Next Alpha Release date!

Only one week left for me. I decided to give this deadline to myself. 

Just friends may look like a small game because for now, there are only two out of the three main routes for you to play but... Man, this game is big. It took me around 5 days to slowly check the first day for Karnal. Every dialogue, checking every speaker, change necessary stuff, apply some corrections that are needed, change backgrounds, add animations, remove animations, delete dialogues, and fix index for texts on Day 2 because it's the only day the structure is a pain in the ass and I will probably, eventually, fix it and that will take a whole new month only on that and I'm not mentally able to do it right now.

There's a lot of information in each dialogue, and even with your help guys, I always find a LOT of issues when I comb through these dialogues. Mostly because some of those routes you guys won't even get into after all you don't want to check every possible answer, you are not a beta tester. You want to enjoy the good part of the game, I know I do that on any VN I play: I do the best outcome possible because my time isn't infinite.

But before I continue, here's my status so far:

After Day 1, when Aiden gets into the hotel, Day 2 has the following updates:

Only for Karnal since Wagner's routes are already up to date, these are the updates for Day 1.JSON (Day2 in-game)

•      - Number of Dialogues fixed that had a speaker when not needed or was missing a speaker when needed: 9
•     - Number of dialogues with misspellings or small changes fixed during the process: 19
•     - Number of dialogues deleted or entirely changed during the process: 3
•     - Number of Dialogues where the sprite had its expression changed: 36
•     - Number of Dialogues with new animations added or changed on them: 26
•     - Number of Dialogues where there was a missing sprite fixed: 17
•     - Number of Dialogues with background changed: 1
•     - Number of Dialogues that had some sort of random issue not listed above: 1

Now, Day1.JSON took me what? Five days? More or less that much, and that's the most simple day there is.

Day2.JSON is giving me a lot more trouble though, so far, I still need to check all of the answer routes for it to be finished, and I'll try to finish this today but here's the current progress: 

•     - Number of Dialogues fixed that had a speaker when not needed or was missing a speaker when needed: 8
•     - Number of dialogues with misspellings or small changes fixed during the process: 109
•     - Number of dialogues deleted or entirely changed during the process: 16
•     - Number of Dialogues where the sprite had its expression changed: 37
•     - Number of Dialogues with new animations added or changed on them: 43
•     - Number of Dialogues where there was a missing sprite fixed: 1
•     - Number of Dialogues where a sprite was removed: 2
•     - Number of Dialogues with background changed: 3
•     - Number of Dialogues that had some sort of random issue not listed above: 18

I hate when I find I misplaced or forgot a speaker, such as having Aiden's speaker on a Karnal phrase.  But I am going slowly just to get EVERY, SINGLE, MISTAKE in every route. That being said, this is taking way longer than it should be. So, here's the deal: I'll be releasing the alpha now on the 28th of this month, meaning I have seven more days to finish this and start on Day3 which so far is the biggest day in the game. Day3.JSON has roughly 55k lines or more, I frankly don't want to count that right now, and I pretty much doubt I'll be able to finish Day 3.JSON (Which is day 4 in-game), in time to release the alpha. I will then, work on what I can on day2 and 3.JSON and then whatever is left I will take notes and continue with it not on the next month (Because I want to give you all another piece of story to read) but the one that's coming after. So this is the schedule:

28 of May: Release of Alpha 0.36A with Days 1, 2, and 3 in-game all corrected (Day0.JSON to Day2.JSON) and part of Day3.JSON (Day4) if possible.

June: The release of Alpha 0.37A with a new piece of the route for whatever you Tier3 Patrons vote (this subject may change if you guys vote on something else, such as me working on other aspects of the game but the story, but since normally what wins is another story segment, that's what I'm predicting you guys will vote).

July: The release of Alpha 0.38A with the fully covered Day3.JSON AND some key additions to it, such as the cutscene for Karnal and the Player in the bar. The way I'm working on those cutscenes is that they are mostly played on S-Rank dialogues, meaning you need to actually say the correct choice for them to be shown, that being said, since the game has a true ending for each route, seeing those cutscenes will be the only visual way for you as the player without a cheat sheet to know you are on the right track. IF possible, which I doubt: I will also be adding this new picture to the game on the Gallery mode, I need to manually code it there after all.

And that's the schedule I'm having: Again, I doubt I'll be able to cover all Day3.JSON here, not only does it has more routes than the previous days (in routes I mean, segments of text for example: Once you get to the point you have to choose an answer you probably at least, got trough two or three routes segments, usually Act0, 1st/2nd, or  3rd encounter, and Act1-Part1. These are, literally five segments or five routes I have to check, and all of them have at least  75 - 80 dialogues index in Day3.JSON. Each of them with at least  10 - 12 things besides the text itself that I need to check. And sometimes I find myself deleting and re-writing certain parts because they feel odd to me. 

So I'm not gonna overwork myself here not to be able to give you what I promised and feel exhausted anyway: I will do what it's possible of me for now.

About artworks: I'm working with the artist about it, we talk daily and he's just absurdly busy with work and life, however, he is doing his best to continue giving us all good quality drawings, and he is doing it with a very good price for me, which frankly I couldn't be more grateful for. So I will wait the time he needs. So for now we need to wait. 

There's a lot of text for this game to be done yet, not only there's another character to be added, but there are also at least three more days besides the final day of the game which will be the prologue for those who actually are able to get enough points to achieve that. I'm also thinking of adding some small mini-games to this game, but first I need to make this a side project and program some mini-game on Godot first, then see how I can add them to the game. Something silly but interesting, that's not guaranteed, but I do think it would be fun every end of the day to see Aiden just grabbing his phone and playing something right? Who knows? I frankly don't know yet I'm just thinking if it's worth it. But for now, the story and the system take priority, I want this game to look perfect and I want the story to be good and I want every single many to look flawless. So I'll be focusing on these.

I hope you all have a good rest of your days, and again: I would appreciate it a lot if you all stay with me for another month. It's always a huge help no matter how much you're donating for this project since I work on it alone. Thank you all. 

And thank you for all your help, support, AND kind words. It means the world to me anytime you come to me and say the story is good and interesting because sometimes I look at what I'm writing and think: What shit is this?! Haha

Thank you, guys. From the bottom of my heart. 

Have a nice week. And I'll see you guys next weekend.