Dev Log 0.26c: Matrons and Mammaries

Buckle up boys and girls, it's going to be a long one. I really sat down and got into it, concentrated on getting Carla C3 finished.

So, firstly, there is a new solo Cassidy scene, unrelated to Carla at all. You can go for a drive with her on Sunday at noon.

Next I took a left turn and finished adding new renders into the entirety of the introduction loop. It's not quite one render per scene as was the goal, but it's close and it's a huge improvement over just staring at an endless parade of the same unmoving sprites for minutes on end. Not that I suggest you replay it, I believe you see the new renders anyway, but I am happy regardless.

Then we take a left turn and Carla and Sami pole dancing conversation can now result in you getting a mail about it.

After that, we take a left turn, if you've seen the depths of Carla and Lin's relationship, you can now ask Carla about it. See what she has to say.

Now we take a left turn and at C3 you can now just straight up ask Carla to practice various things.

Doing the right thing, I took a left turn and also programmed in a mail you can get if Carla turns you down on breasts if she isn't concerned enough.

A left turn later and the previous Carla dream scene has been brought "into the loop" in that it is now an unlockable memory that canonically happens before a Carla C4 run. Of course for that, you have to finish C3.

So to do that you have to take a left turn and just get your concern up real high. Not quite as high as it will go, I saw someone manage to get a 17 or something (Several of her high concern points have now been nerfed in C3). Anyway so after getting concerned enough to take a left turn, you can talk to Carla on Sunday Night. It's short it's sweet, but it does the trick.

So, story time.

First of all I'm quite proud of this week, but what spurned it on? I've mentioned before about how I've been trying to pick up the pace. Write shorter scenes and get more corruption levels done. And I have been trying... I just haven't been very good at achieving...

Someone calculated how long it will take me to finish just the major content for Cabin by the Lake at my current pace. Over 3 years. That is too long.

Nothing quite brings these things to a head like putting an actual number on it. I do love Cabin by the Lake and I don't doubt that I will still be producing bits and pieces of content for it in three years. But I never planned for it to be a forever game, I have always said it has an end. There is always room for fleshing out new concepts and ideas within it, but sooner or later I do want to move onto the next thing. Cos I've got some great ideas, and I'm not allowed to work on them until Cabin is finished, I promised one game at a time and that's what I'm gonna do.

So how to move faster? Obviously I'm not going to drop quality to move faster. I can try to write less large scenes with some reduced complexity, which I'll try but there is only so much of that I'm willing to take away. And there is still a limit to how much help I can accept, although I may put out some more feelers to see if there are people who really resonate with the characters. It's a pretty high bar I've got for time saving writing quality... and it is entirely consistency based. The most beautiful prose in the world won't help because this is not a prose based game. At the same time doing all that stuff also costs time.

But most of all, the thing that I know will work is to just plan harder and better. A lot of the corruption levels this past year have been kind of meandering. I write until I find what I want the characters goal to be is, and that's given us some great scenes, but it means I often rewrite large chunks of content when I could instead just be changing a few lines around. And it's not like you wont get that new content, it will just be concentrated on pushing forward.

At the end of the day, I'm not sure why I'm justifying this... Because I know this is what you all want as well.

Regardless, I've had a great week, that I'm quite proud of. I'm even releasing before bedtime. Bliss.

- Love Nunu