Stolen Rose

DevLog 15-Sep-2023

Hello!

Wow, time flies when you have too much work to do. It's time for this week's update:

The story is almost finished(it'll be done tomorrow or the day after) and it's coming together super well. I'm really happy with how everything is going and I can't wait to show you. I'm finally done with all the animations, they're all rendered and implemented into the game, and now I can get back to a normal workflow. Aside from that, I made a few animations out of static images (it's an effect, you'll see--looks pretty cool).

There's maybe a day more of creating renders before I get to the infiltration sequence. I'm not sure how much that'll take to render. There's a few scenes that are quite involved, but most should be around 2-3 renders, so probably less than I would expect for 6k(ish) words. Hopefully, I can get all that done next week, so I can wrap up the finale the week after. I'll also start on some post-production(this time, it shouldn't take too long as I made sure to make way less mistakes when rendering) so I can get ahead. I'll also be handing it over for testing soon to make sure there's no bugs. I'll also be adding stats and affection points next week (hope).

These next few weeks are gonna be crazy. In the chaos of it all, it's barely registering that scenes I had planned since before I started rendering the first image are finally going to see the light of day. It's a nice feeling. One I'm sure I'll keep revisiting as we go forward with the project.

Hope you're having a wonderful day!

--SR

Content preview #36

I normally tend not to share erotic stuff in the previews as I feel they work better in context, but I really liked this shot and I wanted to share it.

DevLog 08-Sep-2023

Hello, everyone!

It's update time and I have a few things to report. Not a lot, to be fair, most of the work is quantitative at this point, but it's still progress. I've been going hard on animations this week and got about 7/10(ish) set up and 6 rendered and implemented. There's not a lot left to do for the last romantic scenes and after that it's onto the finale. The finale, though, is quite long and it will be getting even longer.

Next week, I'll be trying to wrap up everything that's left on the writing front and testing the infiltration sequence, plus fixing any bugs that pop up. There's already been a few that I caught and I'll be fixing all that so the whole experience is smooth. I expect about 4k words more for the climax of the chapter, but we'll have to see. Apart from that, a bunch of work to get as many images as possible rendered and implemented as possible. I'm at around 40 images/day (excluding when I set up animations), but my hardware is lagging behind, so I have something like 50 in the queue. Hopefully, future scenes will render more quickly and it'll catch up. Each one takes 25-30 minutes to render right now.

And that's about it for now. Hope you're having a wonderful week!

--SR

STEAM

Page is up <3 Finally. Seems surreal, after how much of a headache this was to set up.

Please wishlist, it helps a lot: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2573050/Zero_End_Chapter_One/

There's a trailer that has some new stuff to sweeten the deal

Thanks a lot!

Content preview #35

Chloe is just a blast to write <3

Dev Log 01-Sep-2023

Hello!

It's been a chaotic week, but let's get to it.

Almost done writing for the infiltration sequence, will probably wrap it up tomorrow. Had some license and credits related stuff to handle, fixed some bugs, added a "skip concert" feature for the previous release, removed some music and added some, plus created a credits screen. This all isn't all that exciting, but it was work that needed doing and I'm really glad I got the over with. Especially the music license stuff. I also finished the Steam page and it's currently in review. Should be able to share it soon. Apart from that, all the static renders for the first ending are done, 2/4 animations are rendered and the other two are ready to be rendered this weekend.

I started work on the next scenes and will be continuing that next week. I wanna finish writing the last parts for the infiltration and start writing the ending proper. I can't guarantee it'll be done this weekend, but it won't be long now. Also, setting up more animations next week and wanna see how far I can push this outdated PC.

It's the crunchiest time of the year!

Hope you're having a wonderful week.

--SR

Content preview #34

I absolutely love writing their interactions. She really needed a bit more screen time.

Dev Log 25-Aug-2023

Hello!

It's been quite a good week, let's get into the updates.

