Hello Apshamilton!
That's quite long and short to address.
So I hope you can bear with the short version which I will begin with, and the longer one after!
The latest colonization scene is the colonization console and it received updates from August to December last year.
Latest colonization loop demo was pushed end November ; but it is a very quick scene, like a presentation and content proposal for colonization events. Testing the immersion of a day and events.
Latest Factions demo was pushed during February. It is a rather quick scene but reveals some tools, uses player collections and has a tutorial. Newest Factions demo was estimated for April, but comes out in May!
It will include a mission completion demo. So next month there will be something with mission completion for players (and much sooner than that for its demo version)
We now push a new game scene every 2-3 months. And we now focus our development on what we call "daily game loops". As this is definitely what we need, as you point out.
One more thing required which is clarity. And clarity is: when you login in the game you now have a new menu directly showing how to access Factions or Colonization. And we have deployed a large number of tutorials.
(please note Colonization seems to have one error at the moment which I detected recently, which may be related to some accounts and not others)
Factions is the game loop which will use the "broad collection aspect", Colonization will become the game loop which will use the "small team". that's why we need the two of them, to make sure all player cards find an utility.
So now our objective is to push one game loop then the other until it becomes a full daily loop, meaning that the game becomes entirely playable.
Now there is something else:
I think comparing orange and apples is not really the thing here. Let's consider Splinterlands is an autobattler with life/health/defense and traits, meaning some simple stats, and they still needed some time to send their first game out. Technically, one game scene does it for an autobattler: which is the battle resolution, and it's scripted.
Technically Evacuation was the gameplay accessible very early on for EXODE ; it was playable on our first month and our first gameplay scene! And quite open-ended in terms of procedural content. After which scanning was deployed, though that one was pushed 8 months after as we required to push several upgrades to EVAC before.
I am unsure also you logged in recently to check EXODE Factions demo, as I don't see recent sign tokens on your account since a few years. So maybe you haven't even tried Factions tutorial or the latest colonization demo, or the latest tutorials in EVAC.
Some developments are based on a fun autobattler thing because that's their game. Where we play same cards at different positions. And others rely on procedural content and complex starting situations able to withstand explorations with hundreds of different card generators.
I do not mean one is better than the other: Splinterlands is certainly an excellent game!
But in terms of game development, alpha/beta status and objectives, game loop and artistic objectives and "immersion" target, it's completely different and it's not the same output and path.
Please understand I totally understand your question, and thank you for your support. I only wanted to reply to the best of my ability by pointing our current releases and our focus on game loops.
We'll be sure to tag you once the game is complete!
Thanks for the detailed response and for clarifying that there are two game loops as you call them. I'll check them both out.