DevLog Update

Hey all,

So long time no talk as I wanted to actually have a more clear idea of where the current progress for v0.15 is at before I posted. I know people are anxious and while the ending of the last update wasn't intentionally meant to be a cliffhanger, a lot of people are really anticipating the next installment.

Let's start with some really negative shit to set the mood, shall we?

Apology

So I alluded to this in the last update that real life has completely destroyed me lately which significantly delayed a lot of the initial writing plus I needed to go back through and do a complete re-read to ensure things are lining up the way I wanted. If you haven't noticed, someone made this game long as fuck so it took me like four days to even get through my own game. But, we're moving towards portions where earlier events and hints play a more prominent role in the story so the consistency is important. That being said, I'm anticipating getting quite a bit accomplished this weekend and want to make some decent progress. For those who have watched the progress bar in the Overview tab, you've hopefully seen the numbers jump a bit recently. 

What to Expect

A lot of people hit me up and really want teasers on what to expect from each update. I don't always include this section in the DevLogs but a lot of people do seem to appreciate this so I'll try and remember to include it more often. So v0.15 will continue Chapter 7 and will conclude the "Deeper" chapter. This entire section of the game is really about boundaries, and testing/pushing and exploring those. Noticing that something has changed, but not sure what. "Deeper" has, and will continue to push this limit to a conclusion in v0.15. Because it's the end of a chapter, you should expect a little more closure and a few more questions getting answered that popped up during v0.13, v0.14, and v0.15. 

I'm also going to disclose that there is a lot more skin in this update and I know I've said that before but I'm really serious this time. Things appear to be getting a little more....um...casual. 

Current Status

So currently, the writing is moving forward again and the CGs are almost caught up to where the writing is. Right now, I'm clocked in at around 1000 lines of code with a lot of writing left. To keep things into perspective, my goal is always around 1,000 lines per month. In the past update, this was significantly pushed beyond that so it really does fluctuate over a period of time. Some months just allow more time than others. We also have about 115 new CG images already completed, most of which are coded in for the most part and the quality is on-par with what you saw from v0.13 and v0.14. Keep in mind, the clothing and hair changes in the previous update now require a complete re-render of almost every image and character interaction in the game. While this is a pain in the ass and slows production down, it will hopefully present the opportunity for further practice and enhancing the graphics appeal moving forward. But yeah... it totally slows things down.

On the topic of images: you'll hopefully notice a new feel that began back in v0.13 and really hit heavier in v0.14, in that I've been using more and more CGs to subtly move the story forward. While many VNs use sprites that sorta fly in and out of the game, the dev team over here is really starting to move in a direction that makes this game more and more "cinematic" as it continues to evolve. Thus, you may see more CGs for every day tasks when before the characters would just sorta teleport from one thing to the next. That still happens to some degree for now but hopefully it will feel less so than before. This also requires more art and slows down production but you'll hopefully have a better product like we saw in v0.14.

I'm also going to say that the team continues to try and expand and try new things during updates. This allows for the game to mature as well as us test our limits and overall just grow. For the newer supporters, I'll remind you this is still the alpha build and we're sorta practicing to see what we can do as a budding development team with each update offering new opportunities. 

But in short, expect something new in this update that's subtle but it should motivate you more about our vision for version 2 of this game.

Decision

So the current progress percentages are sorta accurate but still may be a bit off to some degree because Blayke and I are still working on the tail end of the outline for this chapter. Basically, an opportunity presented itself for one of two options given an event at the end of the the current update/chapter. 1) We could continue with the update as planned, including the event at the end of the chapter but risk delaying the update longer because of the detail of the event, or 2) we split update 15 into two parts sorta like we did for the strip poker event way back when.

After talking with Blayke, we are both in agreement that we should do one total update and include the event at the end of the current update. While splitting the update into two parts would give you content faster, we are trying to push quality over speed at this point. Additionally, we both agree that splitting the update will significantly damage the flow of the story as Chapter 7 comes to a close. For those that have been supporters for a long time, you remember the cliffhanger "grin" that Braden gave before strip poker as the camera fades to black at the end of that update. It worked then. In this update, it won't and it'll just feel poorly done, losing the momentum of the story and the moment-- so splitting isn't really an option.  Unfortunately, that means that things will take longer--which is why you've seen the progress numbers fluctuate. I wasn't sure if the update was going to be split or not and that would obviously affect the total percentage of completion for v0.15.

The Plan

So moving forward, I'm planning on pumping out as much as I can this weekend and we'll see how it goes. I also plan to release more teaser pics if the update development takes longer so that you're still getting content. 

Also, stay tuned for another big announcement before the next update drops. More on that later. 

As always, if you have questions, hit us up on here or over on the Discord.

-Aaryn and the Teaym