The writing for the infiltration sequence is about 70% done I think. In total, we're about 1k words short of day 2 and there's still the chapter finale to write, so yeah, we'll be going over the previous release's word count. As for the other stuff, almost everything for the first ending is done. I'm currently setting up the 3rd animation for this scene (one left to go) and after that, there's maybe one more day of work to finish the static images and I can wrap up the ending. Apart from that, the music and sfx are set up to the point where we're currently with the visuals. Also, had a lot of administrative stuff to handle this week, but I'm pleased to say I can finally start editing my Steam store page. It's not ready quite yet, but I'll probably be begging for wishlists soon. Just need to put together a trailer and get the AI art changed so I can showcase the stats screen in the screenshots.

This weekend I'll be leaving the animations to render overnight and during the day I'll finish writing and setting up the infiltration sequence. There's still some scenes that need to be finished, as well as some hazards, deity interventions and fail states. The rest of the week will be dedicated entirely to static renders and animations. As the animations are probably the most time-consuming part of a release, I hope things will pick up once those are done. I'll also add music and sound effects as I go. It's probably too early next week, but I will need to start post-production on images soon.

We're pretty much in the final 20% of the release and I'm really excited to show you what I've been cooking.

Hope you're having an amazing week!

--SR

Content preview #33

Really trying to make this as good as I possibly can. And I really hope you're going to enjoy it. The UI is mostly finalized, though we may do something about the alert indicator.

Dev Log 18-Aug-2023

Hello!

It's been another week and it's been a really fun one, so let's get to the update.

As I intended, I finished writing everything that was left up until the infiltration scene, bringing us somewhere around 20k words for this release and somewhere near 60k overall, meaning there's enough text in to qualify for a novel. After that, I designed the whole infiltration scene with locations, events, checks, characters, and remade most of the UI (massive thanks to a friend--https://www.artstation.com/eiselmusings --for creating the 3D models for the UI elements). Additionally, every location image has been rendered, including the interactable objects, and the interactions have been implemented in. What's left for this segment is writing and images for the events. As of now, it's playable, but nothing really happens. We'll get to that.

There's steady progress with images and we're really close to the first ending. It's pretty long and there's two variations on it, but it was very important for me that every ending feels like an ending, rather than a game over screen with extra words. We might be on it for the entire next week and maybe a bit more.

Next up, I want to write the events for the infiltration segment and (finally) get to some animations. May or may not get to that point, but I'm aiming to.

Hope you're having a wonderful week!

--SR

Content preview #32

By the pricking in my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.

Please don't mind the poke-through. That stuff gets fixed in post.

Dev Log 11-Aug-2023

Hello!

Firstly, I'd like to apologize for missing an update last week. I don't have much of an excuse, I'd just been super excited to play Bladur's Gate 3 and once I started I could not stop until I finished it. I will try my utmost to make sure this doesn't happen again. I know it's not a super big deal, it's just an update, but it's important to me to have good and timely communication with you all. I just wasn't expecting the video game equivalent of heroin.

Anyway. I learned a few things from Baldur's Gate and one of those is very important. Don't rush the ending. I was going to push hard and finish this month, but looking at what I want to get done and how much time it would take, there'd be two options: 1. keep the quality, cut some content 2. keep the content, reduce the quality. I really don't want to do either of those things. Last release I pushed myself into burnout to get the game out as soon as possible and both I and the game suffered for it (don't open the key items menu). I have 3 erotic scenes in mind and all of them are quite special. I want several animations for each, and I want them fluid, emotional, and impactful. I want there to be multiple ways to approach each thing during the infiltration part, multiple outcomes, depending on how well you do, and I want to do some interesting artistic stuff with the climax. What I'm getting at is this--I can't get it out near the end of the month as I'd hoped, so I'm going to move the release(I know I hadn't announced it yet, it was set in my head) to sometime in September. As a result, you'll have to wait a bit more for this release than I would have wished, but I'll be able to deliver a product I'm proud of. I hope you can understand.

Now that we got that out of the way, let's move on to a status update.

Writing-wise, we're currently at the same(ish) word count as the first release(~17500 words) and the image count is over the first release(nearly 800). The writing is very close to reaching the infiltration part, which is the chapter finale. I think there's still about 6k words left to write, but we'll have to see.

