Start of week update

Hey All,

Episode 16 progress has been really good over the last week.  Will definitely have enough content for a large episode for mid-December.   However, I will use my "Dev discretion" and will decide to release at that point or push a little bit to add even more content.  Want to squeeze in an extra character appearance but at the moment, our current scenes are already pushing us way over in length.   

Episode 16 won't be like episode 15 where we get 1.5x episode and add 3 weeks to dev time.   I'm  currently thinking it will be a 1.2x episode (enough to get everything we want into it) and aim for a pre-christmas release.

I want to take a week off from the game over the Christmas period.  I'm not religious but I am Irish so I have a lot of drinking to do over the holidays.  So if the release goes too late into December i'll be even more pissed off than any of you, so I'm dedicated to making sure that does not happen.

Script-wise - We have about 3700 lines written out of a planned 4400.  But... to finish off our existing scenes - it will definitely require us to go above 4400.

I expect to hit the 4500 mark by the end of this week with all artwork and animations to go with it.  But it will be a very rough draft (our staff coder / error-checker is taking time off from the game in November /December due to RL stuff) so it will need a LOT of tidy-up.

And we will then have a good idea of what scenes we want to trim or extend or if we can squeeze in the extra appearance that we want.

Talk soon and let me know if any questions or comments.  And as always thanks so much for your support.

further reading below....

The Game:

Some minor spoiler about gameplay below (no plot details, just some insight) but stop reading now if you want to remain completely in the dark.

The man-whore route:   Up to now, it has been possible to pretty much sleep with every female character without  major re-percussions.  And so far ...if you have been pretty discrete about balancing this tight-rope then there shouldn't be any major blow-ups in the future for minor decisions earlier on, e.g. I'm not going to punish you (e.g. break-up ) for some minor little decision you made back in Episode 2.    However, just remember that every decision you make is cumulative and as we are now in the back-end of the game, just bear in mind that as relationships become deeper, so too will the blow-back from getting caught in the deep-end.   And "big" decisions like breaking up with characters, getting directly caught in the act with other characters or major choices (for example:  telling Katie about Jenna while in bed with Jenna) will definitely have a large impact on future plots.  Otherwise, what's the point, right?

Now this doesn't mean that for all you man-whores out there that you should start breaking up with every female in the game except one (where's the fun in that?  And you might miss out on  options to convince people to "share") but just bear in mind that depending on the scenario, some of the girls in the game may react a little bit more realistically, while others may have more porn-fantasy responses.  And depending on all of your previous interactions, your existing relationships, how well you've treated people, etc. the female's tolerance for indiscretion will be large or small dependant on all these factors.

Just remember that staple of politicians everywhere:  "Plausible deniability"

Return of females - Of ALL the females that we have introduced in the game so far, we should see ALL of them at least one more time (and some a lot more than once).  Plenty of episodes to come, so even the likes of Natasha should have one last "hurrah".

The mystery gold-digger ?

 (Definitely stop reading now if you want the Scooby Doo reveal to be a complete mystery.....)

Is this going to be som random nobody that I pull out of the woodwork in the very last episode?   No.

Is it someone we have already met?   Possibly.   But by the end of Episode 16, we will have definitely met her.  :)

Does the above mis-direction mean that we only meet her for the first time in episode 16?  No.  It is purposeful mis-direction.  But I will confirm that everything I've written here is true.

Will the identity of the gold-digger change depending on which characters you are / are not romancing?  No.  The gold-digger's identity will be the same no matter what choices you make.