Dear Agony Aunt: Out Now

It’s release day! Dear Agony Aunt is out now! Here is a 10-step timeline of the game’s development.

Step 1: Whilst trying to get to sleep, my mind was racing with ideas and the concept was born.

Step 2: I pitched the idea to Dear Agony Aunt’s co-creator. The game is on!

Step 3: I started writing the stories and found they were flowing from me easily. This gave me the (naïve) impression that I’d get them all finished quickly.

Step 4: I kept going with an awful lot of writing and rewriting and editing. I asked my mum to read what I’d written and her suggestions were very helpful.

Step 5: Both the co-creator and I believed mid-September would be realistic for the game’s release date.

Step 6: Things were getting real, so I figured I’d better sign up to become a Steamworks developer!

Step 7: Becoming a game developer has been very much a process of learning as I go. It became apparent that mid-September was going to be too soon, so 2nd October became the new release date. After some discussion with the co-creator, the year the game is set was also changed from 2007 to 2006.

Step 8: We felt ready enough to commit to our 2nd October release date, so I went onto Steamworks to officially set the date. I discovered that Steam doesn’t allow weekend releases so it was moved to a day earlier. Dear Agony Aunt was going to be released on 1st October!

Step 9: I am so glad we gave ourselves those additional weeks because there was so much more to do than I realised. After officially setting the date, there was a period of exhausting chaos for both of us on the team to try to complete our work in time. There were moments I was afraid we wouldn’t meet the deadline but I was determined to get it done. It was intense. Even so, I was loving it so much! I didn’t care that I was pushing myself beyond my limits. Making a game is amazing and I want to continue in this career forever.

Step 10: We managed to fit in a brief period of getting people to test the game and provide feedback, which proved useful. I also made an attempt at marketing the game, the highlight of which was seeing the game’s world debut yesterday, hosted by Jerica Webber.

And then 1st October arrived! Dear Agony Aunt is available on Steam!