I don't often get the opportunity to do these kinds of posts, but this one is filled with nothing but GOOD news all the way! I'm grinning like an idiot while writing this.
First things first -- to everyone who doesn't check Discord: I've found a new place. To everyone in general: I've finished moving, cleaning, unpacking, and settling into the new place.
It's amazing how quickly somewhere becomes home once you cook yourself a nice hot meal in it. It already feels like I've been here my entire life.
So, let's start this off with the best news, and then move on to the good news.
This new place will only cost me around 45% of the money I've been paying in rent for the past three years, which not only feels like a long-needed deep breath, but also enables me to put 100% of my time into creative work. That means I'm free to do nothing but work on my game all the way to the Steam release, and explore Blender on the weekends as a side hustle for as long as my contract holds. It's a six-month "trial" contract, since the landlady is cagey renting to me, and I don't blame her. People have been scamming her outta rent money lately, and also, I'm too young. It's a miracle I'm here at all, so hopefully, I'll make an impression. I really want this to be the place where I finish Chapter 5.
So far, I feel ethereal, untethered, and unburdened -- like I've let go of a weight I didn't even know I was carrying. There's so much opportunity, and ROOM to grow! Like, literally! The new place has SO much room! I don't know if that's because there are fewer walls around me at any given time or if the new place actually has more square feet, but it's so open. I'm definitely enjoying the added space. I can now fit all my stuff in the kitchen without awkward angles. The ceiling? You could stack two of me and not reach it.
New place is not perfect, of course. I sure had some initial concerns moving here. There are not enough outlets around, the neighborhood is riddled with barricaded checkpoints, and the added space comes at the cost of the bathroom being a hole in the wall. But guess what? I can add more outlets myself, the controlled traffic makes the neighborhood ridiculously quiet (never slept better), and the bathroom is getting ritzier every second (especially after I installed the new shower head). A bathroom that cleans itself up every time I do? Hell yeah, sign me up!
(this a joke, I'm not actually gonna leave the bathroom to clean itself)
Next month's rent is all squared up, so I have just enough in the bank for my last appointment with my psychiatrist. I also went out with one of my brothers earlier this week to check out a new boxing gym. I've been wanting to take boxing lessons for years, but never had the time or money. Now, two new boxing gyms have JUST opened near my city, and the lessons are free! Talk about perfect timing.
So yeah, I'm just making this post to let you guys know stuff is going well for a change, and it seems there are good things ahead. My last appointment with the shrink will be coming soon. Monday, to be precise.
My buddy lives downstairs and I've been thieving his wifi for the past week or so while my overpriced ThugNet™ fiber ain't here. It'll do for now. Work flows smoothly again from here on, with the added benefit of having money, time, and a full fridge and cabinets.
I know, right? I can barely believe it myself. Hopefully, this will last for a little while, and I'll know how to make the most of this opportunity.
As you all know, there were supposed to be two releases in 2024. It's May 2025, and there's still no release in sight. I was also in a cave for four months. This is officially the longest I've ever been silent online. What happened?
Simply put, I challenged myself; I was weak and I lost. No fancy way to frame it, so let's get that out of the way first. Took me a while to find the guts to show my face around here again amidst everything that's been going on. It's been two full years since the last update to the main storyline.
So, in the spirit of being objective, let's start with the basics and then expand upon that. We've got some catching up to do. I've acquired new tools, new responsibilities, and dropped a couple of deadweights along the way. Hopefully, by the end of this post, I'll have done a good job explaining what was, what is, and what will be.
In this post, I'll talk about:
Alpha: Small development update and next steps.
Omega: Back end of the "back end" of development; introduction to the aftermath of December 31st.
Everything in between: Personal circumstances; reasons for the delay; more on the aftermath of December 31st.
There's a lot to unpack here. Let's begin.
The Alpha.
I haven't had the opportunity to work on the game the way it deserves since December 31st. I was more invested in making sure I could before I did.
Since I'm just now resuming work on the major -- more essential parts of the project, there's a limited amount of info I can share. I'm still getting the entire pipeline set up for the upcoming weeks.
It helps me to keep a list: See Pastebin for a more readable version (most of it is in English): https://pastebin.com/PGejE9NV
As you can see here, I use syntax highlighting to mark stuff as green or red depending on if it's done or not. There's a lot of red here, but really, most of the high-priority stuff is already "green" and out of mind. I've got things like "show the 'hide interface' hotkey in the starting tutorial", which is quick and simple, or stuff like "create a demo for the game" which I'm not even sure I'll ever do, and both of those are red. Then we have stuff like "redo fight sequence in Chapter 0" which is RIDICULOUSLY time-consuming, but already done. Basically, all of the red stuff needs to get done preferably before, or during 4.1 final.
I also realize I made the gag video, but never showed you guys what the gallery will actually look like. Let me fix that. Took me forever, but... I landed on this. It's a basic design, but it's still designed, as opposed to just putting clickable letters/images on top of a blank background with no second thought. The best part? It works. No overcomplicated Python scripting/coding, no funky strings displaying stuff that hasn't been unlocked yet -- just a simple, nice-looking gallery. Still, there's room to improve, and improve on it I will. The logic is fully functional and ready to be used for the "Gallery" section and "Bonus Chapters" section, but there's still a minor amount of front-end work left; minor, but not unimportant. Quite the opposite, actually. Those final adjustments will really make my UI stand out.
Also, going into the topic of my failure to deliver the game on the date I said I would not once, but twice, I will be offering a key for the Steam build of my game as a way to compensate everyone who's closely supported my work. Handing out red carpet passes to the amazing people who've been making sure this project gets to keep going was already on the to-do list, and I've wanted to expand that list since the first time I missed the date in November, but I wasn't sure Steam would have it. I've cleared it with them since then.
Don't know if this is relevant, but I despise emotional bribery to the fullest extent. I despise the way people do it to justify a mistake or to get away with it, like "Oh, I did this good thing, so you can't be mad that I did bad thing earlier". I detest the lack of accountability and respect for other's feelings. I'm not a fan of justifying and accepting my own weaknesses and compensating for them. I'm a fan of learning, and if I was half the person I aspire to be, I would've learned the first time. It would've saved me and a lot of people the frustration.
I wish to reassure everyone I'm not trying to pull that shit, but something has to be done, and this is all I can do right now while everything else is being worked on. I deeply value all of you, and I refuse to let "that game in development hell" be the last impression people have of my project, and "irresponsible" be the last impression people have of me. That said, I'm aware that my performance has been embarrassing, but I've dedicated years of my life to get here, and I want you all to be there to see this going in a good direction. If I'm lucky, I haven't yet dug myself too deep into a hole that I can't make that happen.
The Omega.
I think I remember telling you guys I went back to doing bike deliveries to pad my income before, right? Well, that's not looking very hot right now, at least not with the increase in my rent this year. My phone doesn't ring often enough with new deliveries, and I live in a very dangerous area. Can't really be biking around whenever and wherever I please delivering cupcakes through armed checkpoints. I might not be the smartest, but I'm smart enough not to risk my entire future for an average of $6 an hour, seeing as I could be doing better if I pulled my head out of my ass.
Which I did.
I needed something else to do (both for money, and to clear my head), so I did what I've wanted to do for years and started learning Blender to get myself out there in the 3d world. Like, actually learning -- not just messing around with it. I've managed to learn more in four months than I have in two years, which calls for celebration in better times, maybe. It's not much, but I even published my first model:
https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/plain-white-armchair-2349295 So far, I've made 40 cents off it... which is not nothing. It's literally the first model I've ever made, and at least I know there's potential there. The lack of details on the mesh could be excused if I knew how to set up/bake materials properly, which I don't. It's a matter of time, though. I'll learn and publish more stuff. I'm still pleased that after two and a half years of actively trying to learn Blender (and a decade of wanting to do it), I've finally done it.
And off my bucket list it goes.
This though, begs the question: Aside from the (currently nonexistent) cash inflow, how is this relevant to the project?
Income aside, I need 3d modeling skills. The assets I use to make the images for the game are premade, which means that when I have an idea about a scene or character design, I have to find the closest match to it in a 3d prop catalog, or be forever satisfied with the next best thing, as I couldn't bring those ideas to life with my own two hands. Most of the time, my story and I are hostages to the available 3d catalog.
