DevLog Update and Attack Plan

Hey all,

Wanted to check in as things settled down after the last Revamp update around here. Hoping everyone liked v13. I know I got a ton of great feedback on it which meant the world to me. Such an important part of the story and I'm glad so many of you liked the upgraded version.

That being said, it's time to move on towards the next chapter so I wanted to check in and sorta give some thoughts on where things are, what I'm thinking, and --quite honestly-- what I have no idea about yet.

v14 Tone

So v13 ended Part 2 of the story and is one of the few times in the story that we have a little bit of closure. Some of our early questions are answered and Chapter 6 very much should have given you an idea what this story was about as well as hopefully set some new standards for the adult genre of VN when it comes to story and character depth (at least that was the original intention back in the day).

So v14 will start Part 3 of the story. This chapter is a little bit of resetting; so much like the early chapters of the story, this next part will be setting things up as we move forward. Originally, I was really concerned about this part of the story when I first published it. Chapter 6 had sooo much happen and up to Chapter 6, I had always felt like I was improving the story and the quality of the game. So I remember hitting a wall here. I felt like every update was better than the last and I had no idea how to 1-UP Chapter 6. I remember bouncing some of my concerns and the pressure I'd put on myself here with some of the other devs and eventually was convinced that not every update had to beat the last one. It's ok to have some points better than others and setup is always important.

So much like the original, v14 is going to focus on new beginnings and changes.

The Current Problem

So right now I already have the outline done for all of chapter 7. Those of you who played the original may have noted that as the game progresses, the chapters start to get longer and Chapter 7 is no exception. After I finished the outline, I was pretty surprised how big this chapter is and how much really happens.

My problem: I have no idea where to cut this next update off or how much to cram into one update.

My goal on the Revamp is to keep things moving. Much more frequent updates than we saw in the original. One thing that I have noticed though is I do better work when I break things into smaller goals. But looking at Chapter 7, there isn't a great place to break things off that doesn't look intimidating and I want to keep my motivation going.

That being said, Chapter 7 does have several scenes that exist in environments we've seen before so I may be able to reuse existing shots or quickly build off of existing shots to speed up production. I'm not really gonna know until I get there.

The Plan

So the plan right now is to just start the update and make progress. Right now, I already have the first scene finished and I'm almost finished with the second scene. Currently have around 67 pics already completed and rendered. So we're making headway.

As I progress through the scenes, I should start to see the outline whittle itself down and better be able to gauge my progress, where I want to stop, and where things ultimately are. This has consistently worked in the past so I expect this to be the same.

So for now, I'll ask your patience for those of you who watch the progress bar. I'm probably not going to move it yet even though I'm getting stuff done. If i don't know where I'm going to stop, it's hard to give you a percentage of total completion. So bear with me and I'll check in.

I promise things are moving :)