Realm Invader Episode 2 and a welcome to new Patrons

There's a lot of you to welcome. So let's start with that.

Welcome:

I'd like to start by thanking all of you for your support. Your subscriptions are what's going to keep this game going.

For those of you that haven't been around since the distribution of the demo; I like to be transparent about what I'm working on, what's slowing me down, what my plans are, etc...

I have a live roadmap on my discord server that shows development progress in (almost) real-time, I'm happy to respond to DMs about what I'm working on (as long as you aren't pestering me and/or asking for spoilers), and I'll try to make meaningful progress updates here on Patreon.

Episode 1 has been a success. I've had a (relatively) large increase in Patrons and I've also received a large amount of praise and head pats.

Episode 1 was made over the course of 7 months. And while this isn't my full-time job yet (copium) I worked like it was anyway. Putting in full-time shifts so I could put out the game in less than the 5 years it would've taken me on a part-time schedule.

And the payoff? I'm so fucking tired, yo. Episode 1 was released for Patrons on the 21st of May. Other than correcting typos, I did not even touch the game again until the 6th of June when I began planting the seeds so I could start writing episode 2. In those 2 weeks off I exhibited genuine symptoms of medical exhaustion. I wanted to take 2 weeks off and play video games or something. Instead, I procrastinated for 14 days. I did nothing except for recovering from how tired I was. I was also cranky and annoying towards other people.

I want to make clear that this isn't burnout. I'm still happy to work on Realm Invader. But I need to set a precedent. Which is that I need to take days off or underperform on certain days. For the sake of my mental and physical health. I don't know how this will affect development time. I still plan to have plenty of hard-working days.

Episode 2

Episode 2 is underway. And while I'm slowly getting back up to working speed, I have written the introductory chapter and am moving on to the rendering next.

This may surprise you, but I will spend today training/practicing. Episode 1 went through some graphical evolutions. I want to spend the day playing around with GraphicsMod (and maybe even Photoshop) to hone down a graphical style I want to mostly stick with for the foreseeable future. Hopefully, this will lead to both more consistent and better-looking renders. If I come to a conclusion today, I will post some test renders in the Patron-only chat of my Discord server.

As for the structure, I'm shifting the word/render ratio from what it is for the majority of episode 1. Episode 1 actually has a pretty poor ratio in this regard. So I'm going to reduce the amount of renders from now on.

This may sound like a not-so-great change, but actually, you've already seen the change in action. I made this change to my development style in episode 1. The shift occurs when the MC goes to the slave market. The market chapter to the end of the episode accounts for a third of the total renders, yet makes up half of the playtime. When you really pay attention to parts of the game before then, there are many short sentences broken up by an unnecessary render change such as a head tilt or expression shift. By cutting out what's truly unnecessary I can shave off production time. And by quite a large margin, too.

So while Episode 2 will probably come short of Episode 1's 2.5 thousand renders, It shouldn't feel like it. You'll still get a good amount of playtime without sacrificing visual variety.

Despite this big magic story I've got going on, Episode 2 is almost all slice-of-life stuff. The episode kicks off with Grace's swim meet that she mentioned in episode 1. 

This will be a real test of my writing/structuring skills. I plan to make this chapter into some kind of sub-mission, with multiple choices dictating both the outcome of the meet, character points, and if you'll unlock any bonus scenes. I'm probably making this sound more in-depth and complex than it actually will be.

I plan on using this kind of structure twice in Episode 2. So I sincerely hope it doesn't suck.

The other large event will be the MC's eventual enrollment into the university. Meet the group of token comic relief male friends, and get a weird feeling while attending lectures.

As far as lewd content is concerned, we're still burning slowly, so I hate to disappoint those of you that really wanna get into that stuff. But I feel these scenes require the appropriate amount of build-up and timing. The plan so far is for the MC to continue his sexual relationship with Cadence, initiate a sexual relationship with another girl, and get a pretty intense teasing session with another. I hope I can build a sufficient amount of sexual tension with other characters in the meantime.

That's all for now, I think.

Once again, thanks for making Episode 1's launch something special for me. Let's try to make each update more special than the last.