Sometimes, an asset I need doesn't exist, or maybe it's exactly what I need, but I can't afford it. There were lots of times when I had to change how the story was told because I didn't have the necessary assets to bring my vision to life, or I didn't have the know-how to edit the assets I already had to fit my needs. 90% of my asset-related problems boil down to me not knowing how to make/edit them myself. That's not the case anymore. I can get basic stuff done now, but I still have a little more to go before I can commit to integrating "custom 3d modeling" into my process. However, once I feel like I understand the intricacies of architecture, I will start going down that path by making custom clothing.
My current basic knowledge removes many issues I previously had with editing inside Daz Studio. I've become proficient enough to repurpose existing props, clothing, and characters, as I now understand how to edit a 3d mesh and edit UVs. Here's my second attempt at doing an armchair:
Going further into 3d has also expanded my horizons in the sense that I am no longer limited to Daz3D's catalog and its adjacent platforms, like Renderosity or Renderotica. Sketchfab, Blendswap, CGTrader, and TurboSquid have a pretty good selection of free assets that I can adapt to my needs, which affords me the luxury of doing some scenes in ways I otherwise couldn't. See this: This is from one of my reworked scenes. I almost had to go with an entirely different scene idea (as I have many times before) because of something as trivial as not having a police badge prop. Even without modeling the police badge myself (which I can now do), the knowledge I gained from using Blender has broadened my horizons, indirectly leading me to one of the 3d stores, where I was able to find a badge prop and adapt it to my needs, making sure I got to do the scene exactly how I wanted.
And hey, I don't know how excited people will be for this, but by combining all of my tools, I can now make geo-grafts. It's basically makeup for the mesh of 3d characters, which for one, means I can now make realistic avulsions, punctures, and lacerations, and generally just... put bloody holes through character models. I'm eager to prove myself in that department. One of the first scenes in Chapter 5 is heavily reliant on this kind of VFX.
Everything in between.
My mother was helping me with my bills, and since I'm no freeloader, I went to help her with her business, which evolved into a partnership. In the last four months, I've gone from assembling meal sets, to co-owning an online restaurant, to absolutely nothing. We made a little bit of money, but it didn't take. We couldn't see eye-to-eye on a lot of stuff, and so even though our product was great, everybody involved got burned out fast. On a side note, within all that chaos, I did find it amusing how close to being an off-brand version of "The Bear" we were. It was 1:1 to the show: the yelling, the messing up of orders, the pressure, the rush -- all of it was there. Check out one of our meal sets: Our clients absolutely loved our food... when we managed to get it to them on time.
Even though it's probably for the best, it's still a shame I was forced to let it go. I was really committed to it, and failing some of our customers with no opportunity to make it right left a bad taste in my mouth. I also desperately needed the restaurant to work so I could build a foundation for myself to work on the game uninterrupted, and put down the fires that followed December 31st.
I wasn't planning on spending a lot of time in the kitchen, so I splurged on food during the last weeks of 2024 and racked up quite some credit card debt on top of what I already owed (I had spent a lot of money on Vietnamese remote-rendering services). Fortunately, I was able to pay off all of that with the income from the game and the restaurant. There's at least one win in the middle of this if you dig deep enough.
Everything this month has already been paid off, so I don't have to worry about food and bills, and I can just work on the game and plan out my next steps. I'm currently looking to downsize and move into a more affordable place, as I can no longer afford the one I currently live in (and I don't want to, anyway). My father's been helping me for the past couple of months, but I've relied on him far more than I'm comfortable with.
I gotta find a new place to live, and I've gotta do it fast, seeing as my contract has already expired. That means I'll be dividing my attention between house-hunting and game development for the next few weeks, and then, full Steam ahead.
There are still a couple of things to go over though before I can comfortably slip back into the state of mind necessary to see this through.
I don't know how deep into this I got with you guys (if I ever did at all) but things have been declining for me after I got finished with the content update for Chapter 4.1 back in 2023. Chapter 4 was the turning point for the project in many ways. More noticeably, the fact that it took me one year and four months of continuous labor as opposed to the usual 3-4 months. After its release in 2022, I made some extra money that disappeared fast, as I had lots of overdue bills that I had neglected and QoL improvements to make in my work environment. It wasn't long before I was back to rationing food and doing odd jobs here and there to support myself. It was rough, but... after one year of work, I took that release as a win. I was just happy I got to finish it.
I announced it pretty early on that the update that followed 4.0 was going to be an unlockable bonus chapter, instead of a full one. Of course, I was expecting some people to be annoyed it wasn't a full chapter update, as everyone has characters they like more, and characters they like less. I expected one out of two reactions: "Holy shit, an entire separate chapter dedicated to just this one tiny piece of the story? Cool! So, surely the other characters that I like more will get the same treatment, right?" Or maybe, just indifference, because again, everyone won't like every character.
What I wasn't ready for, was for people to either not show up at all for that release, or be vocally upset that the main story wasn't being continued. Which is 100% fair, by the way, I just wasn't ready and got blindsided by it. Just like 4.0.0, I put everything I had into it, but this time, not only did I have zero return, but after putting in eight months of work, I felt like the entire project had taken ten steps back. Development has never been the same after that. I was never the same after that. Discipline is important, but motivation is kind of important too, and even though nothing has the power to change how I feel about my project, my motivation died out completely with the initial release of 4.1.
The only three things keeping me going are the weight of knowing the rest of my life and career rely upon me making sure this game is successful; not failing the people who've enabled me to begin on this path in the first place, and also the fact that I'm just as passionate about writing the game today as I was back when I started, if not more. This material HAS to go somewhere.
Game development is my highest calling, so make no mistake, I haven't questioned myself on my purpose on this Earth for five years and I'm not about to start now. Lately, though, I feel like I've been subconsciously settling into not being successful, if that makes sense. I know I'll see true growth once I release my game on Steam -- and that's a fact, but that thought isn't driving me at all. I've used up all the carrots and sticks I had to keep myself invested in the nitty-gritty part of making the game. I feel myself getting comfortable with failure because I haven't really seen... not failure yet, and that's harming literally every single aspect of my life, seeing as I spend almost every waking moment thinking about my game.
It's easy to blame the delays on lack of funding, lack of time, lack of development cohesion, but this has been brewing for a long time. The blame isn't anywhere else but here, because I haven't been dealing with this. Making a game is a slow, and challenging endeavor, but it's not this hard. Most of the issues behind development are more psychological than practical. I've mastered all of my essential tools, and I've learned how to make the most out of my hardware. Release times should be getting quicker, not slower.
There's a good reason I'm sharing this, and it's not to be whiny about it. I just feel like I need to address this in order to move on from it. It's been over a year, and I can't keep letting it weigh me down.
And when we talk about why I disappeared these last few months, anyone close to me could've predicted this. I dedicated my entire 2024 to finishing those releases and putting my game on Steam, and my every move was entirely, and exclusively to further that purpose. I monitored my sleeping schedule. I tried to sleep more, or sleep less to see what worked best. I still monitor what I eat, and how much, to make sure I have a healthy body, therefore a healthy mind, therefore a fruitful work routine. I started out on psychotherapy to further that purpose, and for 365 days, I thought about nothing else. And now, I've nothing to show for it. I didn't take that well. It's why I jumped on the opportunity to co-run a business and rebuild myself.
A lot of the reworked scenes are already done, but a lot of the old stuff was removed in favor of the new stuff, so even if I wanted to release the game half-baked, a lot of it wasn't even baked yet. Let's not even get into how I spent days looking for inspiration and pushing myself to physical sickness while working on scenes that I didn't even need that much to make the release. So much for tight planning, huh?
Once I realized I was fumbling the entire process, I was merely hours away from release. And even then, I promised you guys a release date; partly because I was high as shit from being "in the zone", partly because I'm an asshole, but mostly, I did it because I didn't want to "try" to make two releases in a year; I've done that before. This time, I wanted to do it. I promised it because I believed in it myself with zero room for doubt. I was more trying to sell that to myself than anyone else, really. Of course, I can't really be psyching myself up using your trust as collateral.
