Our plans for Sileo in July / Upcoming Build Release Date

Howdy patrons!

Hard to believe it's July already. The months are so short, and there's always so much to do! I though I'd make a post today to let you know what our tentative plans are for the month, what our current progress looks like and when you can expect the next update.

Now, let's start by tearing off the band-aid. I'm afraid this update is going to be running a little behind as well. We're sorry! We hate having to release late and we try to avoid it as best we can, but the old method we used to ensure an on time release during the development of Diego's route was basically cut as many corners as needed to get it out the door. We were still finding our groove back then, and these days, that is simply not something we consider acceptable. It does mean slower progress, but it produces drastically longer routes with drastically higher levels of quality. Moreover, it produces content that I'm proud of, and I think that's something really important as a content creator of any sort. It's especially important given that on the average week, between my day job and Sileo, I'm working anything from 70 - 90 hours. If I wasn't proud of my work, that'd be a lot harder to maintain.

As for when you can expect the upcoming build, all I can really say right now is that it'll be sooner rather than later. I'm going to be spending the entire weekend giving it everything I've got and while I don't expect it to be completely signed off by Monday, I am hopeful that I will have a mostly completed version being tested by the team. From there, it's only a small amount of additional work to wrap things up. We're still waiting on some artwork as well, but we're hoping this will sync up with the writing. Best case scenario, we hope to release this next week. Worst case, it might require the following weekend to wrap things up. I'll keep you guys in the loop.

As for our current progress, I've told bits and pieces here and there in progress reports and what not, but I'll recap briefly. The June release had a few technical gremlins on board relating to the adoption of Ren'Py's new renderer. Usually we like to begin a month by jumping straight into the creation of new content, but when something like that happens, it isn't always possible. In the end, there were two crashes, one caused by a bug in the latest Ren'Py update, the other caused by old, redundant files being present due to the game install folder being overwritten instead of being properly replaced. To solve the latter issue, we built a compatibility system which would check for and remove old files and known problem files. This gave us a golden opportunity to rework our archiving strategy to better support differential patching, starting with Butler support on Itch.io and setting the foundation for other methods of updating the game in future. As part of restructuring the archives, a lot of code was moved around, reworked and optimised. Some of this optimised and reworked code created opportunities to both prepare for or even outright implement features on our long-neglected list of features. The changes in archiving also broke existing save games, necessitating a system to handle save compatibility in future... I think you're starting to get the picture by now. What was originally a minor update turned into something massive, far reaching technical update. And eventually, it became clear that it was not going to be finished within the space of  a month. 

We diverted our focus to completing Day 15, of which the first major scene was lacking in good ideas. It's a scene we'd had in mind for a long time, but had removed, readded, removed and eventually readded at the last minute. We fell back to hoping inspiration would strike during the writing process. It did, but perhaps a little TOO much inspiration struck. Two scenes, complex in narrative but relatively straightforward in execution, turned into a single scene that is easily the craziest, strangest and maybe even the coolest thing we've ever attempted. So much so that we did something very special for this scene, something we've never done before and who knows if we'll ever do again. Alas, there are steep artwork requirements not just for this scene but for the rest of Day 15 and while things are progressing well, it's hard to say how soon everything will be squared away. 

Which brings us to our plan. Like I said before, there's no fixed release date for the Patreon build but we're optimistic it will be sometime next week, fingers crossed. It's a very cool update that finally delivers a lot of the answers to the questions you all have and does some very cool and unique things. We can't wait to get it done! The next little while will be focused on getting that update finished and rolled out, after which Day 16 will take immediate priority. This month, we want to prioritise our content up front and leave the technical work until Day 16 is ready to go as a minimum. Once Day 16 is done, we'll resume work on what will become the 0.30 update. I don't rightly know if it'll be done in time, the list of things that still need doing is still quite long and there's a few notable features in there that might take a decent chunk of time to get implemented and working. There's also the consideration that 0.30 will require significant testing when compared with our usual updates due to just how much has changed. I doubt it'll be the base used for our August content update, although I would anticipate that we'll release a beta here on Patreon somewhere around that time for a more thorough poking and prodding!

Once Day 16 is over and done with and 0.30 is released to the public, it'll be smoother sailing towards the finale. Thank goodness! There's still a few big things yet to be done and it's not all going to be easy, but we should be able to push ahead and produce content a bit faster than we have been. 0.30 also lays the foundation for what will be the 0.40 update which is going to be a similarly fantastic update, that one focusing more on user experience features rather than technical ones. We'll likely begin slowly chipping away at the 0.40 version as soon as 0.30 is complete, however we'll be avoiding putting any major time into this until after Tai's route is completed. 

So, we've got a few big months in store and a few exciting major updates! Stay tuned for more information, we'll keep you informed!

PS: We'll be releasing the Public update on schedule as usual. There'll be no new content when compared with what shipped in last months Patreon update, but there'll be a couple of minor improvements primarily on a technical level when compared with 0.26. I'll make a post here when I release it, although there won't be all that much to see until the Patreon version releases