Progress Report

Right, so I've been a bit spotty about progress reports and such this month, mostly as I've been juggling all the things in order to make everything line up as best as possible. Sorry about that!

The good news is that mostly I've succeeded. The final Build of The Modded Player is at the stage that I'll have left to do is the writing, editing, and testing. I just finished the programming bits a few minutes ago, and the rendering/post-processing was done by around the 24th. Unless something goes badly sideways, I'm fully expecting to release the game on the 31st.

The short story is a maybe, depending on how smoothly (or not) the writing for the the game build goes. I did mention from the start that there was a decent chance, with everything else I was juggling this month, that the Short Story might not happen. If it doesn't, I'll likely squeeze it in during the pause month.

Speaking of that, I will make a more formal announcement of this on the 30th, but I will be pausing payment for the Patreon the morning of the 31st. This means that, during the month of February, no one will be charged. This is due to the fact that I will be switching over to the final run up for the Left Hand Magic final release, with everything all polished and clean. At least as much as Me, Myself, and I are capable of making it anyway. I'll have gotten all the way through Weekend 4 with the sound files by the end of this month, which is roughly half the total.

Yes, Week 5 and Week 6 have, between them, something like half the total animations in the game. There's a reason it probably felt like those two weeks dragged on forever when we got to them :-p. Still, with no game or MMS to work on, I'm reasonably confident I can hammer through the rest of the sound rebuild in February, along with doing a lot of little bits and pieces. Things like making a better-looking relationship panel and a much improved set of credits. Along with replacing one or two music files, running a final editing and bug testing go through over every path through the game, etc.

I'll say this again when I pause the Patreon, but don't cancel your sub, as the final version will only go out to still-active subscriptions when it's ready. It will also be individual links in messages, rather than a post with the final build, as that build is not intended for distribution to anyone but active Patrons at time-of-release and the eventual people who buy it on Steam. In fact, when the Steam release happens, I will be removing all free download links from the Patreon as well, as providing it via other means for cheaper would violate my agreement with Steam.

I don't currently know Steam's policy on giving away free keys (I haven't been able to find out just yet). If it's allowed, the final release links will probably be to free Steam downloads, rather than my usual methods. Though I can't promise that as I don't know their policy yet. I still have a lot of details to figure out on that side of things.

Anyway, that's all for now, folks! The next post will likely be the 'offical' notice of the Patreon Pausing, followed within a day with the final release for The Modded Player...