Since the very first version of Rogue Fable, my ultimate goal has always been to eventually create something massive, complex and deep, comparable to the genre classics, the love of which is what got me started on this series of projects in the first place. Each iteration of the Rogue Fable games has been a small shaky step in this direction. Between every single public release there have been multiple attempts at tackling this ultimate goal. Each time I was basically asking myself the question: "do I have enough of a foundation to build this into something bigger?" Each time the answer turned out to be a resounding "no". So, I'd return to the smaller tighter scope already established and work on laying some more foundation.

I distinctly remember sitting in a coffee shop last summer with a pile of papers spread out around me doing some of the initial planning for Rogue Fable III and basically asking myself this same question. Should I keep the scope small and just keep gaining experience and laying foundations for a future project or will this be the one that just keeps growing? As I was brainstorming I found myself sorting ideas into two categories. The first set of ideas would totally work in a smaller scope and would also be required for any larger project. The second set of ideas were the big ones, in many cases the really interesting ones the ones that would absolutely require a larger scope in which to work.

After a few weeks of this brainstorming and design I had enough stuff in both categories that I could really go either way. Rather than make a decision immediately I decided on a compromise. I'd proceed with Rogue Fable III based on the working assumption that it would remain small in scope, i.e. just an improved and expanded version of the previous game. Not only did I have more than enough ideas to do this with, but pretty much all of this work would be required anyway if/when I decided to expand the scope. I figured that even if I didn't make the transition with this project I could always save all these ideas for the next game and I'd have a nice solid polished foundation from which to then build on.

Throughout the development that followed and particularly in the early Alpha we'd get into these discussion where I, or oftentimes one of the players would suggest some ideas that were crossing the threshold into 'new game' territory. I'm sure many of you can remember instances of this. I had a lot of back and forth going on in my head at this point since I still had never really made a firm decision on what I was ultimately doing with this project. Sometimes I'd say "save it for the next game", sometimes I'd say "save it for later", and sometimes I'd go off on a tangent for a week (like the time I tried to jump the gun and immediately start doing massive levels). In all cases though I eventually just reminded myself that there was still a ton of stuff on 'the list' that was essential either way and so just save the crazy stuff for 'later'.

Well, in the last month or two I've had the growing realization that 'later' is basically here. While we absolutely have a ton of work still to do, even if the scope was kept the same, this is primarily in the realm of polishing, balancing, small details, and variations on existing content. If the scope was going to remain small then the project was basically going to be winding down at this point and even though it might take another 6 months to clean up the loose ends, we weren't really going to be adding or changing anything major. So I had a lot to think about last week when I took a week off from development.

As a side note, rereading what I've written above, its entirely possible all this angst and self doubt was just the result of working for 12-16 hour days for 8 months straight with only the rare day off... Maybe something for me to remember in the future :P

Anyways, the decision to basically just say "fuck it, we're doing it now!" mostly came down to the following realization. I thought really hard about what I'd do if I just finished this project with the current scope and the answer was inevitably "start the next one IMMEDIATELY then I can finally get to all the cool stuff!". So yeah, given that the games sales are currently enough to support me, and given that if I finished this project I'd just start the next one right away, I figure we might as well just do it all at once. Its gonna be tough for a few months since there are some major changes that need to be made immediately in order to facilitate this, but you guys (the players) have always been super supportive and I have no doubt you'l continue to be. Plus... just think of all the cool stuff!

Note to self: write a damn list of 'cool stuff' since its currently spread across hundreds of documents, piles of coffee stained papers, and burred in the depths of 9 months of discord conversations.