Blog XXIII - 0.04.50 Update and August Retrospective

Hey, everyone! Fae here after another month, and whew! Busy busy! I know you’ve been waiting for this one, so let’s not waste any time and get straight into it; you all want to get to that 0.04.50 release, and I don’t want to keep you!

V0.04.50 Update Notes

Day 4 is now fully available! What’s new in this update?

 - Day 4 Part 2: Game night is here! Join Bromm’ka, Zuberi, Mizz, and Tulemeni as they settle into the rec room to enjoy the fun and games that Bromm’s prepared for everyone. Choose one of three versions of a character Bromm’s prepared for Rael, and play to your strengths - or don’t! - as you roleplay your way through their ongoing campaign!

 - Day 4 End: And let’s not forget that there’s still some resolution to be found for those of you who reached the end of the day in the Part 1 build. Now’s your chance to follow up on that new arrival…

 - Credits Update: Another month, another credits update! Thanks again to everyone who’s supporting Void Dreaming; your names are once more up in lights!

- Bugfixes and Typo Corrections: My work is never done. A slew of bugfixes from as early as the prologue right through to now have been fixed, all for a smoother reading experience for your fine self.

State of Affairs

August has been a lot of hard work. Where I’m at on the writing has been incredibly exhausting, and it’s easily the most complex programming I’m going to have to do for probably the whole project (mostly because I don’t know if I can put myself through it all again). However, that’s not to say it’s been a bad month. Let’s take a look at where the project stands!

 - Since the initial release, Void Dreaming’s various versions have been downloaded from Itch.io over 8850 times now. The reindexing post-NSFW purge hasn’t helped compared to the surge of activity that speaking out against it seemed to draw, but it’s good to know that steady traffic continues to bring Void Dreaming to people’s attention!

 - Void Dreaming’s rating there remains very positive! I’m retaining that 5 star rating (technically 4.9 for transparency’s sake but still amazing) thanks to your kind ratings. Of the 237 total reviews, 225 of those are those brilliant 5-star ratings. I’m so glad to have the confidence of the readers and I look forward to earning an even better ratio moving forward!

 - The Patreon support for Void Dreaming continues steadily as well. Growth has steadied considerably but is still ticking up bit by bit (we are currently on 218 subs, including 36 who are subbed at the higher Officer tier) and I’m feeling really good about where we’re at right now. To all the supporters of Void Dreaming, my most heartfelt thanks once again!

 - Over on the Discord, we’ve now got a lovely 442 members there contributing to fan theories, art, our first fanfic, and general chatter. Getting the feedback there, including the bug and typo reports, has been so wonderful and I look forward to much more!

- And finishing up as ever with the Void Dreaming Bluesky page, we’re now up to 944 followers! Hopefully a day will come soon where it’s not reskeeting the means of irritating payment processors and I can go back to just showing off fanart, but for now I get to do both!

Transparency - September 2025

It’s time to give the monthly transparency update! It’s the start of a whole new month, so where are we at now that we’re getting into September?

Writing and Programming

 - Day 8 continues along! Plugging away at this day’s content has become a far more taxing affair than I was expecting, but I’m definitely getting there! The bulk of the writing and programming is in place now, but there’s still some very chunky work that I’ve not quite squared away. Testing for Day 8 will be a nightmare, but at least right now I feel like I’m solidly 75% of the way through its workload. Not where I want to be, but doing well enough, considering.

 - Writing Skipracer has been a delight to work on, and the initial drafting is complete as of a couple weeks ago. This month is all about the editing and cleaning it up for next month’s release, and I intend to have that all done halfway through the month to ensure that everything is ready well ahead of time for the October 4th release. Fun!

 - While it’s literally work in September and not August, this last week before this release I actually took off work! In this time, I was able to focus all of my efforts on Void Dreaming (and taking better care of myself in the process), and dedicated a lot of my efforts to ensuring that the sprite and audiowork for everything moving forward from Day 4 is in a good place. I got a bit slack a while ago and focused more on the writing than the programming, so this was a great chance to sit back, put the writing regrettably on hold, and ensure I’m ready moving forward for the next nine months or so of updates. I didn’t get everything done I wanted to, but this week was also about taking care of myself, so I took advantage of some extra downtime to unplug from the project and just chill. Also not as much as I would have liked!