So for that, and for all else above, I deeply apologize.
It's impossible to know the kind of mistakes you'll make tomorrow, so I can't promise with an honest heart that something like this won't ever happen again, but I canpromise that this mistake has hurt me, and it has shamed me as both man and artist. You all deserved better; you are owed better -- and it is my single highest priority in life to reach a standard that honors not only you, but myself. I never want to go through this again, so I'll do the only thing anyone can really do, and I'll learn from it.
There have been other circumstances, more personal ones that I don't find appropriate to share here in great detail, but to summarize, as it is also relevant to development, my entire family has been split in half, and it's the main reason I'll have to move from where I currently live. Despite that, I can say that things have been going well with development, and I'll rejoin the fray with a clear head.
I just needed a little push to remind me of what's important, and I needed to stop brute-forcing my way back into work the way I've been doing in the past four months, without first making some changes and getting rid of everything that's been dragging me down, seeing as "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting your results to be different".
A little update on my medical stuff, by the way. I finished with the initial examination, but I still have to take the results back to my psychiatrist to find out if I really have some deep bullshit going on with my brain, or if I'm just a huge pussy. Right now, I don't think I'll be satisfied with either answer. On one hand, I have to accept that I have a medical condition and some stuff is outside of my control, which is a mentality that I absolutely do not want to settle in. So then, nothing is my fault? It's okay to be bitch-made for the rest of my life? That's a dangerous place to be in, psychologically. On the other hand, there's a chance I've been messing up my entire life for no reason at all, which is just as scary as the first option. Exam results show symptoms of ADHD and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, but I'll only know for sure after I go back to my doctor. I'll keep you guys posted.
As for the release, it is impossible for me to shadow-drop this thing, as I only get the benefit of a Steam release once, but I'll be sure to ONLY set a release date once the game is 100% ready to go. I'll get as much as possible done before I have to go look at houses, and I'll see you all soon.
I don't know how it was for you guys, but for me? It was tough; no tougher than last year, sure... but still, between me almost dying, family drama, and dealing with my constant failure, this year was a different kind of beast.
Don't mean to, like... depress any of you, though. It wasn't all bad!
I got to experience carnival for the first time! Smoke LOTS of weed, too. Figured I woulda liked it more than I actually did considering I'm a disgusting hippie, but the experience was still cool. Can't say I never tried it! I also saw the sunrise at a rock concert (first ever concert -- I had no idea my boring city had concerts). I got to see more of the world as a bike delivery guy, which, for better or for worse, was something I had to do more of this year. I also discovered I'm pretty suave with the ladies, too! Amazing what you can accomplish when you pair up a shameless motherfucker and a cold one. Magic.
And last but not least, 2024 was the year my mother beat cancer! I feel a little more comfortable sharing this now that we're out of the woods. She finished chemo a few months ago and is healthy as a horse. A very, very mean horse. I'm always saying the old lady is immortal and you couldn't get rid of her with a missile, and I've been proven right yet again. Still... she had us all going for a minute there, not gonna lie.
I owe around 15 days of artwork here, give or take.
I didn't forget, I just had to make an OG call and reallocate that energy into finishing up some other stuff. As you can see in the video, I tried to record my progress for you guys but was met with this error message. Rest assured, the video above is comedic in nature, and the gallery logic and UI are very much done and functional. Same deal as always, though, I did lose a lot of time on this as there are many moving parts. A single typo in the script can set me back hours, or in this case, days. I was chasing my own tail a lot as my priority was to make the system as adaptable as possible for any future additions to the gallery. I always like to say that if you do your best to get it perfectly the first time, you won't have to do it twice.
My work was fruitless in that regard, unfortunately. I had to settle for a dirty fix for now, but I'll revisit it in the future.
I was also out of power for a couple days because of the huge storm that hit São Gonçalo last week. That sucked. I did manage to pick up the pace and finish it, though. Makes me happy to think about how I've been promising this, doing and redoing the whole thing for two years, and now... it's finally done. Feels good to make good on a promise for once.
As for the bigger promise...
There are roughly 130 hours left this year for me to accomplish two updates. I don't wish for the only update I put out this year to be a rework of older chapters and new functionality. This year, though... it was tough. With the trailer, getting myself published on Steam, and other personal matters, it's a wonder I was able to accomplish this much, and yet... it's kinda hard not to resent the fact I couldn't even get started working on Chapter 5. Too many things threw me off balance these past couple months, so I'll pick a battle I can hope to win in 130 hours, which is getting two bonus chapters done. I can't promise anything I put out will be worth waiting for two years, but it's a start. It's a completely different battle now that I'm releasing on Steam. Gotta take a step back and bend the knee before I start racing forward.
Here hoping that sweet, sweet Steam money will not only help me out but also enable me to hire some extra pair of hands. Doing posing, animation, rendering, editing, compositing, soundtracking, scripting, researching, writing, proofreading, and... all the other fifty things that sneak up on me during development are only getting harder. Well, it is what I signed up for, but still, one can dream, right? It wouldn't hurt. It would be pretty sweet if I could dish out regular updates, too. Imagine that? I miss the thrill of updating every three-ish months. Those were the days. I was happy and I didn't know it.
About the new Steam release date, I won't give a specific date, but it will drop anytime between now and December 31st.
Right now, I'm mostly trying to tell my head and my ass apart. Had to stop working for a sec so I could attend Christmas dinner, so there was a little loss of momentum there. As soon as I finish writing this I'll check emails, sleep, then go straight to battle.
As for you guys, put your feet up and get some rest, you've earned it. I know I'll be sleeping through the entirety of January the SECOND God drops the 2025 patch. 🤣
Wanted to post this one before midnight but got bushwacked by my own thoughts (as usual) telling me to go read about fothermucking Taoism mid-work for no reason. It's actually kinda tight, not gonna lie. I'm glad I read about it.
Anyway, here's an idea I got today through blind luck. I'm turning characters into poker cards, now. I'll do more of that in the next days. I really liked the concept. Hard as hell to pull off, though. Lots of elements going into the composition.
By the way, I've finished the design for the gallery system, which is something I've been struggling with for months. Now it's just a matter of putting it all together.
Never in my life have I ever hated writing; until now.
No good way for me to say this, but in my arrogance, I've underestimated the workload. Hate to sour people's nights with this post, but some of you will notice I missed my release yesterday. The game wasn't ready, so I've decided to push the release date back until it is. I wish I'd told you guys about the delay sooner but I only realized I wasn't gonna make it two hours before release.
You guys got the beta excuse from me yesterday when I could barely even read what I was typing out. Today I'm here to give you the uncut release full HD 4k excuse, also available on mobile devices.
There has been a huge lack of oversight on my part. First of all, I didn't anticipate not having my two computers to render together overnight since I still need one of them to work, which I've been doing around the clock, no-sleep, raw sex to make the release date. I've tried working while rendering but aside from not having enough RAM, my CPU has started to overheat a lot lately, reaching 212 Fahrenheit. After rebooting I even got a BIOS message before entering Windows telling me I had to cool this shit down or start shopping for a new CPU. First time I ever got that message. Don't know how much mileage I still got on this computer and I don't wanna test it.
I fought so hard to make yesterday go exactly how I dreamed it would be. I had never been awake for that many consecutive days. I thought I was starting to hallucinate, but I'm not sure. I don't think I'd know if I was. At that point, I was spending more time drooling over my keyboard than actually working, and two hours away from release, I threw the towel and went straight to bed.
The last thing I wanted to do was go back on my word, but there was no way I would've won that fight yesterday with the game I have now. I have to go back, lick my wounds, and live to fight another day. There's no putting into words how deeply ashamed I am for this. I feel corporate and fucking dirty for pushing this back and pulling the apology letter move right after I gave a specific date and everything. Though this decision made me want to throw up, unfortunately, I was physically incapable of going any further. Both because I can't make my laptop and my overheating desktop render any faster, and also because I'm beat. I had thoroughly replaced my sleep for power-napping this entire week and I don't want to think about what was going to happen to me had I stayed awake for another day. I've never gone this long without proper sleep.
