Happy New Year!
May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolutions!
Before we begin with the update, we want to take a moment to thank you all for your patience and support over the years. We know this project is long past its expected delivery date. So, we are tremendously grateful you are giving us space to finish the development in our own time.
We have used the holiday break to take a moment to reflect on how the development of 3 Minutes to Midnight has been so far, where we currently stand, and what awaits us during the final stretch of development.
A bit of retrospect…
Did you know that back in 2016 when the original idea for 3 Minutes to Midnight was conceived, we had quite a different concept in mind? 3 Minutes to Midnight was supposed to be a linear game with one ending, one solution per puzzle, and approximately six hours of gameplay. The initial release date was planned for early 2019. (I know! Can you believe it?!) It’s 2023 and the game is still not finished! So, what happened?
After we presented our game at E3 in 2018, we were very confident about the game we had created. However, over time, we started seeing the same flaws in our game as many other games of this genre face. Thus, we looked for ways how we could improve our game and turn it into something more unique. One of the first pitfalls encountered was when we decided to eliminate the infamous “It doesn’t seem to work” sentences that have always bothered both new and old players alike. We thought, “That’s it! This is what will bring our game to the next level!” and so in 2019, three years into development, we went ahead and began redesigning the way in-game combinations worked up until that point, i.e., essentially rebuilding 3 Minutes to Midnight from its roots.
As a consequence of modifying the in-game logic, we now needed to write thousands of new dialogue lines for all the possible item/NPCs combinations, as well as create hundreds of new animations, many of them unique for very specific occurrences. For example, a lot of puzzles’ fail cases now trigger their own unique animations and some of them even involve plot consequences that lead to gameplay changes down the road! (But do not worry. Even if it looks like there’s no way forward, there is always one. You just need to find it.)
After several sections of the game underwent a complete rework, other sections suddenly felt like they were “not good enough” anymore. One egregious example of this was—at least in our view—the NPCs. They were static and flat, which isn’t particularly rare in this genre, as they are mostly there to fulfill a purpose and little else, but it was something we felt had a lot of room for improvement. We spent a lot of time going over what made them tick, trying to make them feel more alive than your average NPC. Aside from greatly expanding on their backstories and personalities, as well as their dialogue options, we also implemented a “Barking System”—a system that allows those NPCs more freedom within the gameplay, letting them interact with other NPCs in their vicinity or comment on the situations currently happening around them instead of just sitting there idling until the player clicks on them. (We call those types of dialogue "barks.")
But we didn’t stop there: Originally, Eliza’s portion of the game was supposed to be about an hour of gameplay with some simple puzzles. Its purpose was only to fill the information gaps in order to help players understand some plot developments. However, we realized just how much potential it had, and… Well, you probably know where we are going with this, so long story short: With all the expansions done, you are now getting two games’ worth of content.
And even that wasn’t all: We decided to create a “Your actions have consequences” system. But not the classic karma-like system (“Do good things and good things happen to you. Do bad things, they'll come back to haunt you.”) After all, who are we to decide what’s right or wrong? We wanted the consequences that stem from your choices to be more unpredictable, just like in real life, while still following a logical pattern, and making perfect sense once you look back at what you have done. This system, given the length of the game, the size of the script, and the number of puzzles, entailed even more changes. One ending turned into three, turned into eight.
All of this meant that our 20-page-long design document suddenly quadrupled in size, which ended up becoming the bane of our programming team, who fought tooth and nail to implement all the new logic and alternative gameplay paths. It was a titanic effort on their part, to say the least.
So, looking back, in 2019 we essentially sealed our fate for the next several years… Just like Icarus, we grasped for the sun, only to be burned by it. Fortunately, unlike him, we’re still alive and kicking.
Just based on what was mentioned above, if you were to ask our past selves, “Guys, is it even worth it?”, we would most certainly say “No! Let’s just stick to the original plan!” However, now after two years of continuous testing and hearing hundreds of opinions on the game, our answer is “Yes, absolutely worth it.” And we hope you’ll see it too when you finally get a chance to play it. It took a lot of effort and hard work to get to this point, and it is honestly a miracle* that we are still up and running.
*miracle = our team of developers
Back to the present… What have we been up to since the last update?
Self-test
As mentioned in one of our previous updates, we developed a self-test feature that is able to play the game autonomously. Whenever any of our 30 computers is unoccupied, we use it to run the self-test, 24/7. Some of you asked us if creating this feature, considering that we were already suffering heavy delays, wouldn’t possibly do more harm than good. While it did take some time away from developing the game, the “AI” can test things our human testers would struggle with. From the day it was implemented (August 12th, 2022), it has found over 60 extremely difficult-to-find game-breaking bugs. Of course, it won’t replace our human testers (yet), but it’s clearly a really useful tool to have, resulting in a net positive.
Preparing the build to work natively on Linux and macOS
Our programming team has also been hard at work developing native Linux builds. So far, we have tested on Fedora, Mint, and Arch, and have yet to find any unexpected issues. The same goes for macOS. We are testing the game on two different versions of Mac, one from 2011, and another from 2022. Yet again, nothing came up that we didn’t expect. If things proceed apace, we are very optimistic about releasing the game on Linux and Mac alongside Windows.
