply frustrating, because it was tested a LOT during the beta testing. Regardless, it's mostly functional again now, and your books won't disappear when reopening the game! It also fixes a few other important things when reopening a save file.
Speaking of save files, I should have mentioned that they're hiding in your %appdata%\Roaming\NYKRA folder! You may need to either start a new save file, or wait until things are fully fixed. Because I was not expecting this to happen.

Though, I will be providing drop-in save files at each Chapter start so you can continue the story where you left off. I will be providing probably tomorrow!
I'm so sorry if you lost your progress! I have many things planned to make it easy for you to continue the story, so stay tuned!

o-------

• Windowed mode did not work. Game now starts in Windowed
  
• Books disappeared on game load
  
• Starting new Chapters caused crashes
  
• More uncountable amount of tiny little fixes and tweaks

• Adjusted some dialogue

• There are still certain rooms that are disconnected - causing crashes
  
• Accessing Pod 7 within Moriiem crashes the game
  
• Planet Mexulta sometimes breaks the camera (?) Which then crashes things

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I'm hoping to have a fully stable build by the start of the weekend. This is also when it'll be releasing on itch.io as well.
Thanks so much for coming with me on this journey!

(by @dlljs on Twitter)

-EDG

EDG here - haven't done this before, so you'll have to bear with the highly-likely chance of mishap. I hope this is the best place to post what's important!

This initial phase of NYKRA was bound to be rocky, but I'm going to do my best to keep up with the bug reports.
I'll be updating the game at least every 12 hours, because if I don't pace myself I'll disintegrate into ash.
I'll also try to keep things SPOILER SAFE!

o-------

• Switching to fullscreen via the Esc menu crashed the game
  
• The Aenox Terminal in the VEN room caused a softlock
  
• Keu glitched through the floor sometimes on corners
  
• Books still annoyingly get deleted upon savefile-load, but the lack of them crashed the game
  
• Uncountable amount of tiny little fixes and tweaks

• Changed the intro splash.

• There are certain rooms that are disconnected - causing crashes
  
• Closing the game at points during Chapter 2 causes crashes
  
• Accessing Pod 7 within Moriiem crashes the game
  
• Lots of softlocks accessing Aenox objects

-------o

I really appreciate all the patience! The response has been overwhelming to say the least, but it's been such a good feeling to at least have this insane thing on Steam.

I'll be back soon!
-EDG