I've reached the limit of my design.
Still, I think it's pretty cute how my brain suddenly rewired itself back to peak condition the second I needed an excuse for my incompetence.
On the bright side, I did get more done this week than I have done for the past six months thanks to that deadline. There's a silver lining to this clusterfuck, I guess.
In the end, I do this more for myself than for anyone else, so I'm not sharing this with you guys because I want it to become your problem, it's not. No one's putting a gun to my head and forcing me to work on this day in and day out. This is entirely on me. I just want to explain why I failed to make good on my word as it's the only thing I can do right now. I don't know what the full consequences of this fiasco will be for my release, but I know I lost a lot of respect for myself yesterday. Probably a lot of yours, too. At the very least, I can give you guys a status update on what I've got so far, and what I don't.
New script reworks for 4.1 are done. Script polish pending.
With the new renders, Chapter 0 has now been completely reworked compared to the first version of the game, with new animations and gallery unlockables.
Animations for Chapter 1 are done.
One of the animations for Elena's library scene has been completed and rendered. Another one is still pending.
At least five animations still pending. I can now animate and render one animation sequence in under 48 hours if I set the render time limit to 20 minutes for each frame. They get the job done but it doesn't beat letting them cook all the way, though.
Render count is around 500 and still going. Post production pending. I haven't checked which renders came out undercooked yet.
Sound pending. Sound levels seem good so far.
Gallery system pending. I know how I want it to work on the backend, but I've been struggling with the user interface for months and can't decide on how it's supposed to look. I do have an idea I liked but haven't tested yet.
Achievements pending.
UI polish pending.
New changelog menu pending.
Chapter 5 script mostly done. Screenplay pending.
I've been overfeeding myself for the past week or so (lots of protein) so the brain should be working fine. I have plenty of fish, chicken, beets, and kale to eat this week so things are good on that front.
I still have sleep debt to pay, another night should suffice.
Most importantly, I've built momentum and work cohesion is good. I'm not distracted.
Anyway, not a lot of promises I can make right now except that I'll be getting my strength back up, and going back to fighting for my life and future as soon as I finish writing this. I have nothing else happening until January 1st and all of my mind, body, and soul is going into this until it's done. Night through day; week after week; whatever it takes. I'll be uploading a render from the upcoming version every single day until the game's released. If I could do anything more without breaking some rules, I would. I hope this won't make you guys think I don't take this as seriously as a heart attack. I'm sorry for letting you down.
Day #1. (Chapter 0) The Protagonist is trying not to have a bad day, but a bad day is trying to have him. I can relate.
Short version is: I'm pushing back the release date. It's still releasing in 2024 if it's the last thing I do, but there is no way I'm making this release today. I'm so, so sorry for deceiving everybody like this.
I'm entirely beaten and I can't stay awake any longer. Will still be finishing 4.1, but won't make release tonight. Need more time. Will give long version and status update when I wake up. I'm sorry.
Hello! I hope you've all been well. I wish to welcome you into a part of my method that I've learned much about this year. I'm talking about the visual aspects of my studies as a game designer, and understanding what distinguishes passable visuals from great visuals. While I'm at it, I might as well give everyone a preview of my animations for the Steam build.
Walk with me, will ya?
About: new techniques.
Spending 8 months putting together the trailer for Unsevered in DaVinci Resolve felt like my personal mid-story combat training arc, and I have come back with a sage mode of my own.
While working on the new animations and renders that will supersede the old ones, I had a chance to look at some of the first iterations of my work. It allowed me to reflect on how far I've come artistically and so, I got the idea to write this post. I've amassed a lot of knowledge over the years. I say this a lot because I'm proud of it, and yet... when it came to my renders, I felt like something was missing. A final piece of the puzzle that is digital art. A final skill to unveil and add to the list of things I've yet to learn and practice. I was happy with the last few artworks I made for Patreon a while back, but that feeling lingered, still.
Now, I know what that missing piece is.
This year I have been schooled through all manners of VFX techniques, and having now learned video editing, I have the skills and tools to create tons of cool visual effects, which for a game centered around magic, is a must. This newfound knowledge is not applicable only to video editing, though. Messing around with the software also inspired me to apply the same techniques to my Photoshop workflow.
Search for any game over two generations old, and take notice of how some of them have graphics that not only aged well but still far exceed what many other games show us in 2024. Need for Speed 2015, Alien Isolation, Mad Max... what do all these games have in common? They excel in post-processing effects. They provide a stylized element that adds substance to form, creating something timeless regardless of texture compression, or poly count. Let me show you a personal example of post-processing.
Chapter 2, strip club render number #70. No amount of post-process is applied.
Same render, with edits. I didn't just crank up the brightness, I swear!
Though I refrained from changing the original colors, I used a subtle amount of color correction on the shadows and created a new layer from the highlight areas of the render. I applied some Gaussian blur on the new layer, bleeding the colors into each other, creating this cool "foggy" effect I'm kind of obsessed with right now. After that, I put a faint gradient overlay of purple and green on top which reinforces the original colors, and followed it up with the blur brush to apply this faux depth of field, compensating for the lack of it in the original render. Lastly, I added some film grain (or noise) to the final result. This is roughly the same process I used for the new cover art for the game.
Some of the best graphics I've ever seen in games use these very same techniques that now, I have begun to understand and find practical applications for. There's this NSFW artist I've been closely following for the past couple of years, HydraFXX. They're by far my biggest inspiration in 3d, and personally, I think their skill in adult VFX is absolute, unrivaled masterwork. Their dominion over color and motion is second to none. This "fog" is an effect they use a lot in their works (usually with fair amounts of green tint), so deciding whether these techniques are part of my signature as a visual artist or not is kind of a no-brainer. I'll definitely be employing these in some of my future works. Whether these improve the original render or not, is up for you guys to decide, but one thing is for sure; the changes make the renders anything but bland.
These techniques don't showcase my skill as much as they showcase the power of Photoshop, but still... I'm a monkey with a big fat machine gun, and I intend to use it.
About: Steam version.
I don't remember how thorough I was when I covered what was to come with 4.1, but still... I'll accept the risk of repeating myself and I'll say it again if I haven't before.
Aside from script revisions and gallery system, I'm revising most of my 'dated' scenes. I started writing and conceptualizing this game almost six years ago, and released it in 2020 after 9 months of development, without a shred of the knowledge I possess now. Hell, pretty early in development, I was hit with the realization that I didn't even know English as well as I thought I did. I guess it says something about my competence when you consider that my knowledge of the English language was for a long time, my biggest skill. I confess I was reluctant to revise some of my older scenes, as I believe in fully committing to whatever I'm making, regardless if it's a mistake. I've told you guys before that I'm proud -- too proud. Committing to a bad idea is part of that.
However, after years went by, more of the story got written, and I got to know my own characters better, I realized how foolish this approach is. Why commit to having dated, and rushed scenes in my game when I could bring them to their full potential? One that'll better captivate lots of people who'll be playing the game for the first time? One that is not bound by schedule or hardware limits? Besides, a lot of my old scenes and dialogue precede an era when I wrote and documented every single idea I had. Like I said, I commit to what I make, and altering aspects of the story is hardly something I'll ever consider doing. However, some of the surface details of it simply don't reflect the original vision, that's why, if it doesn't tamper with the original story and context, I'm pretty OK with expanding some of my scenes and/or giving them a fresh coat of paint whenever I deem it necessary. That of course, means that maintaining my ever-evolving standards will be an ongoing effort that does not limit itself to the upcoming version of my game. If I learn new techniques, I won't shy away from going back and applying them.
I would also like to give you guys more proof of my evolution as a 3d artist by presenting to you a couple of the animations you'll find in 4.1 Final Cut. Wait, you didn't think I brought you here just to watch me ramble, did you?
SPOILER FOR CHAPTER ZERO AND ONE
SPOILER FOR CHAPTER ZERO AND ONE
SPOILER FOR CHAPTER ZERO AND ONE
SPOILER FOR CHAPTER ZERO AND ONE
Please excuse the low pixel quality. Not much I can do about that, as I have to convert the .mov files to .gif in order to display them here. It does not reflect the final result.
