Hey everyone, here’s my third on-time blog post in a row … pretty soon I’ll be so regular I won’t even need to point it out anymore. This was a really busy week on The Novelist. First off, a few interviews went live:

• Talkingship: This one has some information on the game, but also goes into detail about the difference between working in the AAA industry and working independently. It’s a really well-done prose interview (thanks, Shakeel!), so check it out.
• JogoPro: This is an interview I actually did quite a while ago, but which was just recently translated and published. The original Portuguese version can be found here. This one in particular is interesting because of the discussion of the Xbox One; it was done before the big 180, and had my take on the situation at that time. It looks like Microsoft has realized their mistakes at this point and is saying all the right things; let’s hope they follow through.

As for the game, I’m trying to put together an alpha build by the end of the month. It won’t be content-complete: I’m doing one last round of pickups with CGBot, and I’m now glad I opened the game up for preorders … the preorder money sure does help in paying for additional artwork, so thanks a ton to everyone who preordered! But all the major pieces will be there: all 9 chapters of the game, all the menus and options, a tweaked/improved series of backstory chapters, the new-style chapter/act break wrapup scenes, the game intro, some tutorials and player help … you know, all the stuff that makes a videogame a videogame.

The game isn’t done yet. The alpha build will have bugs. It will have some placeholder art. It won’t be fully polished. Some of the tuning will be off. But it’s a pretty big milestone, as it will be the first friends and family playtest I’ve done in something like 4 months; hopefully the playtesters like the game’s progress! I’m sure they’ll find all sorts of hideous bugs and have lots of great feedback, which is the entire point: I need to know what’s working, what could use more love, and what it’s gonna take to finish this sucker off.

Oh! One other thing! We’re now in the top 25 of Greenlight, which is amazing. Thank you so much, to everyone who’s voted. Now that the game is nearing release, I want to do everything I can to get the game on Greenlight. That’s where you come in: even if you’ve voted, please take an opportunity to share the Greenlight link with your friends via Twitter, Facebook, email, blogs … whatever your preferred method of communication is. It still helps to get as many votes as possible, and I’d love to get one final push and get the game on Steam.

Anyway, that’s the state of the state. I’ll be back to work some tomorrow and will be hitting the ground running on Monday for a week of long hours and nose-to-the-grindstone implementation. But the end is sorta kinda possibly maybe coming into sight …

… if you squint your eyes just the right way.