I love Aboard The Ship.

As my first(and only) fully original and extensive project, I have held it in my heart closely, however, I was never fully happy about it.

I've always felt that some part of it was amateur or sloppy. There were a few attempts to rework it or even make a follow-up game, all of which were unsuccessful.

I now recognize the issue. I can not be in the same mindset as when the project was made, I do not have the strength,  time or resources to recreate every moment, sprite and song from scratch. 

Does everything need a rework?

No, upon reinspection the game's rough art, music and dialogue undeniably have their charm. I don't think there's any hurt in changing them, but they aren't the issue.

What is the issue? Is there even an issue?

Gameplay

Aboard famously plays in a very unorthodox manner. 

Complete freedom of where to go, insta-kill unavoidable sign murder, that one fake ending,

And while those are all incredibly funny, it's not worth losing a player because they felt that they had done enough. I have seen people play the game, move around a little bit, find their entrance to Vlad and beeline straight to the end of the game. EVEN WITH THE GAME(and me) INFORMING THEM MOST OF THE CONTENT WAS IN THE FIRST ISLAND AND THERE WAS NO WAY BACK.

If given the choice, people chose to skip most of the game.

This meant several characters weren't introduced, a lot of unique scenarios and characterization weren't seen, and overall nothing made sense and no one had context of anything.

Is this a problem?

Yes, what I've learn with this is that sometimes you only get one shot, I felt that the game was sloppy because it lacked structure.

There is no guidance, no indication of progress, checklist or anything. This is good if you have an invested audience, but not everyone is willing to check every single corner of a map and reload saves for a game they barely know. Even when in some occasion the game itself might accidentally seal off a crucial route.

In Version 7 you could start the uncool quest without spawning evil sign, this wasn't a softlock but could majorly confuse players, since killing him is required to progress the route. This and people struggling to find the coffee might be the culprit for them entering the house again after getting lost and finding Vlad.

You only get one shot, to catch, captivate and interest someone. It doesn't matter if you made the biggest masterpiece ever or shovelware.

If no one's seeing any of it, or if they are seeing it, skipping everything and mashing their way to the credits, then the game might as well not exist.

Is that the only problem?

Absolutely not, Aboard's gameplay was as experimental as everything else, but a lot of it was a result of me being completely unfamiliar with the engine, lots of novel ideas and systems which eventually went unused or broke as development continued.

Alright, what's the fix?

I have began working on a new gameplay loop and progression system, with minimal changes to the original game, in fact, it might be very familiar to those who played it during active development.

Changes

Quality of life:

• Removed useless menu options
• Reworked Uncool Quest for better guidance
• New game + Feat skips the elevator dialogue
• Evil Sign will show up with everyone if PROLOGUE has been beaten
• Choices leading to an ending now have a marker.

New System: 

Feats

This is  the new gameplay loop, you beat the game a start again with an additional Feat. This turns the game into a similar experience to it's development phase.

Beat the game, wait for an update, and re-explore things for changes.

This was the way I thought on how I would keep the game's sense of exploration, while railroading the player into experiencing all the necessary moments and plot points the game will expect from them later.

You can still skip everything

Yes... you're right.

BUT! Unlike the original game, where nothing was made clear and you had no pushback against doing so, THIS TIME it's a core part of the game and skipping it would mean an active refusal to engage.

And that's not something I can control, if they don't wanna play it, they won't play it.

Yes, part of this is also limitations of the engine, the good part is you won't have to experience everything if you're replaying it.

Unique Chapters

Now that we have a way to limit and separate the game the door is open to chapter-specific events/changes, making development a lot easier, the rework to Uncool King's quest and the appearance of some familiars faces is an example of it.

Future

This was 2 days of work, with no guarantee the project will go on.

This doesn't mean I have no plan, reworking the next chapters might be a little tricky since the lore kinda overlaps, but it's nothing I can't do, I also might have some surprise additions based on what I've already told you, which I will better think on for the next release.