Chloe - first sex scene (Chapter 1). This is roughly the first version of this animation. Chloe - first sex scene (Chapter 1). This is the version currently in the game. Chloe - first sex scene. This is the new animation coming to 4.1 Final. Elena - First sex scene (Chapter 0). This is one of the animations currently in the game. Elena - First sex scene (Chapter 0). This is one of the new animations coming to 4.1 Final.
I've acquired a higher understanding of digital art, but with the knowledge of what I know, comes the knowledge of what I don't. I know I'm only scratching the surface, and so I will keep dedicating myself to learning.
Thanks for tuning in. I'll be seeing you guys again tomorrow if nothing keeps me.
Three days left until the official Steam release of Unsevered.
As I prepare myself for the next three months of what will be my most grueling trial yet, and the next hardest thing I've ever done in my life, I come here to humbly ask for your help in this moment that could very well make or break this project.
I'm very lucky to have such a generous, patient, and supportive community. You've given me way more than I ever had any right to ask, which is why I've always refrained from letting words loose without a good purpose. You deserve none of my excuses and all of my effort. There were many setbacks, family drama, and health problems along the way, but I've always tried my best to show everyone I'm serious about what I'm making. I've only been able to unveil a small piece of my overall vision, but I still hope all the care I've put into it has shown you where the heart of this project is.
So far, I think I must've done an outstanding job of boring you with my endless platitudes about how much I love video games, and how my mission is righteous and true... and yet, I think it's appropriate to do it one last time. If there's a right moment to do it, it's now. If for some reason you can't trust my love, then trust my hate, since I'm just as moved by spite as I am by love. I seek to give away everything I once expected from my betters, and that's a powerful thing. I wish to mature into a true artist, in its most raw form; to create something of value, not price; to offer people worlds and stories that will be appreciated years after I'm gone. If nothing else, I hope to have proved to you all that I am willing to dedicate every cell of my body to achieving that. We've been here together long enough, haven't we?
The problem here is I need resources. I need to hire people to help me as I am in no way equipped to handle the entire pipeline of this project on my own for much longer. I need to go to sleep tonight and have the peace of mind that the future of Unsevered — and my own, is secured. I need power because will alone won't carry this forever no matter how obsessed I am. No amount of idealism can change reality, and the reality today is I need resources yesterday. Still, I am not here today to ask any of you for money. I can't expect you to give me something I'm not yet able to repay. I want to ask that you spare a moment of your busy lives to wishlist my game on Steam, as Steam's algorithm will push forward only what does a good job of gathering people's interest through wishlisting. If you can, I need you to share this on any forums or relevant places of discussion on the internet. I don't know how to reach everyone; I can't know, and I can't do this without any of you. It's impossible to put into words how decisive this moment is, and how much Unsevered needs this — how much I need this after so much time and energy has gone into getting it off the ground. It's imperative that this release is successful, as I have no other cards to play. If this release doesn't pay off, I'll have to consider options that aren't options right now, but that would, in the end, ensure the future of Unsevered, and Smoke Mob Games as a whole; options that I'm not considering for very good reasons.
All I've ever wanted to be was a game designer, and this project has given me an opportunity that once, I could only ever dream of. I will fight, I will sweat, and I will bleed for this if it's the last fucking thing I'll ever do, and If I haven't done enough, or haven't been able to make myself clear so far on how committed I am to seeing this to the very end, then it means I have already failed, and I do not deserve another single second of your time. After all, none of us is getting any younger.
However, If anywhere in the past four years, my project has been able to spark even mild curiosity in any of you, please, help me bring it to its full potential. You have all already done me a great kindness, all I ask is for the power to pay it back. Give me my wings, and I promise to spend the rest of my life flying towards the sun.
Unsevered will be released on Steam on November 22nd. It's been an honor to walk this path with you so far. I'll see you when the work is done.
'Sup peeps. How are y'all doing? Just wanted to make a quick post to announce (very happily) that I'm finished setting up the Steam page for the game. That includes the trailer, which is more of a cinematic intro at this point since it runs for four minutes. I'll be sharing it with you guys, along with a release date, as soon as Steam finishes reviewing my page, which, according to them, takes 2-3 days. So, since I submitted it for review on Friday, my next post should be tomorrow or the day after.
Right now, I'm allocating all resources to finishing 4.1.0 Final Cut, which will be the Steam build and releases the same day everywhere (Itch, F95, Steam), and then I'll be working on Chapter 5 and likely a bonus chapter. I won't even try working on Chapter 6 this year, as doing the work of one year in three months is scary enough. 😆
Chapter 5 will surely feature a lot fewer renders than Chapter 4, but overall, it will sport higher art quality and a tighter script. I've worked on my writing a lot this year, and working on the trailer for Unsevered has deepened my knowledge of editing and post-production. I feel confident in my ability to deliver more with less, and... well, I did promise you guys two updates this year, so I'm not giving myself much of a choice. The bonus chapter that will come after that will follow the same logic.
I experimented a lot and gave myself a lot of room to breathe while working on Chapter 4, and back then, I was doing it with half the experience I have now while chasing a "perfection" I no longer desire. That's part of the reason it took me so long to complete it. For Chapter 5, I'll be running a much tighter ship. I seek to plan my next moves carefully and follow the plan to the letter instead of just winging it. Sure, spontaneous stuff renders a more creative and soulful process, but I had a lot of time to be spontaneous, and I have collected a huge amount of material over time, to the point I can just, as I mentioned previously, be more mechanical about it. That's how I plan to get two and a half updates done before 2025.
Now moving on, I also want to update you guys on what I've talked about in the previous post regarding my mental health, and tell you that in two days I'll be collecting my results and I'll finally know whether I have any disorders or not. Honestly... it's like I told you all, I'm hoping there's something wrong with me. I could use a little relief from being me for the next couple of months. Or maybe I have nothing wrong in my head and knowing that will finally set me free. Well, I'll know it in two days.
Anyway, I don't want to overextend this post so I guess I'll be seeing you guys soon. I can't wait to share what I've been working on. I love you all, take care of yourselves.
Fuck. I've been drafting this thing for an unreasonable amount of time. Well, fasten your seatbelts, folks. I've got important info that's well enough to justify breaking almost eight months of silence on the platform -- pretty big stuff packed here.
Hi, it's been a minute. I missed y'all. I hope you've all been staying healthy in the past seven(?) months I haven't been around here, and the whole three months I haven't been on Discord. For the Patreon-only folks, we haven't talked since Christmas. It's crazy how time flies. Speaking of Discord, I know some of you aren't on there, which I totally get. I'm not that active there myself (or on any social media, for that matter). Still, never let that deter any of you from messaging me directly about anything you want to know about development. I always relish the opportunity to talk to you guys and read what you think about the game, or what you think about... anything, really. It's one of the reasons I'm mainly on Discord. Getting to talk to all of you is one of the few perks of development. Of course, that is when I don't ghost everybody and retreat into myself like a giant pussy whenever I feel less than optimal.
That said, I need to talk about some of what's been happening behind the scenes for the past four years.
I originally planned to address this in my Steam pre-release post I've been drafting for many, many months, but both posts have grown too long to be done in one take. So, I'll talk about this a little now and maybe expand on it in the Steam post? I don't know yet.
Bear with me a second.
I'm always quiet about this sorta thing as it's never anyone's responsibility to think or care about anyone else's personal bullshit. We're all fighting our own battles. Still, I feel like right now, as we move slowly but surely towards the biggest stage in almost five years of development, there's a necessity to talk more about this, at least a little bit (and at least once), so you can get to know more about the guy behind this project and that, hopefully, will serve as sort of an update on the general state of things and give you folks an idea of where this is all headed. Between my ever-declining mental health and my computer barely running YouTube anymore, I feel like this is the only thing I can really do right now.
>About me.
I'm Capella. It's not my real name, but the one I picked for myself. Capella is the name of a binary star, which means it's actually two stars orbiting each other. Fun fact, I didn't know that information prior to wanting to pick that as my online handle, yet it's ultimately the reason I did because, for many reasons, chaotically opposite forces living and working together fascinate the hell out of me. I'm somewhat pragmatic in the sense that I tend to enjoy things better when there's reason and purpose behind them. It's the reason why I want the magic system in my game to have rules, function as a "science", and for its usage to have a reason for being other than "eh, it works because it's magic".
