Development Update - 5th of July 2025

Hey everybody,

As this is the first development post of the month (and is public), we'll recap some of the key things we worked on over the past month.

Tae and I massively upgraded our PCs. We initially planned for them to be out of action for a day and upgrade the graphics cards to Nvidia 5090s. Due to the way the computers had been built and the need to upgrade other elements, we decided to upgrade several more components, leaving us without our PCs for a week. Fortunately, the team were still able to crack on while we weren't able to for that week. Now, our "new" PCs are up and running, and we should be able to make great use of them in the long run. Our art director, Shoe_Lac3, had already upgraded his graphics cards and was kindly completing some rendering for us in the interim.

After getting our PCs back, I've been working on the side paths code. All of the Realm 3 side paths have the basic coding complete. I'm now going through to proofread, add missing variables and trophies. Then, once the images and animations are finalised, we can drop them in and release them. We communicated this to supporters last week, but we do not plan to release the remaining side paths in a staggered manner. We will release a major update that includes all the remaining Realm 3 side paths and then proceed to the first release of Realm 4. We don't have an ETA for these releases yet, but most of the legwork is done; we just need to finalise everything.

For Realm 4 while nothing is in its final state, we have completed the scene outlines for the entirety of Realm 4's main story. This involves placing the characters in the environments and posing them to match the dialogue. We still need to pose their facial expressions, add the lighting, fix the camera, and complete other touches before they're finalised, but having all of Realm 4, even in this simplistic state, together is great.

We've reviewed some of the early scenes to add facial expressions, but nothing has been lit yet, as this will be worked on after the side paths.

(WIP image from early Realm 4 below and atop this post)

Separately, for those waiting for our second game, ACTC, we mentioned last month that we will now release it by episode rather than by season. Episode 1 is in a relatively good position, and although much still needs to be sorted out in the code before we can launch it, progress has been moving smoothly. We are almost ready with all the images and animations for ACTC episode 1. This will not be released until after we've launched the Realm 3 side paths and the first chapter of Realm 4.

Overall, things are moving forward. While we intended to release things much more quickly this year, we still feel this is the right call in the long run and will significantly benefit the quality of our games going forward.

Thanks for your continued patience and support. We truly appreciate you all and look forward to sharing more with you soon. Have a great weekend!