Devlog #8: Back to the Barn

HEY FARMERS!

So, it's been a while. Too long, honestly.

I wanted to take a step back from the heavy amount of time spent on developing Gorge Valley so that I could put out some art and other stuff that people might follow me for, but I think I've been away from the project for too long, and I wanted to apologize to everyone who's been waiting to hear some updates on the game. Rest assured, work is under way

As I stated earlier, Tails of Greed will be taking a backseat, so that Gorge Valley can get the attention it deserves while I also put out smaller stuff, such as the Poca story (which will be getting its next chapter soon, don't worry!)

I'm not entirely sure when the next build will be ready yet. This isn't meant to be an announcement post for a release date. But, it is meant to serve as a way to finally give everyone a bit of light on what to expect!

(P.S.: If you want way more frequent updates, I post all this sort of stuff to the Patreon Discord regularly! Just link your Discord and Patreon accounts and you'll be invited!)

Quality of Life Focus 

I've honestly been putting a lot of this stuff off for way too long. The game needs to start feeling like a proper game, not a project held together by duct tape and dreams.

To help achieve that, I'm adding some much-requested quality of life changes with this next build.

That's not to say there won't be new content. There will! (New dryad, Brie the Barn Mouse, etc.)

But I definitely want to make sure a lot of quality of life changes go through with this build as well. Such as (as you can see above) save slots.

I've completely overhauled the save system, since it was RIDICULOUSLY buggy. NPCs spawning in random positions, CONSTANT save corruption, the time of day randomly shifting when a save was loaded, etc. If you try to save and load in the current build, you'll see what I mean.

My efforts with this overhaul is to completely do away with all of that and finally make it seamless and stable to save, as well as giving the ability to save and load multiple slots!

Making Things Less Annoying

That's kind of my general goal with this update. Making the small issues that get on people's nerves go away. I've added a sprinting mechanic to help get around the farm quicker, I'll be redoing a lot of the minigames that get tedious and obnoxious to repeat over and over again (particularly caring for dryads and the milking minigame are the ones I've got my crosshairs on), and various other little small issues, intended features or otherwise, that have been on people's nerves since the earliest builds.

Fat Mocha Portraits!

As you all know, unfortunately, most of the portraits in the game don't reflect the size of the girls as they grow. However, I'm slowly working to remedy that.

Creating the fat portraits for each of the gals is INTENSIVE spritework, but we're chipping away at it. The first to get hers will be Mocha, whose is currently underway now.

Here's a few examples of what to expect!

That's not all that's to come, of course, but I'll show off more as it's ready! For now, thank you all from the bottom of my heart for all the support.

The summer heat has made it difficult to remain productive, but I'm trying to keep up with these projects as best I can! I really appreciate everyone sticking through the slow downtimes on output where there isn't much news, and I hope to remedy that ASAP by having lots more to share soon.

Until next time, Farmers!