It's also why I hate most usage of sexy design in video games. Ironic, I know. But why is that? Is it because I think objectifying and sexualizing women in video games is bad? Nah (lol). I want EVERYONE to be shamelessly sexualized and objectified as long as it makes sense. God of War's Greek singles in a pool ready to mingle with their titties out? Hell yeah. Medieval armor with "boob plate"? Fuck no -- burn it!
That's just me, though. Everybody likes what they like.
I'm on the better side of my twenties (the side where the Cock and Balls® software is still getting updates). I'm 6'4, and I'm a pale, rough-looking dude who sees the sun a total of 7 days a month. My appearance often has people thinking (or just telling me to my face) that I'm brutish -- I'm not. I feel like I try to fight that image too much by avoiding conflict, and it usually puts me in a position where I become a serial enabler and people-pleaser. I think that if you're kind, even when you don't feel kind, life is easier. I internalize my emotions a lot, and maybe that's why I have a very modest social battery or why I'm not easily angered, but when I am, it's always 100% personal. This is one of the things I dislike the most about myself, and I hope to get rid of it one day. I wanna be able to lash out, say shit I don't mean, and feel lighter in the next morning. I want not to hold grudges or turn excessively cold towards people when I reach my breaking point. I wish I had my emotions on a leash and not the other way around.
Music and video games are my greatest passions and everything surrounding them are the only things that justify me getting out of bed every day. I enjoy most genres of music, from nu-metal to classical, from hip-hop to EDM -- which is my favorite genre of music, with rock and its sub-genres coming as a very close second. Though my favorite band is Queens of the Stone Age, I generally enjoy electronic more (dubstep is what really got me into music). That's also true for my games. I like RTS, RPGs, rogue-like, souls-like, action-adventure, table-top, FPS, TPS, psych tests, whatever. I'm pretty biased against Triple-A games, though, which sucks, as I can't bring myself to enjoy most big releases. I think most of Triple-A gaming suffers from having too much glam and no substance. My all-time favorite game is Kenshi, with Skyrim as a close second.
I'm from Rio de Janeiro (the state, not the city), Brazil (yes, the same state Robbie was born in, only she was born in the countryside, and I've always been a city boy). For some reason I can't explain, I don't enjoy soccer or going to the beach. My fellow Cariocas look at me like I'm an alien for that. I'm pretty big on freedom and guns, though, so at least we have that in common. "I want gay people to be able to protect their marijuana plants with guns" is a sentence that I have in the chamber at all times. Generally, I'm pretty liberal when it comes to most stuff. I'll agree with anything that's not harming anybody, involving kids in adult shit and/or harming their ability to become mindfuck-free adults, or is activism (subtle or blatant). Goddamn, do I hate activism -- regardless of which side of the political spectrum it's coming from. Mainly because activism doesn't offer anything to anybody but instead expects you to agree with its message like it's the objective truth to any and all. Actually, scratch all of the above. I just really, really hate politics.
I'm what I would call a chronic thinker in more ways than one. Why, because I wish to flatter myself as a 21st-century big brain? Hell no. I dedicate 80% of my brainpower to developing ideas and narratives instead of putting that energy into living and being alive, and I needlessly overthink and over-elaborate everything instead of just doing it (like this post right here I've been trYING TO WRITE FOR THREE FUCKING MONT̴̛͈̱͛̈́̈́HS̴̨̛͍̋̈́ OH ̶M̶̶̶Y̶̶̶ ̶̶̶F̸̰͊͊U̶̶̶C̶̶̶K̶̶̶I̶̶̶N̸̶̷̶̶̶̷G̶̶̷̶̴̶̷ ̶̶̶G̶̶̶O̶̶̶D̶̶̶).
Whenever I catch myself coping too hard and thinking I'm somehow special or a misunderstood genius (lmao), I remember that if I was really that smart, I'd have figured out a way to be happy by now.
I've been prescribed meds for this shit more than once but didn't take them, as I was too paranoid that they'd make me too sluggish to be creative. It wasn't entirely paranoia, though; sleepiness was actually a side-effect of those. I'm sluggish enough, now sluggish AND uncreative? If the doctors wanted to fuck me, they could have at least taken me to dinner first.
I have a problem getting my mind and my mouth to just shut up sometimes. A good example of this is how I've been drafting this very same post for at least three months and still can't decide on what to say or if anyone will even bother reading all this. Should you, even? I want you to know a little bit about me. Let's make this fair -- if you've read up to this part right here, tell me a random fact about yourself or something interesting that's happened to you recently, be it good or bad. That way, I'm not the only one hogging the mic.
I still got your attention? Awesome.
Another detail about me is that I'm easily distracted. In one of my shameless episodes of Procrastination™, while scrolling through YouTube and getting my shot of daily, dirty, and deadly dopamine, I once stumbled across a clip of Joe Rogan talking about Miyamoto Musashi in his podcast (this is all going to make sense, I promise). Miyamoto Musashi, for those unaware, was a legendary samurai rumored to have fought -- and won -- more than 60 duels, many of which were to the death. He died undefeated, the madlad. In the clip, Joe Rogan elaborated on a famous quote by Musashi: "Once you see the way broadly, you see it in all things", and I think about these words all the time.
Now, I'm under no illusion I'm at all comparable to a legendary swordsman who once carved a bokken out of a boat oar and iced an armed opponent with it, but those words really resonated with me and mirrored my own journey in a way. I aspired to become a game developer as a child but abandoned that dream as I approached adulthood. After I consistently pushed and bettered myself through music, I realized that if I could find a true enough purpose in anything, I could teach myself how to do it and get decent at it, no matter how hard it might seem at first. As I saw the path through the lens of music, I was shown a path to all things, or more specifically, game development.
Which got me here.
I got to work on my first visual novel, and though I've been concocting narratives ever since I learned how to think, this is the first thing I've ever really written and publicized. It's my first time working on anything related to graphics, which is funny since I can't even draw a straight line on a piece of paper. Now, here I am, just getting off doing the compositing for my Steam trailer. I can say some shit like "UV Maps" or "Subsurface Scattering" and know what the fuck it means and how it works -- which doesn't sound like much, but I'm not exactly a prime example of talent, so this is pretty big for me. This is the first time I've been able to consistently dedicate myself to anything, every day, even if a little bit. I was blessed with many first times that would've never happened if I hadn't picked up that guitar. I have a purpose and a path in front of me where once there were none.
All of this, for me, is a massive opportunity, and I feel so grateful to have been able to work on Mad World up to this point. This game had no business going on for as long as it has. I remind myself of that every day, which is likely why I might have built up a tolerance for feeling motivated by that fact.
I've been feeling some fatigue regarding this project for the past couple of years. Like, the better I get, the more I lose that flame that got me here to begin with.
I know, I know... it's been two years since the last real update for Mad World, and this has to be the LAST thing you guys want to read coming from me, but it's the truth. I've been feeling sort of disillusioned... for lack of a better word? But that also feels wrong, as I was never under the illusion any of this was going to be a cakewalk. I'm in this constant state of knowing what to do, knowing why to do it, but only getting more and more confused by everything. And the more confused I get, the less time I have to figure everything out. I've been trying as hard as I can to set the right rhythm to make it work, making this my primary focus to the detriment of everything else in my life, which, in the past couple of years, has been driving me to neglect my own health in stupid ways.
It's all boiled up to a point where I almost died from stupid shit like Sinusitis (or whatever infection it was -- even the doctors couldn't tell me) that developed itself into a monster over the course of two weeks. All because my brother had the flu and coughed near me twice. He got better in three days. I got violently sick.
Who the fuck almost dies from the common cold in 2024? This guy right here.
