Everything is fine, I swear (progress update)

Me at the start of August;

HOOOOO boy, can't wait to finish this next in-game week and release it to everyone as a surprise! Who cares that the work got delayed 2-ish months because I needed to change artists? This is a totally reasonable and not at all idealistic goal!

Me in September;

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Hello! Welcome to "everything is fine, I swear" the post!

Half of the in-game week is in the game now! Yay! (clap, clap, clap)

The good news is that absolutely NOTHING ELSE IS IN THE GAME. Wait, that's the bad news. AND THERE IS NO GOOD NEWS. AHAHAHAHA!

Well, on a serious note, I've been working with the new artist, marumu for a while now. In that time, they've had their computer basically give them the middle finger and die, further delaying the growing list of things I need for this week. They did manage to get a workaround going after a week though, which was nice.

Meanwhile, I've been writing, sorting out things that go into the game engine, realizing I'm turning 26 in a week (help), and basically crumbling under the pressure of expectations, since I'm worried that the amount of work I put into this week won't match the expectations I set for it.

That last one is just a silly worry that I can push aside, but it's still annoying.

Even still, none of the character specific events have been put into the game yet since the list of art I handed marumu was in a weird order; We started with the base image for the Marsh CG, went to a set of chibi cgs which took longer than expected, then Carol's base CG, then they worked on character expressions I needed for the common route...

Basically I don't have everything I need for the character specific events right now. I got over-excited and asked for character cg first, but it's not like it's a bad thing; all of this needs to be done before the next in-game week gets released anyways.

Speaking of things that need to be done, I also need to alter stuff depending on choices since, you know, choices will start mattering from this version onwards. It can be something small like variants in dialogue(shown in the first in-game week depending on what you did) or something big like an entirely different interaction occurring from the get go, with a different choice being presented.

Rachel is a big example. Dark Mary (who may or may not have a name given to her this in-game week), did a real number on her with the brainwashing. Even if a few days pass, it's not like she can just get rid of the fact that she felt... 'things' in that moment. Of course, she'll act entirely different if the brainwashing didn't happen, thus the divergence in the interactions.

Ambitions can lead to someone's downfall, so I'm trying not to do too much, but that also feeds into my worry of the week not living up to expectations. Vicious, cycle, huh?

...Wait, did I already mention Rachel? I don't know. These past few months have been more me doing things without talking in hopes of getting the game out, but I also understand how frustrating that might be for those waiting on updates.

Anyways, I wanted this out before August is over, but at the rate it's going, it will be a miracle if it's out before September is out. Realistically, hoping for an October release is better.

This also impacts the release of the side horror project; Halloweve 2. I think what I'll end up doing is once the next in-game week is out, I'll just take a break from that to work on Halloweve 2 for a bit.

Well, only time will tell.

(Oh yeah, the 2nd Carol image posted above is kinda a mini-preview hidden behind a wall of text. Tada!)

Until next time, hopefully I'll make an update sooner than this one. Oh, and please send me a cute hypnotized gurl for my birthday >///< K, thanks~