I decided to write some postmortems about The Perils of Bianca. There probably will be about half-a-dozen of them. The first one is on the release of the game.

I have released my game The Perils of Bianca on July 26, 2025 (with a few small bugfixes three days later). This was the first release, and it was complete from the start. Barring small bugfixes the game is finished. It was the eighth game that I released (the second adult visual novel) of the dozens that I developed over the last decades. 

Creating a first release of a game that is complete is a rarity nowadays. Most game developers create a first release as soon as they have five minutes of playable material, and add to it regularly or sporadically after that, until, in an estimated 90% of the cases, the game dies. I have several possible explanations for why so many games that are released in "early access" remain forever unfinished:

• The developer loses interest.
• The developer finds that game development is actually a lot of work that they are not willing to do.
• The developer finds that they have taken on a task for which they do not have the skills to complete it.
• The developer wants or needs money to be able to spend time on the game, and finds that the little income they get from it does not warrant further development.

I personally find it deplorable that there are so many games on itch.io which are unfinished, and which will probably never be finished. As I do not want to contribute to that sad state of affairs, I release my games always in a finished state. Moreover, as I prefer to have my games played rather than getting some money out of them, I always release them for free.

Since this is a postmortem, I am asking the questions: Is it a good idea to develop a game completely before one releases it? And would I do it again?

Of course, if you develop games to make money, an early release for which people pay will get you early money. And I think that in that case it is a good idea to make early releases, as people who pay for it are invested and will hang around. However, I believe that if you get people to pay for an early version, you have a moral obligation to finish the game. People pay you not for an unfinished version, they pay to see the game completed. My position is that if you can't or won't finish a game, you should not take people's money for it.

Now, my games are free, so what would I get out of early releases? The answer is "attention." While I do not want money out of game releases, and while I enjoy the development process, I do want to see my games played if I think that they are good work. And I think that early attention would have helped with that, especially in the situation that exists nowadays with the delisting of adult games on itch.io. 

The problem with releasing a game in a complete state is that people who discover it will download it, but will not have a good reason to follow the developer. A benefit of releasing an early version of the game, is that I would have gained lots of followers who want to see new releases, and that would have helped enormously to get people informed about the existence of my new game.

However, there is also a problem with early releases. While I tend to develop the acts of a game mostly in order of play, it is not as if I never return to early acts while I am developing later acts. While I am happy with a game once it is complete, I find that I am unhappy with certain things I developed earlier while in the process of development. I don't want to hand out versions of a game which I know that I will be unhappy with later.

Ultimately, for me the problems with early releases weigh heavier than the benefits. So I will not start to release games in an incomplete state. However, if I needed to make money off my games, I might think about releasing early versions just to get the income flow going. But I would have to suppress my scruples about getting money from people for a game which may never be completed. And I don't know if I can do that.