Development Update

Hey guys,

I hope everyone enjoyed the update, had a nice break over Christmas and New Year and the return to work wasn’t too painful. Version 0.15 has been released publicly, so that’s all done and dusted, and work is already well under way on version 0.16. Before I talk about what I’m working on at the moment, let’s take a look back at version 0.15.

Version 0.15 (spoilers ahead - skip this section if you’ve yet to play)

The staff training / class punishment storylines were funny ones for me to work on, simply because I’ve had them on the back burner for such a long time. Some scenes I wrote well over a year ago, while some I only wrote a month or two back. It’s not the easiest way to work and to be honest I struggled a lot with script this time around. Not for lack of ideas, but because there was so much I wanted to include it was difficult to find a way to make it all fit together.

There is still quite a bit more to come with the staff training storyline

In my last development update I said I didn’t get as far as I wanted with the staff training and class punishment storylines, and now that people have played the update it’s a little easier to explain what I mean. My original plans for version 0.15 had four staff training lessons and one practical exam. This would comprise the “basic” portion of the staff training (with more exciting stuff like bondage and penetration planned for the “advanced” part of the course to come in Chapter 3). After their first practical exam Claire and Debbie will complete their basic training and this will unlock the third class punishment. Up until about mid-November I really thought I would have time to include all that in version 0.15. Unfortunately, I still had quite a bit of writing left to do for the later scenes. Making good creative decisions with a deadline looming is tricky at the best of times and these were particularly complicated scenes to write; weaving together several major characters’ story arcs. Therefore, I decided to release what I had and come back to it later once I’ve had time to figure out exactly how things need to happen. So, there will definitely be a lot more exciting stuff to come with these storylines and they are very high on my list of priorities for the next update.

There was something a little different about this scene

There was a pretty significant development in version 0.15 that I stayed quiet about before release; two small scenes were the creation of a different artist. I didn’t tell people this before the update, because I didn’t want people to prejudge their work. However, I am happy to tell you all about it now. The three part “Hot Night” scene in the dorms, plus the scene with Charlotte and April being spanked in the cafeteria were both created by our animator Gegecucu. I did help out with the dialogue. However, all credit for the conception and art goes to him. He has helped me a lot over the last couple of years with animations and setting up scenes, however, these were the first of his original creations that made it into the game.

The hot night scenes were created by Gegecucu

Given that, up until now, every word of dialogue and (practically) every image were created by one person, this small step towards sharing the workload is a pretty big deal. I plan to always maintain full creative control over major storylines. However, sharing mini scenes and little extras is a good way to increase quantity without sacrificing overall quality. In any case, I think this is a good development and well done to Gegecucu for his hard work.

Plans for Version 0.16

As I spoke about at length after the last update, my priority remains to get to the end of the Chapter as quickly and efficiently as possible. Which means focusing my attention on the following:

• Complete the “basic” staff training and the third class punishment.
• Between one and three levels for the following girls:
  • Faye
  • The twins
  • Liz
  • Alice
• Second date with Samantha
• Advancement for the group medicals
• Introduction of new student antagonist (Zoe).

Thanks to the time I dedicated to writing ahead over the summer, I am starting off version 0.16 in a really strong position. I have about 25K words of dialogue written (mostly from the list above) with significantly more than that including my rough notes. So, there is the potential for me to get straight down to shooting scenes and potentially I can get the next update out relatively quickly. However, despite having a significant amount of writing done already, there are still some really important things I need to get out of my head and onto paper. The end of the staff training storyline, for one thing. Plus, I also still need to decide on my next poll (and short Mykock’s Manor special), which will be about the direction of the long neglected group medical storyline. So, there is no getting around it, I need to put my creative writer’s hat back on for at least the next few weeks before getting stuck back into rendering.

The good news is that nothing on my current to-do list includes a complete story arc. Therefore, it doesn’t really matter whether I release the upcoming content all in one go, or in smaller chunks as and when things get finished. So, I have a lot more flexibility than I usually do. Currently, I am considering aiming for a quick update sometime in the spring. However, it’s still too early for me to make any kind decisions like that. Give me a few more weeks to focus purely on writing, then I will make some strategic decisions about what to include in the next update and the rough timescale to aim for.

Altos