Quick Alpha 0.10 Update

Hiya there!

I'm just posting a quick update on where things are at with this new build for all of those who may be wondering--since, well, it's the 29th and things aren't quite complete yet. But please don't despair quite yet!

First and foremost, I'm deeply ashamed and embarrassed that despite all my promises, I wasn't able to quite make it by the end of February. So for that, I apologise profusely for all of those that may have been looking forward to it this month. Rest assured, I'll honour any of the previous February alpha pledges still, even when the alpha launches in March so you won't go without. If you're still unsatisfied with this turn of events and feel you ended up pledging for something you were robbed of, please get in touch and I'll do my best to work things out--be it refunds or otherwise. As I want to stress that it's never been my intention to steal money from you all. I just sometimes greatly underestimate the workload of these builds.

Secondly, as a rough estimate for when the next build will hit, I want to say it's still in the coming days. Very very VERY early March. February being as short as it is really did throw me for a loop and I was ill prepared to keep up with this. So I'm really sorry for that.

The work left for the 0.10 build is as followings:

- Wrapping up the 3rd new h-scene completely
- Wrapping up the main story event segment included in this build
- Scripting out all the sprite poses/expressions/backgrounds/music cues in all of the newly written content
- Editing and adding in the voice files I have for a number of new scenes. (Since several CG scenes, along with a h-scene already have their voices queued up to be slotted in!)

A rough time frame for each of those parts would be as follows:

Third h-scene: This is the trickiest part to estimate, as h-scenes are typically the slowest parts for me to write, but I want to say at least a day or two to wrap thing sup going by previous paces.

Story segment: Another day or two. Though I'm in the thick of it right now and writing at a good pace, so I hope to wrap it up and move to whatever else is pending.

Scripting out all the cues: This typically takes the good part of a day if I'm in a good groove, depending on how many new scenes are in a given build, and how many characters might be in scene to scene. (Since I have to manually change the eyes/eyebrows/mouth layers every time a character adjusts an expression, for granular control over things) Sometimes it can get complex if a CG scene has lots of layers too.

Editing and implementing voice lines: This doesn't take too long usually once I've done everything else. Maybe a few hours at once, depending on how many takes I have to listen between and decide on.

So realistically--with all of the above taken into consideration, you'd be looking at another 5 - 6 days of development time for the next build if all goes according to plan. I understand that this is less than ideal, however, given people have been patiently waiting a whole month for things to come to fruition--but hopefully I can at least make it super early March.

Hopefully this transparent glimpse at things gives you a better idea of what I'm currently tackling--but if you have any questions, concerns or there's anything else you might want to discuss concerning this, please don't hesitate to get in touch and I'll do my best to assist you!

Once the hectic nature of the alpha build is done with, we'll be resuming regular happy funtime dev logs, cute bonus art, and perhaps another fun little surprise for March!

Also, I usually reserve another post for this, but since I'm here--if you're by chance a new patron this month, please keep in mind that once your payment processes, I typically send out waves of rewards on the 3rd of each month! Just so there's no panic at the start of the month!

Thank you for your time--and sorry that this was kind of a rambling panic post, haha. I try to keep these to a minimum, but really felt like I should keep you all in the loop. In case you can't tell I'm very stressed with getting it all out right now and want to try and live up to my promises. ;~:

Until next time~