Now, I want to get the writing from "very close" to "at" the infiltration part and power through a lot of images so I can hopefully get to animations next week.

Sorry for the longer than usual dev log, just wanted to be transparent with what's been going on.

Hope you're having a wonderful day!

--SR

Content preview #31

"Who are you?"

"I am the one who paints the midnight red"

Dev Log 28-Jul-2023

Hello!

I'll be a bit brief this time as I'm feeling sick and I've got a bunch more work to do today. Writing went quite well this week. The first ending is completed and I started writing the first of two romance "lock in" scenes. After that, it's just one or two more scenes before we get to the infiltration sequence. That one will have to be designed and written at the same time. After that, it's just the climax of the story and we're done for this release. I estimate around 6-8k more words to go, but I might be wrong. The infiltration sequence necessary word count is still hard to estimate. Apart from that, Selena's hangout scene is about halfway done, I think.

Next week, I'll try to finish up the two "lock in" scenes and maybe, if I'm on fire, finish up the scenes leading up to the infiltration sequence.

Hope you're having a great day!

--SR

Content preview #30

It's pretty rare to catch her being cute

Dev Log 21-Jul-2023

Hello!

This has been a... strange week. Handled some admin stuff on the business side, created about half as many images as I should have, but I wrote a lot. I really got into a flow and figured I should let it happen instead of forcing myself to stick to what I'd scheduled. As a result, I finished about two more scenes and I'm halfway through the first ending. I'll have more details about that one and its requirements as we go forward. It's gonna have 2 variations; one of them will have no requirements, the other will have just one thing(first one will be the easiest to get).

Figured I should give you a general progress update as well since I haven't done that in a while. We're around 14k words in, 650 static renders are done, and the code for the infiltration part is finished, as well as the design document for the gameplay of it. Oh, I also replaced the songs I wasn't supposed to use. The new songs aren't... as good, in my opinion, but they're similar in mood.

Next, I wanna finish the ending and maybe start on a sex scene. Render-wise, I'm going to finish Selena's date scene and possibly move into the mystery part with the images as well.

Hope everything's going lovely!

--SR

Content preview #29

I've been working on Selena's scene this week and made some small, but good changes to her (a bit on the shape of her face and lessened the skin shine). I wanted to get a before and after to compare and figured it might be interesting to show you a comparison as well. Part of the difference is also me getting better at this.

Dev Log 14-Jul-2023

Hello!

It's been a pretty good week for content, though some issues have arisen. 

Bad stuff: some of the tracks I've used in the game, the previous release included, will have to be changed as I looked closer at the license agreement and they cannot be used in anything that is even adjacent to pornography. Additionally, Steam has been purging games that include AI art, so the deity images will need to be changed. As I don't have the capability to draw any myself, I'll probably end up using their planetary symbols instead.

Good stuff: I'm done writing all of the hangouts and 2 of them have all the images done, while Selena's is around 33% done.

Next week I'll start writing the mystery part of the release and finish up Selena's hangout scene. Things have been very smooth the last week so I'm hoping it'll keep going and I'll finish writing another scene (maybe two, but I don't want to be too hopeful).

Hope you're having a wonderful day!

--SR

Content preview #28

There's something ethereal about this shot. Maybe the lights in the background?

Dev Log 06-Jul-2023

Hello!

I'm posting a day early as I need to fly out for a team building thing later today and I'll only be back on Sunday. This week, I finished up some stuff with the code, finished writing Selena's hangout scene, and got fairly close to finishing the images for Rayne's. I estimate I would have finished if I didn't have to leave, but I'll finish early next week.

As I'll be away, I won't be able to work on images and such during the weekend, but I'll be writing while I'm away. I still have one more hangout to write, and after that it'll be a little more streamlined. After I get back, I'll continue with the images.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

--SR

Content preview #27

This is a preview of the infiltration system UI. It's meant to be a combination between a point-and-click style game and a dungeon-crawler style navigation. Btw, don't mind the "decrease" buttons, they're only for testing purposes.