 - Once again, bugfixing hasn’t been the biggest thing for this month. The Day 4 Part 1 build seems to have been very stable and functional, with no real major problems cropping up. What a relief! Fingers are crossed that Part 2 and the public Day 3 build continue the trend!

Art Assets

 - Rico’s been a busy boy on the background front, ensuring the Day 4 BGs I needed for this release are all in place (along with some special other stuff you’ll learn more about in due course). Can’t wait for you to see them all!

 - Vall’s been approached about further CG content that’ll be necessary for the Patreon December build, and the workload includes some upcoming splash screens for Days 6 and 7 as well. I’m hoping to keep him very busy (and very well paid) over the next few months!

Project Finances

 - Patreon’s earnings remain very steady! The monthly income sits still at a very workable AUD$1.6K per month. It’s incredibly exciting to see the income not sliding backwards, but slowly and steadily gaining steam. Every dollar continues to be reinvested into the project, and it’s doing wonderfully at sorting out what’s to come soon!

 - My personal funds are continuing to contribute to the project as well, and will do so as long as I need them to. There’s been some delays on getting my tax returns all sorted out (which is frustrating because I’ve budgeted for a lot of that for the upcoming CG batches Vall will be working on), but thankfully I’m able to continue to manage things in the meantime to keep the project rolling along. If that money doesn’t come in properly soon though, there may be some sacrifices I have to make going forward so that I can restore my finances to a stable state before I put more personal funds into Void Dreaming. Thankfully, immediate art money is allocated and ready to be put to use!

 - Similarly, last time I suggested that there might be some behind-the-scenes financial stuff going on here that will be designed to ensure that Void Dreaming is even more workable moving forward. Since my tax return has been delayed, that too is still delayed. More information will come when I have some!

September’s Goals

 - Finish all Day 8 content if possible; this might stretch into October, alas

 - Implement Day 4 bugfixes as needed and prepare Day 5 testing

 - Conclude edits for Skipracer and ensure that it’s ready for release

Upcoming Main Updates:

Oct 4th:  Short Story Skipracer (Patreon Release)

Nov 1st: Day 5 - Mendacity Part 1 (Patreon Release)

Dec 6th: Day 4 - Initiative (Public Release), Day 5 Part 2 (Patreon Release)

Release Plan Status: On Target

Whew! And would you look at that: our upcoming updates now covers all the way to the end of the year! Next month’s transparency update is going to be the first taste of what’s coming in 2026, and hoo boy, is it going to be a big year for Void Dreaming if things continue to remain on-track.

How big? You’ll have to wait for the December update post to find out! I feel like that’s going to be the best time for it all; you’ll have the actual locked-in updates for the first quarter there, but that’s a fine time I think to also show off what all I have planned for the whole year to come, just like I did at release for all of 2025. Should be something wild to look forward to, I think!

That I’m not only on track for everything to happen in 2025 as I originally planned, but also that 2026 is looking almost smooth as well? That’s incredibly exciting for me! When I started Void Dreaming work two years ago, I didn’t think I was going to be so assured of everything going off as well as it has. There’s been hitches, of course, but overall Void Dreaming is doing more and better than I had dared to hope.

I know that Void Dreaming is something very different to what most visual novels try to do and to be, and I know I’m giving myself a hard task what with it being the first thing I’ve put out in this space. That there’s been enough Patreon support to take the heat off me making it has been all I could ask for and more besides, and that there’s still slow growth on the Patreon encourages me greatly. I honestly believe that Void Dreaming may have the legs to really go far and be something incredibly special, and that so many of you agree is heartwarming in the extreme. I hope that this is just the start of me being able to make cool shit for you to enjoy; the more support that rolls in, the more I'll be able to create for everyone!

So thank you, once again, for reading and enjoying my work! There’s still so much more to come, and I can’t wait to show off what lies ahead. Bugfix and update builds will of course come as needed, but we’ll worry about those when we get there. For now, I’ll just sit back and hope you enjoy the latest updates to Void Dreaming!

Until then, stars guide you.

 - Faora