I live on my own. I couldn't nurse myself back to health as I was barely able to stand up for more than two minutes to cook. I couldn't even order anything to eat online since I was sitting at home with no working internet because local gangs ripped apart the entire infrastructure of the neighborhood so they could railroad us into hiring their internet service instead. I also had no cellphone service because I didn't pay the bill (yeah, I'm broke af). When I finally reached 42º C (107.6º F), I managed to connect to the wifi in my brother's store right across the street. I hadn't thought of that. Called my parents and asked for money to buy medicine, which immediately sent them into panic as they knew the only reason I'd ever call them to ask for anything was if I was actually dying.
Did I forget to mention I'm extremely prideful? Not a very good survival trait in my long list of shitty survival traits, or rather, my shameful lack of them.
My parents were out of town, but luckily, my brother was near the neighborhood and rushed me to the ER. I cried like a little bitch all the way there, and in there too, because I knew that I had lucked out and could definitely have died. That was further proven by how much agony I was in the days after and how much blood I was letting out in my urine or spitting in a bucket. My immune system was buried UNDER the shitter. That had to be the worst week I ever had. Very few times in my life I have felt as weak and vulnerable as I did then. Do you know what that taught me about myself? I'm ready to chase this for the rest of my life, even if it ends tomorrow. I regret none of the decisions that sent me coughing blood to that ER or that put me through absolute torment in the days after because I know it's part of the process. Yes, it really is as stupid and suicidal as it sounds.
You'd think that having my head so deep in the game like this would make it pretty easy for me to do what I have to do and not fret over every task and overthink to the point I can only ever be productive for four hours a day on a GOOD day. I can't. Not without psyching myself up over the course of multiple days or coming up with stupid games like "if I can't get X amount of stuff done under an hour, then I'm uber gay, and not the tough and manly kind, but the closeted kind who listens to Taylor Swift and hides it from his family".
I'm sick and fucking tired of having to trick my own brain to get shit that I love doing done. I know what my objective is, and I know the path to get there. I want to be able to walk with my own legs. That's why, five weeks ago, I started seeing a neuropsychiatrist to hopefully get my drugs up and my thoughts down.
It's come to a point where I know I have to seek professional help. I don't feel right -- never did. This has been a problem for me since my school days. Throughout all my years as a student, I was always the ONLY one in the entire class who could never get any work done until the day I graduated. Which, to be honest, didn't bother me much back then because fuck school. But now, if I am to reach my full potential, I can't afford to not be in my best condition every single day. I'm moving towards an early grave. I don't eat, I barely exercise, and my brain is fired up all the time in all the wrong ways. I almost died. I do not want to die young -- not before I see how far rage and pride can get me.
The treatment is costing me an arm and a leg, so I'm hoping to get my money's worth and discover I am, at the very least, a high-functioning psychopath. It's another thing with me -- I go to the doctor, and I pray that there's something really wrong so that I'll walk out knowing I'll be better than I walked in.
When it comes to my life, I have no plan B, and I do not wish for one. I can either achieve everything I want, or I will gladly walk into the afterlife as the most unsuccessful motherfucker to ever walk. Even if failure is my destiny, it'll never be my choice. I know it sounds corny, but reality often is. Recent experiences have taught me that I'm willing to back up my pride with my blood and that these aren't just words I tell myself. I just wish I won't have to for much longer. Maybe that's wishful thinking. Maybe life is supposed to be an endless trial, and it's weak of me to wish for anything different.
Anyway, just thought I'd give you guys a bit of insight into who I am and how I've been. I don't do this a lot. I hope it's worth something.
>About everything else.
Writing has always been the part of development that comes the easiest for me. Coming up with ideas and dialogue for new or existing WIP scenes is something I do at least twice a day. The whole thing practically writes itself. There has never been a day in the past four years that I haven't written something. That said, not only do I have most of Chapter 5's arcs and dialogues done, but I already have most of the main story of Mad World conceptualized and written, including some bonus chapters and content for the sandbox mode. Now, it's only a matter of dragging my sorry carcass there. I'm not gonna lie to you guys; I'm dreading that shit like it's the black plague. I'm not trusting my ability to get all of that done. Then again, I didn't think I could finish Chapter 4, and though it took me an entire year, I did it, and I'll be riding that high until the day I kick it.
The trailer for Steam is... coming along. I can't say it's been smooth sailing, as there have been A LOT of setbacks and stuff going south. I wish I could say I'm almost finished with it, but as things keep going wrong, the deadlines keep moving up. By now, getting it done has taken me as long as a full game chapter usually does. This whole Steam sitch has put a lot of work on top of a lot of work I already had, which sucks, but it's part of the process. I still aim to deliver at least two other updates this year, not counting the remaster of some older artwork leading up to the Steam release. I hope you guys haven't forgotten about that, as I expect you all to hold me to it. By my estimates, it'll take at least one month to get the remaster done, and then I'll have to pull off two and a half years of work in two months. Sounds impossible, but if I can get my hands on some quality meds and stick to the pipeline that's been in the works for four years... I think I can do it. I have enough material set aside that I can just mechanically produce and not think too much about it. I want to at least try.
I also wanted to talk about the "Warlock" tier I implemented here on Patreon and tell you guys it wasn't my plan to create it and do fuckall with it. Unfortunately, the rendering situation is dire and the artwork is costing me actual money. I've chosen to allocate the resources to get this trailer out there as fast as possible. I still plan to show you guys some of my unreleased animations and other artwork once I'm done with all this. I've studied a lot between chapter releases, and I think you guys would be pretty impressed with some of the stuff I can cook up.
This month, I aim to try and get my driver's license for the third time. I've been failing the exam since 2020, and retaking it costs a shit-ton of moolah that I didn't have -- until now. If all goes right, I should start making a little bit more money as an Uber driver. Certainly more than I can get biking around the city. That, of course, is good news for the project, so I thought I'd mention it.
Some of the setbacks I've faced include working on a single animation for an entire week and a half. Due to how the hip bone rotation worked, I couldn't get it to work the way I wanted to, so I had to get premade animations from Mixamo and scrap everything I already had. That frustrated me a lot, as I don't like to cut corners unless I absolutely need to, and I wanted to challenge myself with those specific motions. You guys wanna know the best part? I think I must've spent two months on just that section of the trailer, and it amounts to about 15 seconds of its entire runtime at most. I'm not even mad; it's just funny. This kind of thing happens a lot, but I always get to learn something from it.
Once it drops, I'll let you guys guess which characters in the trailer have Mixamo animations and which ones were animated by me. Of course, I'll be rooting against all of you, as my ego really needs you all to fail.
>Now, to the biggest news so far.
Going forward, the game will need to go through a name change, which is heartbreaking for me to announce. The game on the Steam store, Itch.io, and F95Zone shall henceforth be known as Unsevered.
I want to give, however, a little eulogy before we move forward and tell you guys why I picked "Mad World" to begin with and why I'll be moving forward with a different name.
I love anime, and one of my all-time favorites has to be JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. It was one of the biggest inspirations for me in the earlier stages of conceptualizing what Mad World is. One of the better parts of JoJo's for me is how it absolutely honors its own name by being bizarre, unexpected, and full of personality. You can justify 80% of the shit that goes down in that anime by just saying, "Well... it is named JoJo's Bizarre Adventure -- what did you expect?" I wanted to name my game something simple but that, at the same time, reflected what it was about. Something that told people I was going to come up with crazy bullshit that would be different and unexpected in a lot of ways. I don't remember how, but I landed on "Mad World". I guess I didn't give it much thought. Otherwise, I would've noticed how many other games are also called "Mad World". One of the most prominent examples is an MMORPG on Steam called "Mad World - Age of Darkness".
I've tried to come up with many reasons to keep the original name, but they are all emotional reasons, and moving forward with a different name is objectively the more logical thing to do. That, of course, makes it no easier for me to do it. I've been developing Mad World for four years and Unsevered for about six months. It's sad that I have to let go.
Another issue with the original name is that it's not very unique. It's tough to do my little ego-search and get more in touch with my audience, as there is a ridiculous amount of "Mad Worlds" around. It's also the name of a very famous song, which, against everything some of the familiar faces around me believe in, was not at all the inspiration for the name of the game!
As a direct contrast, "Unsevered" is... well, I dare you guys to find anything with the same name. Shit is that bulletproof... hopefully.
