The weekend following v0.2's release (and v0.1's public release) was very busy, so not a lot got done, but development on v0.3 is already underway.
Most of the focus here - at least early on - will be building out the story meant to take place in Waupetohn (the starting region) and setting up the main story of the game. It feels a little strange to not have done much besides introduce the main story for the first two updates of the game, but I get the feeling that's going to be something of a trend given the mostly open-world nature of the game and how early access development goes. I need to make the areas before I can fill them in, I need to leave room for new content that might appear in later parts of the game, and I can only make so much content so quickly which means I need to prioritize what gets done first for each release.
It kinda leaves me with this feeling that v0.3 is what v0.1 should've been, because that's where this first region is complete and when you're able to make the first bit of progress with the main story. Given how long v0.1 and v0.2 took, though, that would've meant six months of work before you could play anything, which is obviously less than ideal.
We're getting there, though.
Like with v0.2, I'm planning on two new areas; a new town and a new hunt area. Unlike v0.2, I'm also planning on adding some content to the existing town(s), as there's a closed alchemist's shop that I want to open and add a new character to (though that character is unlikely to be recruitable), and Handelheim's advocate is going to involve himself as you get closer to confirming that he and his men are at minimum involved with slavers, if not doing the slaving themselves, and how that ties into what happened to the other Redeemers of Erlosung Fortress.
I'll also be adding a new exploration mechanic that'll let you use skills to get into previously inaccessible areas, metroidvania style. I'm not sure how many skills like that I'll actually end up implementing, but the idea of having characters with different skills with you that open up new options for exploration is something I wanted to do in Maids & Masters, but the only time it really happened there was having Kala would let you jump up in a place in the Deep Wilds where you could normally only jump down.
Redemption Harem's recruitable characters will all be more unique in their skillsets compared to MnM's Maids (even if they all did have different Theurgy), and you won't be able to swap them out unless you go back to Erlosung, which feels like it makes for a good opportunity to implement more of it in Redemption Harem. At the same time, I want there to be enough overlap between those characters and Eckhard that those mechanics won't be frustrating if you don't have the necessary character with you, especially since the majority of redeemable characters the game will consider optional. I don't want to create situations where you need Nadua to get through an area, but you killed her, so now you can't learn the skill or bring her with you.
I also don't want you to feel like you're being punished for not redeeming a character, because you are ultimately dealing with monsters. If one feels too monstrous to be worth saving, you should be able to make the choice to simply end them. If you fail, you shouldn't think it's necessary to reload an earlier save and try again. Failure and tragedy is meant to be a part of Redeemer's lives, as capturing a monster to redeem them is significantly more risky than doing what the other factions do and simply kill the thing killing other people.
So we'll have to see how it all shakes out. I also don't want Redemption Harem to suffer from scope creep the way MnM did and have it take nearly 5 years to make and be 120 hours long. As proud as I am of myself for that accomplishment, I'm hoping to make Redemption Harem in closer to a year or two and have closer to 30-40 hours of game.
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