Big'Ol Update: Writing and Dialogue Issues Largely Behind us, Build in progress

Sorry for going quiet for a bit longer than usual again. There was a bit of a development problem I needed to resolve before I felt I could bring proper news for you guys.

In short after all the dialogue was added to the tool for importing into the game, I realized there was more dialogue missing and other issues than expected. So not only was a rewrite needed for Act 0 which is extremely important. Acts 1-4 needed multiple issues addressed, some missing dialogue, some rewrites, formatting issues.

So first I shifted my attention away from dev stuff to focus on writing, basically getting Act 0 together myself since a lot of consideration of game function and tutorial is needed. This might not have been the best choice, but at the very least I knew at the end of it, it would be something I'm willing to use. But some other shifts occurred and now I have someone focused on getting all the acts together. I'll talk more about this in the future.

As of the last couple of weeks I've been focused on implementing the dialogue into the game which posed another issue. The import from the tool to Unity wasn't ideal for our use. So the dev of Dialogue System had offered to help improve the import tool to support our needs. And they've been an INCREDIBLE help. Again for anyone making a game I HIGHLY, and I mean HIGHLY recommend their asset. Dialogue system by Pixel Crushers is why most of Our Apartment is even possible.

Anyway fixing the import took some time and feedback loop of about a week, but now everything seems solid. It would have been better to tackle this issue sooner, but it just didn't happen that way.

State of the game now

So as of today I've confirmed the core game loop (Daily mode) works which is the most complex aspect. Barring any issues as things scale up further we're pretty much good to go! 

This means all that's left is to organize all the dialogue into the format we've designed. Setting up conditional checks/triggers to gate dialogue and events, exp gain for stat levels, sex sim dialogue and all this other stuff. 

There is still some work needed on dialogue, but the pace on that has been solid.

I also confirmed some of the new locations are functional for these dialogue scenes with some of their optimization in-tact, but much more is still needed.

After that extensive testing and fixing of many issues, some new animations or poses, and ensuring the systems work as intended with everything in place.

I believe we'll have a build this month

Based on my expectation of the work load I think we'll have a build this month, at worst an incomplete one. The issues we face now are not a barrier to the game being generally functional. So it is possible to do an [Experimental] release this month.

I do want to outline some core things missing in relation to dialogue:

• There's not quite enough "events" for some acts, this will need review in the future but for now things like Act 3 might be a bit barren content wise. Which given lewd content doesn't really unlock there, it's a big problem.
• Act 0-4 still need a final review, and even after adjustments will be made as dialogue is implemented and tested.
• Non-interactive characters will have 2D sprites, as of now designs are not settled and by extension the sprites not even made. I'll make proper posts on these designs when the time comes to start implementing. 
• The function for these 2D sprites has not been fully worked out yet...
• Some scenes will need 2D backgrounds to avoid loading, besides ones based on existing 3D environments, these 2D backgrounds are not made.
• The function for these 2D backgrounds is partially implemented.
• Many dialogue scenes require new poses and some new animations, this may not make it into initial builds. 
• The handling of loading 3D environments is functional, but making sure it's efficient without lengthily loading screens is a concern. Preloading scenes is planned. But for now further optimization is likely needed to ensure fast loading speeds.
• Dialogue history log, and things like skipping dialogue isn't implemented yet. The former likely isn't a challenge, the later likely is a big one. Ensuring doing so doesn't break aspects of the game or progression
• A cheat menu is needed to make testing these dialogue scenes easier...

Like I said these issues don't prevent a release but will prevent the games dialogue scenes from feeling polished for some time. There's other non-dialogue related issues too that will be more the focus after the dialogue is working at a basic level.

Much of the issues listed above will be just kind of avoided for now, scenes and sprites we can't show will just have a background and text and such, and cases where Naomi will just have her VN style presentation seen a few times before. Otherwise some scenes may be skipped.

Conclusion

If things go as expected, testing builds may start by the middle of the month (I do this mainly on discord), with initial releases for supporters sometime after that. All releases I expect to be [Experimental] more limited releases. I really can't have people playing these first builds and expecting that to be the game. This means builds may not appear on itch or for $1 tiers this month.

Cause even now there's a lot of unknowns on how things will "feel" to play. Is the intro too long, is there enough engaging dialogue to play, does the daily progression work well? It's almost guaranteed even if I could get everything in as intended there's going to be problems with the way things feel to play.

It's not just a simple loop and some core functions anymore. And I've seen a few games where trying to make a proper "game" from what the project was before is where things get rough. And I want to avoid that both in perception and practice.

Again I'm sorry this is all taking so long, but I do feel confident builds will start again this month. Regardless of the state of the dialogue and other things, it's important we start getting feedback with all the functions in pace.

Thanks for your support!

~sacb0y