New Breakdown for Audio, Update on the Book.
11 months ago
– Tue, Apr 29, 2025 at 07:14:23 PM
Greetings, spacers!
First up, the book hit the printers and is on its way to us. It's big. Twice the size of Forgotten Waters and Freelancers put together. I'll be sharing some pics soon. After we've stress-tested it, we'll approve.
The big question of course is audio. While we have a handy meter that shows percentage complete, it only shows audio files that are 100 % complete, and not all of the work being done on them. To help break it down and make the tracking of audio progress more meaningful to you, I made this helpful chart:
We've got a lot complete, and while there is still a lot 'In Progress', many of them have a lot done already. I've noted the ones that are most likely to be finished up soon. Of especial note is 'Hostile Encounter', which we published only recently. This one file, while just one of many, actually makes up 10% of the game! That's because it handles most of the standard space battle scenarios, so it touches just about every single job and random encounter we came up with. Getting it done is a much bigger deal than it's small line item here might suggest.
Right away you'll notice how our app files are organized - by map location. Chunking it out this way made the massive amount of writing more manageable, and has made bug squashing and editing much easier than our previous games.
When we schedule a voice actor to record, we usually have a set time with them, such as say, a couple hours. During that time, Donald, our Multimedia Director, records as much with them as possible. For many of our actors, it's a cinch to get all of their recording in one go, but for some of them, that time is a drop in the bucket. This is particularly true for the actor who voices Sena, and the actor who narrates and voices the player characters. And this is where our audio production bottleneck can be found. Having made several games with audio in the past, we felt good about our estimates to completion, but as the project grew in size, what didn't really change was the number of actors involved. And that ultimately means more audio rests on the shoulders of just a few people, and that has resulted in more time needed.
Our actors have been wonderful however, and quite generous with their time. For our intrepid narrator, this project has lasted over a year, and I can only imagine how much water, tea, and honey she's consumed to keep her voice going! I'd be curious to see how many hours she's produced already.
Normally we send out one update a month, but our next will come sooner. We're eager to show pics of the new book and tell you how it holds up. The above graphic will be updated as well, and I will continue to revise it so you feel informed in how that's progressing.
Thank you all very much! Until next time!
Asia Shipping Complete, Book Ready for Testing, Audio
about 1 year ago
– Mon, Mar 31, 2025 at 03:14:32 PM
Greeting, spacers! Asia shipping has completed, though many packages are no doubt still in transit. In earlier post someone asked if VFI was handling fulfillment. I (Mr. Bistro) said "no," not realizing that they had been contracted to do it. Sorry for my error. Packages should be to you soon if not already there, and if there are any troubles with them, please email us at [email protected]. So far we have been very pleased with QC for the game, so we don't anticipate more than a missing piece here or there.
Audio work continues. Donald, our audio guru, has recorded a ton of content, and along with a contractor we hired, is busy editing files for upload. We're sorry for the audio delay, because we believe it's the best way to play, but we are hard at work on it. While we're quite pleased with how much story content there is in Wandering Galaxy, our ambition slowed audio production considerably. Sometimes we hear Donald off in a broom closet, weeping, and we feel a little guilty about it.
The physical book has been formatted and edited, and we should have a physical test copy soon to ensure it meets standards and looks/feels right. We're excited to see it as it's been quite the challenge to bring together. I'll share a picture once we get the test copy. If we approve, it's off to the printers and that should be a pretty speedy turnaround time. We'll share a link to the pdf of the game once we go to printers, so you can poke around with it if you like, or even use it to play.
That's it for now. We'll check in again soon with updates on these three remaining elements. Thank you, and may you always be several steps ahead of Octoff's repo squad!
The Wandering Galaxy Story Book, Asia Shipping, and Audio Update
about 1 year ago
– Fri, Feb 28, 2025 at 01:49:41 PM
Hello spacers!
Work on the printed Wandering Galaxy book continues, and let us tell you, this thing is enormous. While we hope you are never in a situation where desperate hand-to-hand combat is all that stands between you and certain doom, if you were holding the printed Wandering Galaxy story book during the fight, you'd probably be able to knock your opponent out with it. We knew this game had far more narrative than our previous Crossroads titles, but imagine our surprise when we discovered it was close to 400,000 words! For context, the average adult novel in English is about 80,000 words. Um, we may have been a little ambitious!
