Progress Report

Happy New Year, everyone!

I've been back to work for a week now after taking some time off in December and let me tell you, things are looking good.

During my time off, I actually spent quite a bit of my time just tinkering with the characters for my next game. Before anyone gets alarmed by me working during my vacation, don't worry. The kind of stuff I did is relaxing, fun, and doesn't feel like work at all. Especially since I'm still not under any particular pressure with these characters. I can take my time experimenting, trying out different styles and options, going back to the drawing board if necessary, and so on. I've had a lot of fun with it. 

As a result, the core group of characters is starting to take shape. In fact, I feel like almost all of them are 100% ready. With that in mind, I think I should be able to start doing a hype campaign for the new game soon, with a title and logo reveal followed by one character in a promo render every single week until you've seen all I can show. Most of these promos are already done (this was what I did for the first few days of this week), so it's now mostly about picking the right time to get started. I can't wait. I may not be the most impartial of people in this context, but I feel like the visual quality of these characters is miles above even the best characters of LLtP. They also have features that should make it possible for me to do things simply impossible before. Exciting times ahead!

As for LLtP, it has been my primary focus for the past few days, and my progress has been excellent. It's not like the work I've been doing now is any faster or slower than what I did for 0.38. Still, because of the massive difference in scope between these two versions, the work I have done so far represents a much more significant portion of 0.39's complete feature set. In fact, I have already finished the renders and animations (minus cumshots, which I always do last) for two out of the three new scenes in this update. I'm in the middle of posing the third one. 

Since I want to jump back and forth between LLtP and the new game in 2022, dedicating roughly equal time to both, I expect 0.39 to be out in February, just as I had hoped. In fact, right now, I can see no challenges whatsoever in reaching this goal. 

I have two goals for 2022 right now: 

• Reach version 1.00 of Long Live the Princess.
• Release the new game's first version (at the very least).

Realistically, I need to start being very critical of what I add to LLtP at this point, sticking to the absolute minimum I can get away with while keeping the quality high. That means no unnecessary features until we reach 1.00, only the things we need to reach completion. After that, we can start adding a few bonuses when I have the time and inclination. I don't intend to end the development of LLtP at 1.00, but the pace of releases will be entirely different. 

So, that's it for the first of this year's roughly 40+ progress reports. Whatever else 2022 may bring, I will do my best to give you what joy I can.

Until next time!