Weekly progress report #17

Hello! It's Sunday again, so it's time to notify you about the progress that I've made recently. It's somewhat mixed, but still good overall.

The most important thing to mention is that we're dangerously close to the release. I assume that this is the last progress report before the test version drops in, and I hope it's gonna happen this Friday. Although the writing part of the update is far from being finished (with only three days being fully completed), at least when it comes to renders, the most time-consuming part, it's about 85% done. Overall the new update will feature about 145 renders (or a couple more), which puts it almost 50% above the v0.5, and makes it almost twice as big as v0.4. It was a mistake. I bloated some of the events way too big (the photostudio event alone has 20 renders), and it cost me greatly. I haven't turned off my computer once this week, and I'm starting to feel the symptoms of sleep deprivation. But at least the update will be finished just in time. I have yet to start making the Vanessa's scene and the scene that won the poll (Kushari/Suya. Now that's an explosion of big dick energy), but I hope to get them done by Wednesday. And I most likely will never make as many renders again, unless I want to go insane or something.

Usually about this time I start writing the basic ideas for the next update, but since I haven't been able to finish the writing as fast as I regularly do, I'll just mention the things that I feel should be important for now. I'll try to go without spoilers. I've heard some complains about the game not having a distinct storyline at this point, and it is, indeed, somewhat vague for now, but one must realise that I haven't mention Deliverance just for the giggles. This is where we're heading now. So this middle period of the story we spend with the new characters, grow to know them better, all that to eventually make the choice who's gonna follow us in the next life, and who will be left behind. It's also important to know that Blake's life is, well, a life, so it doesn't need to always have a clear goal. Although with his mother (her «stuck» option has won the poll, so expect several more polls about her reactions to Blake and his entourage) coming into the story some things are going to change. I also decided to stop adding the new characters and routes for some time, cause juggling with the already existing ones gets a little too hard. There are currently 25 active characters in the game, and I will hold onto this number in the future. (Jose, Terri and Candy are already gone. Bracker will be finished with in v0.6, although he'll get some closure.) Now, getting rid of the character doesn't always mean they're dead, I just don't consider them when thinking about the potential events. They even might appear in a dialogue or two, but nothing more. In this regard I'm thinking about sacking Claude or Coco, but we'll see. I'd love to see your opinion on Coco's scene in v0.6 before making this decision.

So that's about it. Sorry for the lack of updates in the recent days, I'm all about making that final push for the release. Hope you're gonna like it. See you!