Dev log - October 15th, 2024

Hey guys, here is the last dev log before the release of chapter six.

I have been working my butt off to get this release out to you guys as quickly as possible and of course things always take longer than expected. I was hopeful to have everything completed by today but that just isn't possible. I'm going to need about another week to get this one done, so I apologize for that.

This will be the first chapter that will have all full motion video animations. I have mastered the art of low file size, high quality animations and I'm really excited for you guys to see them. Most of the looping animations take up less space than a single image and look really high quality considering that small file size. I feel like these new animations will really bring the game to life. Of course, animations take quite a bit longer than single images, but not nearly as long as I thought it would when I first dove into learning how to do them. This chapter will feature around seven hundred renders and  close to sixty animations! As I have stated before, I will be going back and redoing key animations that were in the choppy transition based format and upgrading them to full motion. This will take quite a while of course but I'd say by next spring I'll hopefully have most of them done.

On the personal front I have been struggling with some issues with my eyes. I've never talked about it here at all but I have ongoing problems with my retinas and early onset macular degeneration. This requires procedures a few times a year to prevent serious complications and even blindness. Unfortunately, when I have these laser procedures done, it can cause several days to up to two weeks where my vision is very blurry with severe light sensitivity and also migraine headaches. This has been the primary cause of my longer than desired development time for this chapter. I hate making excuses, but I like to be transparent with you guys since you are spending your hard earned money supporting me so I feel like you all deserve it. I am very careful and see my Ophthalmologist every three months to stay on top of things to make sure nothing bad happens. So you guys won't have to worry about me going blind for a long time and hopefully I'll be able to keep making fun content for you guys for years to come. The reality though is I won't be able to do this forever and I will eventually go blind, but my doctors tell me that as long as I continue with my treatments it could be ten years or more before I will have to stop doing work that requires sharp vision. And who knows what medical wonders are around the corner. AI will fast track treatments for medical technology and maybe in ten years there will be a cure for blindness, who knows? So if any of you have serious conditions or know someone else that does, don't give up hope because amazing things will happen in the future with the advent of AI.

Anyway, that's all for now. Things are moving along steady and I should be able to get things buttoned up within a week or so. Thanks again for all the amazing support and I hope you are all doing great!

See you in the next one,

Bobby