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Hello everyone,

Here’s another status update from me.

Since Emma and MC’s scene in the Bang Bus is finished, I’ve moved on to the next section. Story-wise, something important happens, but I don’t want to spoil too much just yet. What I can say is that MC returns to Nael’s place, only to discover that something is very wrong. What exactly? You’ll have to wait and see. But here’s one thing I can reveal: MC meets Tessah again.

I’m really looking forward to bringing her back.
There will be several ways to deal with Tessah, and I imagine opinions about her will be very divided.

She’s lost her memories, but still carries a dislike (more like jealousy) toward Noel, who gets so much attention from Nael. She was also the one who enabled Matt’s outburst in the first place. In her defense, she was just following the rules of the Dark Ones. Can you hate a lion for hunting a gazelle?

And remember, the Tessah you once knew is technically gone since her memories have been wiped out. That opens the door for different possibilities: acceptance or rejection.

You could ignore her completely. Or you might interact with her and experience a “core” Tessah, one unshaped by companions. Even then, you’ll still get to decide: push her away, or find a mutual understanding.

The choice is yours.

On Choices in General

As I mentioned before, the Emma scene has several variations depending on your past and current decisions:

• Did you sleep with her in Chapter 6?

• Did you visit her in Chapter 10?

• Do you have a femdom relationship with her but doesn't want that anymore?

All of these affect the way her new scene plays out.

This creates a challenge for me as a developer. Normally, I measure chapter length by code lines and number of renders. But with all these branching variations, that doesn’t work anymore. From your perspective, you only see one version, but for me it means double or even triple the work. Sure, I can reuse some assets, but it is still a big workload.

That’s why I have to go more by feel when judging the progress of a chapter. Based on the amount of code, renders, and effort, It should be time for the halfchapter, but it still doesn’t feel like enough.

It’s different from Chapter 10, for example, where even with multiple variants, you still see most of the content in one playthrough. Whether you forgave Claire or not, or whether you sided with the Brotherhood or the High Order in Chapter 9, you still got to explore the High Order. Dialogue and small details changed, but the core experience was the same.

This time, your choices can completely cut off big sections of content. For example, whether you share just a few sentences with Emma or experience a full NSFW scene with nine high-quality animations (done by the animator behind CIA and Amy) depends entirely on earlier decisions.

If Emma didn’t stay overnight with you in Chapter 6 and you skipped visiting her in Chapter 10, then she simply has little romantic interest in MC. For players who only fulfilled one of those conditions, there are “middle” versions, some with other animations or less, or diffrent talk and so on...

I honestly don’t envy the devs who commit to massive branching paths in VNs. The workload compared to the payoff is brutal.

A Quick Side Note

Here’s a picture of Emma looking at the back of a truck. (But if you have working eyes, you’ve probably already noticed that.)

Speaking of eyes, I recently watched Alien(1979) (Ridley Scott’s original) for the first time after work. Wow, what a masterpiece. The atmosphere, the tension, the worldbuilding. The first half especially is pure perfection. No wonder it spawned such a massive franchise. And the best part? Even almost 50 years later, it still looks incredible. It did age so well it still smokes movies from today in the pipe.

Okay, I digress.

Thank you all so much for your support. It truly means a lot.
Take care of yourselves.

With love,
Berki