devlog #33, the swell of progress

Ya'll! DO I have news for you. Not only is ouro chugging along a winding path towards the finished demo, but I am also on the ever moving train of progress. I FINALLY got an apartment! Yippee!!!! It's a newly renovated flat with an adorable kitchen and a balcony with a fantastic view. I hope I will get to show some of it to you, especially as I am thinking of experimenting with the format of dev logs in the coming months. No promises, as I will be wholly focused on studies and the demo first and foremost, but... yeah. :]
I will be moving now, this friday, which feels. Incredible. To have a proper home, all to myself, for myself and my beloved nana. To get to start a new year, a new life, entirely on my terms is just. Gah! I can barely describe it. I feel like the cork of a bottle of champagne and someone is vigorously shaking it.-

Yeah, I'm not doing so well with the metaphors but you get me, I hope. I'm giggling like a madman.

And ouro! The UI is getting closer and closer to the finished build! Here's a little peek of UI only, but beware it's a work in progress still, especially in the cosmetic department:

This is how it looks on PC, though some of the scaling is still off (not a prio right now, an easy fix). However, we are still fighting to the death with the black bars Ren'py imposes on mobile users. We fix one thing, and another error pops up. It's just the way it is with coding, I've come to know. We are painstakingly working through every option we have short of changing the native code, and I am learning so much along the way! It is harrowing work, but it is so much easier now that I have a experienced developer working alongside me, teaching me the ins and outs of Ren'py's limits and how to break them. We will both take a short break over the holidays, but I don't expect the UI to take much longer. No timelines though! [hisses]
It's a shame I can only show what most of you have already seen before, because most of the work is being done under the hood. It will all be worth it when you get to try the app for yourself, and it runs smooth as butter! :D

I will also start writing new content again as soon as I'm settled into the apartment and have all the furniture bought. I cannot wait, and I mean that in the most mouth-frothing, vibrating-with-excitement-champagne-corked-up (huh??) way possible. I may have a lack of vocabulary now because of all the stress I'm under (even if most of it has turned to positive stress), but these characters are running laps in my skull, like cats during midnight hours, howling for me to let them play on the page. I am mostly through with the refactoring of existing code, and now I have to start weaving old story in with the new intro. I'm very excited about it, even if I am scared to bits. I have a good feeling about the new intro, but changing ouro so drastically is doing a number on my nerves. But. It has to be done. The rest of the draft simply will not work without it. Frankly, all I want is to get it done so I can hear what you think about it! If there is one thing writing ouro has taught me is to just get the work done, and worry about fixing it later. It all works out if you just give it a chance to stand on its own legs first.

I hope you are all doing well. I am sending you all love tonight, and gratitude, for being so generous with your time and money and encouragement. It means more than anything to me, you must know. Without the confidence I gained from creating ouro, from meeting and talking to you, I would never have gotten to this point. I mean that. I will see you soon. xx