Hello, dear players!
To be honest, I felt quite discouraged after this update. I had put a lot of effort into redesigning the UI, only for the result to end up being close to the worst version we have had so far. It was even worse than the previous UI that had been made with AI.
I am extremely grateful for all of your feedback regarding this. In particular, thanks to the honest and thoughtful comments from several players on the forums, I have been able to spend a great deal of time thinking about and studying the question: “How should I improve the UI?” And I am still very much in the process of learning.
Ultimately, I think I overlooked something fundamental.
I had invested so much effort into the UI, so why did the result turn out this way?
I came to believe that the real problem was not simply the UI itself, but the UX, meaning the overall usability and convenience for the player.
Before I am a player of this game, I am its “developer.” In other words, I am in a position where I can access every piece of information in the game without restriction. Because of that, I naturally came to view the game from a developer’s perspective rather than from the perspective of an ordinary player.
I believe this is where many of the recurring usability issues came from. Just because something feels convenient or obvious to me does not mean that it will also feel convenient or obvious to the people actually playing the game. I think I lost sight of that fact.
With that in mind, I would like to make several promises to you.
From now on, UI/UX testing will be conducted through a beta branch that players can opt into through Steam Properties. I want to share the game’s development progress with more players and gather feedback before major changes reach the main version. As soon as the current bug fixes and other ongoing work are completed, I also plan to create a more convenient communication channel, such as Discord, so that I can listen to player feedback more closely and directly.
As I said when the game was released, all future updates will be provided free of charge. I have no plans to create DLC that is required to access gameplay content, and I do not intend to do so in the future.
Having now felt the limitations of solo development very clearly, I want to make only promises that I can realistically keep. Continuously overhauling the game within the span of a single day seems to have created more problems because I was making changes before fully identifying their underlying causes.
From now on, major development work will go through at least three stages: developer testing, a public preview or teaser, and beta testing. As soon as a prototype is ready, I will share it through an announcement and ask for your feedback. After that, I will recruit beta testers and work to ensure that each update reaches the highest quality I can realistically achieve before it is released to the main branch.
I still have very little experience in game development. To be completely honest, I can only apologize to all of you. You purchased the game, yet various inconveniences and problems continue to be reported, while I have not always been able to provide clear solutions to them.
Because of this, I also intend to continue studying game development as a whole alongside my work on the game.
Small updates released every day or every other day will, from now on, be limited primarily to bug fixes. Updates involving major changes, like the previous patch, will only be released to the main version after going through the testing process described above and after their results have been properly verified. Until then, new content and major system changes will be made available through the beta branch first.
I cannot give you an exact date for when all of these improvements will be completed. However, I expect the work to take at least one month, and I promise to complete it within no more than six months. I will do everything I can to earn and maintain your trust.
Before releasing the game, I think I had been somewhat complacent.
I had studied President Park Chung-hee, as well as the history, politics, and economy of South Korea from the First Republic through the Fourth Republic, and I thought that knowledge alone would be enough.
But in the end, what I was trying to make was not a textbook.
It was a game.
Looking back, I think I may have underestimated that fundamental fact.
For the next update, before adding anything else, I will focus on cleaning up the systems that were recently reworked, particularly the defense-related systems, which currently have many issues. At the same time, I will begin improving usability step by step.
I sincerely apologize to every player for the inconvenience you have experienced.
I will do my best to make sure that, as each day passes, you can genuinely feel that the game is becoming better.
Thank you very much for taking the time to read this long post.
Whether through the forums, reviews, or any other channel, please feel free to share your thoughts and feedback. Because of time constraints, I may not be able to reply to every single comment individually, but I am at least reading and checking your feedback, so please do not hesitate to leave your thoughts.
Next time, I hope to return with a clear and concrete improvement plan.
Thank you again, and I hope you have a wonderful day!