Development update and rough roadmap

I didn't want to be the bearer of bad news, or even to have any bad news to bear.

But alas, here we are.

The bad news is that, unexpectedly, I have fallen behind schedule. Taking a long time to get updates out is something that really gets me paranoid, and coming to the realization that development is going slower than I'd like has upset me, to say the least.

For those of you not reading my Discord server; at the beginning of December, I fell incredibly ill with a flu strain. Then, I found myself struggling to code.

If you don't know, I actually have almost zero coding experience. I've dabbled a little in MATLAB but that's it.

What this means is that every new idea that I want to implement becomes a coding challenge.

Thankfully, I'm done with the coding challenges for now. (more on that later)

The positive takeaway from this is what I have built is a reusable framework, meaning I have set it up so I can very easily reuse these pieces of code to access them again, essentially minimizing the amount of these "coding challenges" in the future.

Ren'Py, for all intents and purposes, is basically Python, and what I've figured out is that regardless of if it's the most optimal strategy, you can solve most problems by making a dictionary of objects.

So what I've been struggling to implement is first; an SNS interface.

The interface opens up and plays through a conversation I've written out, the sender's name and chat head load in, and the window is easy for me to reposition, the messages appear in chat bubbles that seamlessly blend into a single bubble upon one sender sending consecutive messages, and I've coded a way for the correct sound to play depending on who sent the message. You can also click and drag to scroll through the chat history.

I have also built the framework for there to be conditions regarding certain messages. For example, during a conversation, you may only receive certain messages if you have met a condition, such as setting a story flag.

I actually solved this problem by making each individual message an object, with attributes such as the body of the text, and who is sending it.

The second thing that I've been building is a minor free-roam mechanic. Sometimes in the story, you will have some free time where you can explore by meeting with characters. In episode 1, this mechanic is going to be very tame, as you are so early on in the story.

When you meet with a character you will have a few options available to you:

You can talk to them for some more bonus dialogue.

You can have sex with them for bonus sex scenes.

Another mechanic that will be introduced in episode 2 that, you guessed it, gives you some more bonus sex scenes.

Episode 1 will only have 1 free time section, and you will only be able to talk to the characters. As the story progresses and assuming you are still following a character's route, you will see this mechanic open up, allowing you to fuck like a horny terminator.

The challenges of coding this one included getting the U.I. to actually show and hide properly, not displaying the character you were currently with as a travel option, and making the buttons actually jump to the correct place and access the correct dialogue.

Now, there are 2 more coding challenges awaiting me, which are implementing the replay gallery with filters, and the lore/profile screen. I will do these two things as the last thing I do before releasing episode 1. Again, this will be a one-time thing, as I am building all of this framework that can be easily reused in the future.

So for now; I am finally back to writing and rendering. I have also completed the planning for episode 1. As it stands; the current roadmap looks like this:

Episode 1:

- Scenes 1, 2, 3(done)

- Scene 4 (Written but not rendered)

- Scenes 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

- Re-render demo scenes using the improved character models (this won't take as long as it sounds)

- Lore/Profile/Replay menus

- Play through for testing purposes

- Convert files for 1080p version and test that

- Release

If I didn't find myself suddenly shitting, pissing, and crying because I didn't know how to code, I would guess that I would currently be writing scene 7. This is what I mean by "being behind schedule".

So yeah, I'm very sorry for letting my inexperience get in the way of meaningful progress, but hopefully, the worst of that is behind me for now, and I can be writing and rendering at full speed once again.

Also, as a surprise to me, I looked at how many renders I have so far.

In the previous development update, I said that each episode will have probably around 1,000 renders/animations.

As it currently stands, with only 3 of 10 scenes fully rendered;

I have approximately 714 renders done already.

With a little bit of mathematics, one would expect me to only have around 300 renders, being 30% done rendering. So it turns out that episode 1 is going to be bigger than I expected.

Also, the reason I say "approximately 714" is because some of them are negligible. For example, the frying pan that comes from off-screen in the demo counts as a file. So there's probably something more like 650 or so significant renders. (which you may notice is still more than 300).

I'm still aiming for a February release, though, these setbacks might have pushed that to May. I am incredibly sorry.