File 02: Montréal's beta launches next Tuesday.

You may be a little surprised because in my last devlog I said that I'd just completed Chapter 7 — after many months of production. Now only eleven days later, the final three chapters are completely finished and beta is set for next Tuesday. So what happened??

Basically, a bit after I began working on File 01, I got a part time job. This is a necessity at the moment — I do not make enough from just game dev to completely cover my monthly expenses. Though it's only part time, I find that it kind of exhausts me, and my productivity levels have definitely been affected. But I've gotten a break for the past two weeks, so I thought I'd make every second count, and spent every waking moment working on File 02 trying to finish it before my break ended — and I managed to do it!

What really kicked it off was trying to create simple, rough versions of all seven remaining backgrounds in just one day. Turns out all I needed was to get the ball rolling, and I basically finished them in only three days. It took a day to complete the remaining sprites. Another to complete the music. The next six days were just implementing code and the minigames.

Even though I worked harder than I've ever worked, staying up way past midnight every day working on it, I was having fun. Something I would like to say about crunch before the File is released is that when you are "crunching" on a personal project, with your characters, your story, about what you are passionate about, and nobody forcing you to do it — I find that a euphoric and exhilarating experience. Every day I felt productive and full of energy, as I could see how fast I was making progress compared to these past few months. "Crunching" on a project for some company that's forcing you to do it is a completely different experience — a horrible one that I wouldn't wish on anybody.

Hopefully File 02 will be ready to launch in early access next month. But if you are impatient, the public beta launches on the 22nd for Patreon and Afdian members. If you are planning to get the game, now is a good time because the price will increase with File 02's release.

With that, I leave you with this sneak peek of File 02. ;)

Until next time!

— LockedOn.

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