Dev Log 30-Jun-2023

Hello!

I intended to keep going with writing and images this week, but I realized it would probably be best to work on coding the gameplay section as it would give me more time to test. Usually, the last month before a release gets extremely hectic, so having more time to test the gameplay before that is great. 

I've created a design document that contains every element that will go into the infiltration section and coded the navigation system, as well as the functionality for the health, mana, and objectives. 

Apart from that, I got about halfway through Selena's date scene(writing) and made some inital renders for the infiltration sequence (to have a backdrop and see how the UI looks). 

Speaking of, I also made the UI. It's not final, but might end up staying as it is if I can't make anything more competent. Oh, yeah, nearly forgot: did some admin stuff and the company officially exists now. I expect the fuckery isn't over yet though.

Next week, I'll continue with writing and image renders, as well as add some stuff to the infiltration sequence and see if it breaks anything.

Hope you're having a wonderful day!

--SR

Legacy of the Moon

Was testing out some outfits for her upcoming scene and thought I'd share. I thought this one suited her well

Special Render: Swansong

I was messing around, trying out some lighting stuff and thought I'd share this shot of everyone's favorite psychopath

Content preview #26

Her adorableness, Rayne. Ready for a date.

Dev Log 23-Jun-2023

Hello!

This week I've been busy dealing with establishing a company, which is progressing. Not as fast as I'd like, but it's going. Apart from that, I've finished writing the first hangout scene and started on the second one. I felt like the relationship aspect of the game was ready to get more screen time, so I'll be working hard on making these scenes engaging. The static images were a lot of work as the hangout scene has about five different settings, which take some time to set up. Spent quite some time(and had to bring some backup from a woman-friend) on getting Rayne ready for her date. I really hope you like her new(temporary) look.

Next week, I'll be finishing the images for Rayne's date scene and will write Selena's. Also more company bullshit. Hopefully, it'll be done next week and I can start making the Steam page(needs to be done way ahead of time, I hear).

Also, my abstinence(from alcohol) is going great, to give an update on that as well. I'm feeling so much better now.

Hope you're having an amazing week!

--SR

Content preview #25

There's a certain tragic feeling to every happy moment, to treasuring every second, knowing it'll pass.

DevLog 16-Jun-2023

Hello!

I'll try to be brief today, I'm not feeling great. This week has been... something else. I've decided to kick my alcohol addiction as it's been having quite the detrimental effect on my life. The withdrawal is unpleasant, but I've been going strong for nearly a week and I estimate my general well-being is going to have improved significantly in a few more days. Apart from that, I had to run around gathering stuff to establish a company so I can publish the game on Steam, eventually.

That being said, it's been slower than usual, but I've managed to finish Alice's scene and started making the images for the first hangout scene. Scene that is appropriately punchy for the end of the character's arc this chapter and nearly completed. I'm going to be pushing harder to catch up with the newly found vigor from not being hung over every day and finish tomorrow. After that, I'll start on the other hangout scene, which will mark the end of the "chill" phase of this release and we'll be getting into the mystery part.

All in all, I got slapped around by life for a bit, but I'm back up and better.

Hope you have a wonderful week!

--SR

Content preview #24

Didn't have anything to show that would be interesting this week, so how about more memories

Dev Log 09-Jun-2023

Hello, Hello!

It's been an interesting week. I got that feature to not give me brain damage in QA, so that's quite the success. Apart from that, I used this week and the few days off to focus on writing and we're nearly done with the first (and likely the longest, as it's a pivotal point for the character) hangout scene. All in all, I think we're around 33% done with the writing. Maybe more. It's hard to tell for now.

Next week, I'll get a lot more static renders in as now I'm far enough ahead with the writing that it doesn't worry me. Apart from that, I will try to finish the hangout and first sex scene of the release, if it makes sense (I haven't yet decided if the NSFW will be immediately after the hangout or later). I'll probably start creating the images for the hangout scene next week as well. The last scene only has 20ish more left to do.

Busy, but fun! Hope you have a great weekend!

--SR