National Park Girls: Episode 3 - September Update: Lots to Report

Hey everyone, Syon here. Been a while since we've given you a big National Park Girls update, so let's fix that. 

First things first, though! Highway Blossoms: Next Exit, the sequel DLC to our hit yuri visual novel, launched on the 25th. Make sure pick it up! But remember, you have to own the base game to play it!

Anyway, now that the obligatory advertising is done, lets get back to NPG Episode 3. Which funnily enough, got hindered pretty hard due to Next Exit's development. I'm soooorry, I should have seen this one coming. As the head scenario writer and director for both NPG and Highway Blossoms, there's always something on my plate. And because the team here at Coattails is so small, it's easy for one project to suffer while we crunch on another. 

That said, there's lot of good news to report on! All the writing for Episode 3 has been done for months (as is the writing for Episode 4) and it's all in the build. So the big project for us right now is just sprite direction and camera movement, which is by far the most tedious aspect of development, but it also what gives everything that special polish. It's been a process, but now that Next Exit is out the door, finishing this is our priority. 

CGs are done, too! Some absolutely gorgeous compositions this time around (like every episode, but you know what I mean). For those of you who are Zion fans, I think you'll be very pleased. This episode is all about her relationship with Yosemite, so that means Zion is in pretty much every single one of the CGs. Both versions of her. Heh. 

All the voice acting has been recorded. Has been for a while. I've chosen the takes that will be used in game for most of the characters, but there's still a little more to go. These characters just love to talk for whatever reason, which makes the process longer than you might think. But once those are chosen and accounted for, I can hand them off to our sound engineer. After she sends them back to me I can slot them into the build without much issue. Knock on wood. 

We've got some fun new outfits for Yellowstone and Zion in this episode, courtesy of our assistant artist, Umujacha. Nothing too insane, but they both get oversized shirts. Zion says 'I <3 Yellowstone' and Yellowstone's says 'I <3 Zion'. It's the cutest thing you'll ever see and here's a picture of it. 

All and all, we're in the final stretch. Just one more push and it'll be out the door. We'll be deciding on a release date within the coming days and we'll let you all know as soon as we can. Make sure to wishlist Episode 3 when the store page goes live! Sorry it's taken so long. I know the year anniversary of Episode 2 is coming up quick and that NPG in general is pretty far behind our original schedule, but it's not for a lack of work being done on it. Episode 4 and Episode 5 should have less of a severe gap between releases, if things go accordingly. The material we have planned is pretty crazy, if I do say so myself. 

As a reward for your patience, here's the finished CG of that one Zion/Yosemite sketch we posted a couple decades ago. We want to hear your predictions and speculation! 

Later, campers. Your love is what keeps us going. 

- Syon