Troll: The Culling - Important Update

Hello, all! There have been some very recent events behind-the-scenes that have significantly impacted the development of Troll: The Culling, and, without getting into too much specifics, I wanted to kind of lay out what that means for the project as a whole.

To preface this post: Troll: The Culling is still in active development, and will remain that way as long as I am able to work on it. This is not a cancellation notice. That being said, things are going to slow down a bit for reasons detailed below.

So let's jump right in.

Part 1: DevTeam Changes

The most important part of this is that my Codeveloper, for very understandable reasons that I won't get into, has decided to step down from Troll: The Culling. I harbor no ill will towards them in the slightest and completely understand and resonate with their decision. They've been invaluable in getting the project to where it's at now, and their contributions are all greatly appreciated. Unfortunately, that does mean that, for the foreseeable future, I am the sole developer.

Part 2: Balancing Act

As much as I am continuously frustrated by this, I am, in fact, a real person and not an ambiguous online entity, which means that I have real-life things to manage on top of all of the different fan projects I'm trying to do. Troll: The Culling is, as it always has been, a passion project for me, and unfortunately passions sometimes have to take a backseat to reality. I can't work on this non-stop, as much as I would like to. I have to balance it between real-life work and my TOH stuff, and now that it's just me working on it, that balancing act becomes a whole lot harder.

Part 3: What's It All Mean and What's Next?

The two points above basically translate to a much slower development cycle. Again, I'm not giving up on Troll: The Culling. It's not going away, and it's certainly not dropping scope. I genuinely love the project and enjoy every minute I spend on it. It's just slowing down significantly now that I'm the only one spending minutes on it.

As for what's next: I keep working. There's a lot of work left for Troll: The Culling, especially in the lore/story department, and, since it's just me for the foreseeable future, that work is gonna take time. I'm planning on starting weekly updates under this thread to catch up with where it is on my Tumblr and Twitter profiles, though, so there should at least be some semblance of progress.

Part 4: Playtesting

Playtesting is a slightly different story. I am still planning on running Playtesting Sessions at some point, but that slightly-ambiguous "in the coming months" has shifted to a very ambiguous "as soon as I am able" now that it's just me working on the system.

I am, however, still keeping the interest form open. I do genuinely plan to run a few Playtesting Chronicles to hammer out mechanics and get feedback from people outside of my tiny little bubble. If there's one thing that I hope this post has made clear, it's that I'm still deeply passionate about this system and want it to be the best version of itself it can be, and a vital part of that is playtesting.

Some good news, though, is that I've figured out the gist of how I plan on doing Playtesting. I plan on doing at least two sessions with four players each (with the potential for more sessions depending on how many players sign up through the google form in the next paragraph). These sessions will be Bi-Weekly and will run concurrently, with dates and times to be determined based on consensus from the players. Something important to note is that these sessions will be 18+. I'm not age-restricting this out of malice or anything, and obviously folks can do as they like after T:TC comes out. It's just that I don't personally feel comfortable running more mature topics (the stuff WOD is seeped in) with a -17 crowd.

As a minor incentive for filling out the survey, everyone who signs up for Playtesting by the end of August gets access to the full system (not just the Playtesting version) early. I also plan on, if it's ok with the individual player, "canonizing" (for T:TC, anyway) the Trolls from the first two sessions. If you're interested in either or both of these incentives, head to this link (https://forms.gle/ShNDqjVLUqNBds736) for the survey. Like I've said in the usual spiel: anyone is welcome, regardless of your level of experience with the involved fandoms! All perspectives are valuable!

Part 5: Closer

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading through this absolute wall of text! I want to take one more chance to reassure those interested that Troll: The Culling is still being worked on. I'm really passionate and excited about this system, and I promise that this is going to be a thing no matter how long it takes, so stay tuned for more info! Thanks again for reading, and I'll see you all in the next update!

TLDR: T:TC is down to one developer who, unfortunately, exists in the real world and isn't some nebulous entity that has unlimited free time. Work is slowly progressing but progressing nonetheless, and the Playtesting form is open.