Controller implementation
Since we are starting to prepare the road to port the game to all sorts of platforms, controller support is one of the issues we had to deal with. (Note: The PC version of 3 Minutes to Midnight will also have controller capabilities. While we can’t discuss details yet, we have figured out a control scheme that makes playing with a controller feel as smooth and agile as playing with a keyboard and mouse would.)
Lots of testing, lots of changes, lots of delays, and LOTS OF IMPROVEMENTS!
Since January 2021, more than 100 different people have play-tested the game through and through. The testers’ external perspective helped us turn things we thought were already good into things that are actually good! In fact, during 2022, we’ve implemented 1,041 suggestions that originated from our testers’ feedback alone! (see Image 1 below).
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Image 2 represents our bug-testing process report: In 2022, a total of 3,025 bugs have been fixed.
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Voice acting
One of the most challenging and important things that were left to do was to cast voice actors. As we already mentioned, we spent a lot of time making each character unique, and thus have developed a very clear vision of who they are. This in turn resulted in a very strict casting process. We started casting in April 2022, and at this point, there are still three roles to be cast. In a more positive light, that means that over 95% of the cast is already giving it all to bringing the characters of 3 Minutes to Midnight to life! Regardless of how we look at it, this also implies a near-insurmountable amount of work that is listening to over 80,000 lines of dialogue is still ahead of us! This is what will take most of our time during the following months.
Localization
On this front, we have both good and bad news. The bad news is… *drumroll* …more delays! The good news is that we’re talking a few weeks at most. We are happy to announce that as it stands, both the German and Spanish translations are looking superb, and while it’s taking a tad longer than expected, we are consistently managing to save those pesky jokes that always seem to get lost in translation. Roughly half of the script has already been translated, and we expect it to be finished around February. With a few rounds of LQA testing yet to come, we are looking to conclude the translations by the end of March.
Now to answer your questions…
Will there be any giraffes in the game?
No, but we have a fish, hamster, pigeon, eagle, raccoon, cougar, cows, potbelly pig, Kraken, chipmunks, and more…
Which character in the game was your favorite to write for, and why?
It’s really hard not to have feelings for almost all of them, but if we had to choose, for us, it’s definitely the two main characters—Betty and Eliza. But we can tell you that our play-testers love “Mike the Cook” and “Ben the Veteran.”
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How many Easter eggs are in the game?
There are many dialogue Easter eggs really well disguised in the script (those we actually lost count of), but as for the visual ones, there are 85 in total. They are not easily spotted, though, as they are fully integrated into the backgrounds.
Will there be any in-game hotspot highlighter/hint/help system included? Is so, will there be an option to completely disable it?
Yes, we have included a highlight-hotspots function, but since it’s designed in a way that you cannot “hit it by mistake,” there won’t be an option to disable it.
What part of the game are you most proud of?
Without spoilers, it’s hard to tell, but there’s something around Chapter 4, which has been really challenging to implement. Frankly, it’s so original and unique that we think it’s going to blow your minds!
Are you going to remind people/media/social media that 3 Minutes to Midnight exists?
We know you guys want to know more and get updated more often, but every single second we have available and all our effort goes into making this game the best it can be. But don't worry. We'll get back to working on the marketing side of things all in good time.
What games have you been playing whilst you have been making the game, and have you made any changes after being inspired by other games?
To answer the first part: None, the last time we played a game was during one weekend in October 2018, and it was RDR2. As for the second part, all the core game mechanics for 3 Minutes to Midnight were defined and closed in 2021, and since then, we agreed not to make any more changes. As they say, the true game developer, like an artist, is never satisfied… but we had to draw a line somewhere.
How did you decide on the style of art that was used?
Simply put, we wanted the game to have a high-definition cartoonish look. We knew that pixel art wasn’t the way to go for 3 Minutes to Midnight. And so we started looking for artists, and eventually, we ended up finding one that was a perfect fit for this project.
Any plans for post-release time? (Bug fixes? New project?)
3 Minutes to Midnight will still remain our priority even after its release. We expect to dedicate the post-release time to fixing additional bugs, marketing efforts, and adding subtitles (and possibly even voice-overs) in different languages. But all that depends on how successful the game turns out to be.
Will you support macOS Catalina and the versions above?
Yes.
How many hours of gameplay does the game have?
On average, our testers currently take around 40 hours to complete the game.
What about Steam Deck support and Saved Games for Steam Cloud?
Since SteamOS is a Linux-based operating system, 3 Minutes to Midnight will therefore be fully compatible with Steam Deck. And yes, the game will also support Steam Cloud.
Will there be any demo/prologue anytime soon?
As we have previously announced, we aren’t planning on releasing any demo for 3 Minutes to Midnight. Nothing has changed (and we don’t expect anything will) on that front.
Has there been any progress on providing another donation platform for those who would like to contribute a didn't take part in the Kickstarter?
While we greatly appreciate this, the best way to support us is by purchasing 3 Minutes to Midnight once it’s released, and if you like the game (which we hope you will) writing a reeeally nice review. :-)
But what you can do right now is spread the word and add 3 Minutes to Midnight to your Wishlist. Thank you! 💓
https://store.steampowered.com/app/832500/3_Minutes_to_Midnight__A_Comedy_Graphic_Adventure/
That will be all for today. We’ll be happy to answer more questions in the comments below. If you want to join our Discord server, here’s the link: https://discord.com/invite/scarecrowstudio
To thank you once more for your unwavering support and for being there for us, we leave you with a little sneak peek of the game (without spoilers)…
Until next time!