5.0 Progress Update, News and Announcement!

Helloooo peeepo! It's close to release time again! Okay, here's a quick update post.

Okay I know many of you don't want to read so I will do a TLDR of frequently asked questions. Please read this part at least!

TLDR:

1. For the next release(0.5) Every one has to replay the game which means save files won't work! This is pre-planned some time ago.

2. 0.5 will be ready this month! I was aiming for mid august but I predict it should be ready around 20 ish. Regardless, it will be ready this month August so get hyped!

3. Ok, many have asked what was the 0.4+++ episodes about. Those are mini updates that I was releasing to patrons as a sneak peak. The major update is 0.5. I have released 3 episodes so far but I've decided not to release the other 3 for reasons that I will outline in the full post. 

4.Yes! These special episodes are all within 0.5!

5.Yes, SOL content is in this update which push main event forward. 

6. Please link discord and patreon and chat with me on discord! If you have any questions about update or whatever, drop a message or even DM me. I hang out every single day and reply to all messages. I will still reply on patreon or whichever sites but it will take longer. (I've been muting discord every time we get closer to release as it is a freaking timesink and I end up surfing the web and chatting nonsense with discord peeps, but if you dm me, I will always check in throughout the day and reply you.)

7. Yes I will make a subscribestar account. But after update is over. That is my full focus at the momento!

Okay! Now down to the full post. 

Wazzup! Progress on 0.5 is great. I'm working on many things which will make the game much better I believe. But first, I will address the mini episodes.

I won't release the next 3 episodes and instead release the whole 0.5 as we are near release time already. After releasing the first 3, I realized the impact isn't great. It takes me much extra time to sort out all the different versions and also, much of the feedback was it is very underwhelming as some contain no lewd scenes. As such it is quite pointless to download and some peeps feel disappointed. Just to clarify for new peeps, all the bonus content is released on top of what is in 0.5 and it will be together! It is not a separate arc.

Also, the last episode included more than 200 renders! (For comparison, most devs do 2-300 renders per main update with maybe 5 stock animations? We do the same amount for a mini bonus episode :D:D) 

After the underwhelming feedback (majority feedback was story is interesting but no lewds so its frustrating. I also need to push Moon story line as it is so important later on!), I decided to work on a new side storyline which includes a feminist arc. The objective was create simple throwaway event so that I can rush a lewd scene for every mini episode. 

One of the plus sized feminist students.

The arc includes 3 feminist students causing trouble at the cafe and each episode was planned to deal with each one of the 3. It is initially planned to be a quick excuse of a lewd scene basically, however, as I worked on it, I spent time fleshing out each character and decided to turn it into another case format. I just find rushing a lewd scene for a mini-update  so pointless. I want to develop these characters more as they are very useful later on when we get to Sophia's school.

We will see more of these guys! This arc turns out to be one of my favourites actually.

I added more side characters to flesh out the story and several new locations. But as I worked on it, I realized I won't have time to work on the main update if I continue!  I've come to the conclusion that rushing for the sake of adding a lewd scene each mini is quite pointless. The reason I'm able to put out lewd scenes for the Beatrice episode was because it was at the natural point and also I had tons of leftover animations from the last update. So we shall stop with the mini-episodes here as its not worth the hassle. Also, it isn't really giving much of a boost anyways. 

Now on to 0.5!
I've worked on many many things including working on a more polished code. Previously, I took shortcuts when creating things like the questlogs, inventory and phone lists.

For example, 

This is not a real inventory. It is just a bunch of imagebuttons made to look like an inventory. It is the same throughout the game such as quest logs and stuff. . Without going into too much detail, it basically means that it is not organic. Which means there is a lot of illusion. Players are railroaded quite tightly. For example, the SOL case is very linear. It just gives the appearance of choice. 

By doing it the hard way, I will be able to allow the player much more freedom and and the player can do things in various different orders. I've been working on that, such as refurbishing the contact lists and also the case solving mechanics.

By doing so, I am able to add interesting functions, for example, allowing player to choose to accept, doubt or accuse a suspect of lying. The player would then have to decide based on the responses or facial expressions which is the 'right' way. However, any one of the options would lead to different outcomes and still progress the story. So it gives a more organic feel. 

Not only that, they would be able to choose which suspect to interrogate first, or which clues to use, which results in a more free feeling. Of course, I wanted to put out the feminist case first as the remaining 3 episodes, to test the responses and refine it. However, we are short on time as there are many things in the main update to work on. 

Also, another aspect I'm working on is porting new locations for the house and cafe!

If you notice, many of our locations are unique and I put in a lot of effort to get the meshes and textures right which is a big reason why our game is able to stand out despite using an outdated engine and basic renpy.

I think the new house and cafe designs fit better but I might not be able to finish redoing previous scenes in time so it might be a little jarring if the new update feature new location! But I think it is fine.

Furthermore, I think the main meat of 0.5 which is the SOL case and Sage's explosion event will be fantastic. I think it's a good way to wrap up the first chapter of the game and I'm pretty excited for it.

Also, one last thing. I've been quite dismayed with our patron drop out rate as it is very very important to hit our target by the end of the year! However, we are still ranking very high on various websites so that is awesome. I have no doubt that once we put out a good update, we can hit the target :D:D

I've been checking out many games as well as interacting with many other devs to see how much content they put out and I can confidently say you will not find a single dev that will put out a 3000 render update like we do out of 10's of thousands of games. (If you find one, pm me and I will check it out. If it is true, I will set out to outwork him when we hit our fulltime target ;) I think we will surpass 3k images in 0.5 muahahah. 

Majority of the more active devs probably put out 400 render updates. Let's not even talk about less active ones. There are those that take a year to put out 400 measly renders (no kidding). While number of images is not everything, you can compare the complexity and image quality for yourself.
Also keep in mind that DA is a relatively complex game when it comes to renpy visual novels!

So please manage your expectations and stay with us! 1k patrons by end of the year and we will finish Deviant Anomalies. A free game for everyone to enjoy!

In terms of release schedule, I think I have a very good idea on what works best now. From a dev perspective,  I need to find the best release schedule that will garner the most patrons! As such I've been testing monthly schedules, 3 months schedule and weekly mini episodes to see which has the most impact. For example, would a 3 months lag time entice people to patron as they are more looking forward to it? Would a monthly release get more attention as it ranks more often etc, etc.

As of now I think the monthly-ish release schedule works best! So look forward to that once 0.5 is out. 

Alrighty, no more lengthy posts from now till release time. It's grind city. Speed is my energy,
Expect a couple of spoilers from now till then! Peace out!

Much love

Moolah Milk!