#i've played for more than 2 years now! uh. a bit of a seasonal player tbh but yeah i'm definitely w bit of a veteran... i think

[astrxealis]

HI GUYS !!! i disappeared again oops and i will disappear again oops but hey i will make a Play Granblue Fantasy post very soon because it is That Time Of The Year Again <3 (please play gbf please play gbf please play gbf)

uhm. basically! many chances for many free draws and also lots of other many free rewards <3 gbf is a really good game and my favorite gacha game (and even one of my favorites of all time in general) story is spectacular (main story takes a bit to get there. personally tho i enjoyed all of it! wmtsb is what gbf is most famous for) art is AMAZING character designs AMAZING gameplay AMAZING uhm. yeah <33

[wishbonegame]

hellooo, i have been following your project for what like two or three years now idk, and i'm delighted to keep reading all your updates. anyway you mentioned that you decided to trim the fat and try to speed up the pacing of the game, and i have to say, WELL DONE with keeping an eye on your scale and such! you said the game as it was would still take longer than most typical jrpgs, which scares me a bit because i've poured a good 100 hours into some jrpgs, so uh. how long was your original 1/2

That's a good question... we'd initially aimed for the game to be somewhere around 40 hours, maybe 50, and had planned the in-game timescale with that goal in mind.

...The fatal oversight was that that calculation didn't take into consideration the cutscene events, which can be quite long and have the in-game clock paused during them. When our playtesters played the first season of the game, we found that, counting cutscenes, they were averaging more like 8-10 hours to get to the end of the Spring Year 1 demo. With 4 seasons per year and 3 years in the game, that would result in an estimated playtime of a whopping 96-120 hours.

The new plan is for the game to be a more condensed and optimized 2 years in length, which means an updated estimated playtime of 64-80 hours. So still pretty dang big, but much more manageable, and with the major plot events happening at a faster clip it'll hopefully not drag too much and bore people. Also, those estimates are all assuming that average players play as thoroughly as our debuggers/playtesters... realistically, very few of them probably will, especially in the latter parts of the game once they've unlocked just about everything, accomplished most of their major goals, and settled into a routine.

This project has certainly been an exercise in learning to set realistic goals, hah. I think that taking an axe to the plot document and cutting down some of the particularly bloated features is something that we should have done a lot earlier, but the game is certainly better for it. Overall, very little completed work had to be thrown out, though a few things needed to be retooled (which is what I've been quietly working on for the last few weeks), which was nice. I've been very pleased with the direction the project has been going since that decision has been made.

Thanks for the kind words, Anon!