Status Report On 0.5.8.6

Good afternoon!

After last weekend and another dislocation treatment on Monday, I am finally feeling better and the headaches are gone. This week has therefore been much more productive than the last and I have managed to get a lot done, although not as much as I would have liked.

I started the week by finally completing the interactions with Penny's new outfit in her house (Implementation of last pictures and an animation). This was followed by tests to make sure that the right pictures are displayed in all interactions.

I also worked on a new scene in the living room (while Penny is cooking) since I wanted to give the new dress some time to shine.
I've also wrote a lot of dialog over the week and continued events around the quest involving the new mill and implemented the adjustments that the player can make to the map SE of Arenfield into the questline (Graphics for that have been made earlier, but it's one thing to make something appear and another to fit it into a story construct). I also added mercenary spots for the new area and edited the map inside the leadertent at the camp so that you can send them there.
I've also thought about adding in a new recruiter mercenary at the camp that will allow you to replace mercs that have died more easily (not yet implemented, but on the todo list for next week). You will also be able to loot mercenaries who die in the new area to get their armor back.
Today I've also started working on the events for Penny & Dave (when he comes to collect taxes). Images/animations for that were already done earlier, but the events are still not fully implemented and I had to make some sprites as well.

This week I also started with the economy of the new area. Penny will be solely responsible for paying the workers, the MC has the task of keeping the area safe, either with mercenaries or by defeating bandits that appear. If the area is secure workers will do their job and produce Grain & Milk.
Grain that is produced there ends up directly in the mill and is processed into flour, which Penny can then use for baking. I might add an option to sell flour directly, but I'm still testing that to make sure it's a good profit/loss ratio. Cows will provide milk, which is another commodity for sale (in the long term, further processing should also be possible here, but at the moment I'm trying to find a good end point so that this isn't a bottomless pit in terms of work).

There is still a lot to do as you can see and my approach is to get it all done by following through the quest step by step. As soon as the area is fully useable I plan to release update 0.5.8.6. which will be next week (as soon as it's done).

After that I will need some more time in September to get the story around the Coldstone estate completed. The pieces of all the created images/maps/sprites are finally beginning to click together, which really feels great, but there is still so much to do.

For now I plan to work some more on the tax collection events and then when I have a good endpoint relax a little over the weekend.

That said, I hope you've already done your work today and I wish you all a nice weekend!