In order to produce such a beast, we had to write some code to help us extract all the text, organize it, and then help with formatting. We are now finishing the remaining formatting by hand, after which the team will begin reviewing each line of dialogue to ensure the proper text is attributed to the proper character. Once that's done, the editors will come in and begin their review. Believe it or not, the editing will likely be the fastest stage.
Due to the size of the Wandering Galaxy story book, we've been wrestling with how to produce it so it isn't a burden to use during gameplay. We initially toyed with the idea of two separate volumes, but have settled on a format that lets us contain the whole thing in a single volume that while sizable, shouldn't prove unwieldy during play. We're also experimenting with paper types to reduce the weight, while still feeling nice to the touch. We'll keep you informed as the book progresses.
Aside from Asia, all other shipping has concluded. We have confirmation that games are being packed and shipped now, and some of you may already be receiving your shipments. We have been greatly displeased by how long it has taken our customers in Asia to receive their games. In future campaigns, we will be seeking new fulfillment partners for both Asia and Canada. We apologize it has taken this long, but the wait is almost over!
Finally, many of you have asked how the audio implementation is going. As you might guess, 400,000 words is a lot to narrate. We currently have 21 out of 44 scripts completed, 4 more are recorded and being edited as we speak, with the remainder still to come. That said, our audio team targeted the largest scripts first, so we're well past the 50% mark as far as word count goes. Imagine how many glasses of water have been downed by our voice actors to bring this game to life!
We'll send another progress in March, but will leave updates on Asia shipping in the comments section of this update, and in the general Comments area. We thank everyone for their support. We could not have made such a massive game without you. We would especially like to shout out to the many gamers who left feedback and bug reports in our Discord channel. We appreciate your help in catching the various oddities that popped up during gameplay. As you can imagine, there's lots of room for little bugs to hide in a game of this size, and we appreciate you helping us squash them!
Until next month, may your life support always be at max!
Another Shipping Update!
about 1 year ago
– Thu, Jan 16, 2025 at 10:31:04 AM
Hello spacers,
We have some annoying news for our Canadian and Australian backers today. After getting several comments from you about packages not being shipped yet, we contacted our distributors in these territories and discovered that they have NOT fulfilled our orders yet. We have talked to them and these are the revised timelines:
Australian backers should start receiving shipping notifications tomorrow morning.
Canadian backers should start receiving shipping notifications by early next week.
Our partners understand you are eager to receive your pledges, and we will be working with them closely. We will update you again soon with confirmation, and please free to update us as things move forward. We apologize for this inconvenience. This is our first Kickstarter and we’ve learned much about the fulfillment process and what we need to expect and require from companies we work with in the future. We promise to have better international fulfillment in future campaigns.
If you have any questions about your package, please reach out to [email protected]
App and Shipping Updates
about 1 year ago
– Tue, Jan 07, 2025 at 01:56:28 PM
Greetings, Spacers!
We hope you all had wonderful holiday celebrations. If you’re anything like us, you’re dragging your well-fed bodies back to the workplace, wishing you were still on vacation. But fear not, we have some Wandering Galaxy news, just the thing you need to stay entertained during the cold days ahead.
Shipping Update
All United States and European orders have been shipped out! Our distributors for Canada, Australia/New Zealand, and Asia have informed us that their shipments will start going out THIS week. Hooray!
Entry Books
We're making progress on the physical Wandering Galaxy Entry Book. The entry text is now complete, so the next step will be to ready the files for production. We are hoping to get those shipped out to backers at the end of this month or early February.
Wandering Galaxy App
Campaigns 1, 2, and 3, plus the bonus Free Play mode, are all in the app and ready to play! The game tutorial is currently at 40% with our web-developer getting all the assets in as fast as his powerful hands can possibly work, and the audio is 30% of the way in. We have our actors scheduled for recording sessions this week, and have hired a second audio engineer to help edit sound files. So we’ll be able to get more entries intothe app very soon!
To stay up with the progress, join the Wandering Galaxy Discord Community!
If you have any questions about your order please reach out to [email protected]
