PrinceOfSuburbia

ViM Studios: Dev Log 28-Apr-2023 & Previews

Added 2023-04-28 20:35:13 +0000 UTC

Content creation is basically done for Chapter 3 (V0.25) of A Shot in the Dark and it's a big one! The update will contain over 1,800 renders and 65,000 words (which is the length of a short novel)!

All we can give is a rough estimate for animations (~50 animations) because the final number will depend on how many different camera angles/speeds we decide to render. But they're all posed and queued up for rendering.

For context, you can compare it to prior releases:

So, ultimately the Chapter 3 (V0.25) update is taking a little longer than we hoped (we were aiming for another 4 month release cycle, but obviously it will go over that). Still, we are happy to see that we are getting faster and more efficient with each update, as far as the amount and quality of content we can produce in a given time.

We are also getting more ambitious with each update (that will be more obvious when you play it, for now you will have to trust us on that!) and we have even more ambitious plans for the future!

For now, we are fully in the coding, polishing, and initial testing phase with Chapter 3 (V0.25). This includes fleshing out, refining, and testing all of the interactive walkthrough features. (Read more about those features in this previous post.)

As always, we will get a build to testers the second it's ready. It's hard to give an estimate for release because the coding for A Shot in the Dark is so complicated, and the branching (and, therefore, testing) gets more complex with each update. Stay tuned for more updates as we get closer!

It's also getting harder to find previews that aren't too spoiler-y, but here are two:

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Art for the second beach update (V0.95) of Prince of Suburbia has wrapped up, and writing is in full swing!

Coding for V0.95 will have to wait until A Shot in the Dark is ready for play testing, but by then all of the writing should be done. Coding and testing for Prince of Suburbia is typically the fastest part of the update cycle, so once we are at that stage then we will be very close to the actual release.

We already anticipated that art would be complete for V0.95 before writing and coding could realistically happen. Our artist, auxiliaryout, will use this time to get ahead on V1.0 and the remaining art that needs to be remastered. Our hope is that will allow him to take a well-earned break before we start any epilogue/DLC content.

We should also have time to get ahead on writing for V1.0 (and we recently brought a new writer on board to help with that), so all in all, the release cycle for V1.0 will go faster than it normally would, given its size.

V1.0 is planned to be quite large in order to give all the characters a satisfying end to their respective stories. We are already polling for content for V1.0, and we will have many more polls to come in the next few weeks! You can get links to all recent polls in our stickied post.

One of our top goals for this year was to release V1.0 of Prince of Suburbia, and so far we are on track to do so well before the end of the year!

Here's another preview for V0.95: