MindWare: Past, Present, and Future

It's now about half a year since the inception of MindWare, and many of you have been with me on this journey for quite a while now. But even if you've joined our growing ranks only recently, you're probably curious about the progress we've made, where we stand, and what lies ahead.

The Past

MindWare started as a learning project. I'd been fiddling with the Twine engine for years, but never really got beyond the basics. The release of several different AI technologies/tools had made all the difference, I was able to quickly create something that really excited me.

Since it was the holiday season, I had plenty of free time to immerse myself in the game's development and create something actually playable.

To flesh out my vision for the game, I created a website for it, where I outlined the story, content, mechanics, and so on. I also created social media accounts because I know from previous experience that the feeling of having eyes on my project can be incredibly motivating.

The Present

Right now, the conditions for MindWare's development are not favorable at all. It's summer, so all kinds of forces are pushing me away from the computer, but a far bigger complication is that I'm in the middle of a career transition.

Once this transition is finished, I will be able to spend more time on the development of MindWare. But while the transition is still ongoing, I have less time to spend on personal projects.

The Future

I've described MindWare in the past (not sure where exactly) as a contained open-world interactive fiction story. This description remains and will remain true, but I now have a much better idea of what I actually mean by "contained open-world."

Basically, I want to give the player the freedom to explore the game's world and various activities within while containing the narrative experience so that the story maintains solid pacing and things make sense (at least enough sense for the purposes of the game).

As such, MindWare will never be a game of seemingly endless possibilities where you can become whoever you want to become and do whatever you want to do.

Instead, it will (hopefully) be a game that can offer an interesting story with multiple endings and many things to do (some optional and some not; some consequential and some not) between the start and the end.

The story will revolve around the player character's transformation and relationships with other characters. Some early mental transformation opportunities are already in the game, but physical transformation will arrive only in Chapter 2.

By delaying it slightly, I can much better use my limited time. The alternative would be to work on a whole bunch of alternative paths that most players would never see. That would be time-consuming and also difficult for me since I feel that a bit more learning-by-doing is necessary for me to successfully weave a large web of choices and consequences.

The Rest

Starting next week, I'm switching to monthly public releases. Each release takes me a LOT of time to prepare, upload, and announce everywhere, and it's pointless to publicly release versions that contain only a handful of changes.

Supporter-only releases, however, will happen every two weeks or (once I can dedicate more time to the game's development) even more often because you guys absolutely deserve it. What's more, your feedback (whether ideas or bug reports) helps me tremendously, so I need more of it—not less.

I would also like to post supporter-exclusive devlogs and other bonus content more often to keep you more closely involved in the development process. Unfortunately, I most likely won't be able to make this happen until the transition period I mentioned earlier is over, but I do think about it a lot.

TL;DR

• MindWare started 6 months ago as a learning project using Twine and AI tools.

• Development is currently slow due to summer distractions and a career transition.

• MindWare is a "contained open-world" interactive fiction story focused on narrative pacing and meaningful player choices, rather than limitless possibilities.

• Physical character transformations will be introduced in Chapter 2.

• Public releases will switch to monthly, while supporter-only releases will occur every two weeks.

• Plans for more frequent supporter-exclusive devlogs and bonus content are in the works.

Thank all of you for your continued support and patience.

Btw, version 0.1.4 will be out next week.