News: April 2025

I've decided to make some adjustments to how I handle game updates moving forward. I started making the TOTs because I wanted Patreon to always have some sort of monthly content. Also partly to deal with burnout. I believe the TOTs are now taking too much time away from the main project, Dragon Incarnate.

As noted before, I'm skipping the TOT for this month. After putting a lot of thought into it these past 2 weeks, I've discovered a way to provide monthly updates again without taking away from DI's development. The TOTs won't go away forever either. They will simply be less frequent, probably.

For now, what I'm going to do is focus entirely on getting DI ready for the first big release, minus many of the scenes. The first big release will still have a few scenes. Any of the missing ones will be skipped, but still added to the gallery so you can view them when they are finally added. New scenes will also be added later on. I'll let Patrons vote on which scene they want to see added to DI next. That scene will be added in a mini update. This will happen monthly. Effectively, it will be the same as a TOT with the exception being that the scene is in DI instead of a standalone.

Since the 1 new scene per month will not take the entire month (hopefully), I'll be able to spend the rest of the month developing the next big update. Those big updates will only be released when they are ready. However, the monthly scene updates will ensure that Patreon has monthly content. I really don't like the idea of a monthly subscription without actual content released at least monthly. This is why it's so important for me to have the monthly updates.

I'll include a TOT option in the DI poll as well. If it wins, I'll make a new TOT for that month. That would, of course, mean no new DI scene if a TOT wins. To balance things out, if a TOT wins, the next month's poll will not have a new TOT option so that a new DI scene will be guaranteed in the following month.

I'm also going to remove the combat completely from DI. It is not in the state I want it to be for the first big release, and I don't want to delay longer just for the combat. This may be temporary, or I may keep DI as a story focused game with no combat at all. If I end up not adding it back, I will keep the combat code and reuse it for GnB2 and/or the SC school simulation remake.

As for actual progress on DI: All of the dialog and story are 100% complete for Act 1 Part 1, which will be the first big release. I'm currently working on the visuals for the dialog. I haven't adjusted the script for the removal of combat just yet. That won't take very long, though. Finally, 3 scenes are fully written. All of the characters have been created (or recreated). I simply need to make the scenes and other visuals.

I'll leave it at that for now. This post is getting quite long. If you have further questions, ask away. My hope is that these changes can get DI out of development hell and to you sooner.

Thank you as always!