The new name still (very effectively) embodies the overall vibe I want for the game -- one of being challenged at every step and still pressing on. Head held high. Spirit unsevered.
I'll still honor all the good times we had together by keeping all the release files from here on as "MW-Release X". Let this be a little easter egg of sorts for the big brothers and sisters around -- the same ones keeping my Patreon sub count above 50 for years, and keeping my Discord server warm. We all know I don't make it very easy for you guys to do that.
Me and the process aren't good friends, but I do my best to respect it. Unfortunately, getting to be on good terms with it is a process of its own. I had my last session with the doctor this week, and I'm currently waiting to hear about the results of all the tests I've been doing for the past five weeks and what it is that I have. Hopefully, it's not psychological, it's not autism, or any other thing I can't pop pills to fix (I'd lose my shit). I hope this will be the last year I lose the battle against myself, and I can really bring my very best to the table. You guys deserve nothing less than my 100%. There's still so, so much I want you all to see.
Thank you guys for putting up with me so far -- don't think I don't see you. Next time we see each other, we'll be talking about Steam, and that's an entire beast of its own.
See you soon. Hopefully, no radio silence until then.
Hello, folks. It's your favorite absent father who shows up maybe once a month, hopefully bearing good news. Today is one of them days. I know we don't see each other very often, but the love is still here.
I've secured a source of rendering power.
In the past couple of weeks or so, I've dedicated myself to racking up the funds for a private cloud rendering service. It wasn't cheap, and the process was demanding, to put it mildly, but it'll definitely be worth it (RTX 4090 for the win). The loss of the F95 Iray Server during the development of 4.1 was felt to a great extent, and I can't allow something like that to happen again. I've also managed to find a new plugin that will allow me to batch-render scenes on my own local PC without running into bug prompts that require me to monitor my computer at all times. Yeah, that was a thing before, and one of the major issues that prevented me from rendering locally. I don't have to worry about that, anymore.
Though the F95 Iray Server is seemingly back online, sadly, it's clear that it can't be counted on 100%. The private server I got is also surely not something I'll be spending money on long-term (50 USD in my country is worth a whole month of food and other household supplies), but it's good as an emergency switch as my points will never expire. That was the biggest selling point for me. That established, I estimate the Patreon revenue, Itch.io sales, and Steam sales combined are more than likely to cut my overdependence on both rendering services. So yeah, It's grounds for major optimism! At least until the completion of 4.1 and the Steam release, I'm all set on rendering power.
Optimization was key, and now it's on lock.
After a little bit of testing, I've managed to drastically increase performance in the game. It should be running smooth as butter now and should not crash or even slightly stutter, no matter what device you're running it on, which is something I'm very proud of! Performance issues have been a thing for a while, so it feels good to kiss it goodbye.
Into 2024...
...my biggest priority will be ensuring that updates are not so few and far between while still keeping the quality acceptable and ever-evolving. The next steps for me to achieve that are updating my hardware and hiring a second artist to help me with some of the front-end stuff -- mainly artwork for the game. I already have someone in mind for the job.
Recently, I've received a lot of help in some do-or-die situations and I refuse to let it go to waste a second longer. Usually, I'm not one to make promises or set things in stone. There are hardly any reasons to ever do that, and it often feels like I'm setting myself up to fail, but if there's one thing I can promise for sure, is that 2023 was the second and last time I've done a yearly major update. That's a little something to look forward to.
I know reading "main mission: upgrade parts" might feel a little generic and even obvious in this post, as "upgrading parts" has been a priority since the beginning (and it's certainly been written about many times), but with the Steam release in my pockets, that's -- for the first time -- an attainable goal. I just had to let you guys know I'm looking into it. This 7th gen Intel bottleneck-magnet CPU really has to go.
We've got roughly 11 days left until the end of the year, and I'm nothing but thankful that I get to do this for this long. I feel like I don't say this enough, but I appreciate each and every one of you who have followed and supported this project in many ways throughout the years, and I can't wait to show you what its full potential looks like. This will likely be my last post in 2023, and the next time we see each other here, it'll be in a brand new year. Hopefully, I'll get to write more of these.
So... happy holidays! You can still find me on Discord, though.
Download links and full changelog on Discord.gg/RcrAdam2zH.
How are we doing today, folks? I hope you're all well. I've been silent for a few... days? Weeks? It's hard to tell. But you guys oughta know by now that if I'm too quiet, it means I'm extra focused on cooking. Here's the endgame to my edgy anime villain arc; the game has officially been updated to 4.1... sort of.
Tl;dr
For people who don't have the time, worry not. The summarized version is that the all-new bonus chapter has been released, and it is 100% polished and playable. However, releasing today comes at the cost of not finishing the gallery system yet again. And because of circumstances out of my control, I did not rework/redesign a single one of my older +18 scenes. Despite that, the UI and code for accessing and playing the new bonus chapter are fully operational and ready. To access the new content, make sure you have a save game where you've done Chloe's second scene in Chapter 3.1 and chose to go for "something more". After that, finish Chapter 4 and go through the end screen to unlock the new content.
The gallery system and redesigned scenes are being worked on for the other half of 4.1.
The not-so-summarized version.
Originally, I had some sour news. Now, I've got even worse news. It's not all bad, though. There is some really good stuff here, too, but mostly lame excuses.
Why I didn't deliver on the reworks I explicitly stated would be in 4.1.
Halfway through the process of redesigning Elena's first scene, with some four animations done, and lots of renders already baked, I realized I wasn't going to just give a fresh coat of paint to my older animations - I was overhauling the whole thing. I had to choose between stretching myself thin by making lots of scenes just a tiny bit better (and still feel unfinished and not up to my current standards), or finishing a single scene and making it a LOT better (and one of my new personal favorites). 130 of my sexiest new renders and five new animations later, I have to tell you, it was not a difficult choice to make. Though it partially breaks the promise I made to you guys, I don't think there would be a single person who would've been disappointed by it had you had the chance to see what the end result was. Unfortunately, in the past few weeks, the render farm I was using has become considerably more unreliable, and rendering the newly redesigned scenes locally on my GPU is out of the question - I've tried. I finished a few renders and then used them to do the math on how long it would take to complete the rest locally. The result? 184 days.
Losing the render farm for a full week (and another two days) was a catastrophic setback, as it completely took away my ability to render scenes using my current art style. I considered paying for a private rendering service but I can't afford it, and the ones I could are incompatible with DAZ Studio. I managed to finish roughly 60 renders for Chapter 0, which I used to update one scene for 4.1, but that was it. Though I had all the new renders for the office scene baked, I only have about 15 from Elena's adult scene, and I couldn't render the remaining ones. Also, It would've been too weird to mix the new renders with the old ones, as I've made slight changes to Elena's outfit. Bra changing color mid-scene? Nope. So for that reason, the office scene, which has some of my most dated renders, will be left untouched for yet another update.
I was already thinking of how I was going to explain to you guys that the Elena scene in Chapter 0 was all I had to show after ten months of development. It turns out I don't even have that much. The worst part is that the render server, though unreliable, is still running. With another week or two, I could've finished rendering Elena's reworked scene and have it ready for the release. But one of the major problems here is I simply do not have enough days to spare. I vowed to myself I would not take another month to release 4.1, no matter what, as MW can't wait another month for a new release, and that's why I have been at it like an absolute maniac to get it done in time. Though it sounds horrible, I'm a little proud that I managed to keep myself focused and working for 28 consecutive hours (a personal record). I can't usually keep myself focused on anything for more than five minutes.
Though the bulk of the work on the gallery system is done (cataloging unlock variables, scenes, and finishing the backend), making all of the scenes accessible through the system would also have taken me at least another week that I don't have. If Chapter 4 was an indication of anything, is that I don't mind working on something until it's perfect, but I can't keep doing this yearly update thing anymore. Chapter 4 took me 16 months to finish and it almost tanked the whole project because of that. Have I ever told you guys how much I made from it? Around 450 bucks. If I cut from that all the stacks of overdue bills and QOL shit I had to buy, the liquid amount comes down to roughly 40 bucks. And that's 40 bucks for 16 months of work. It's just not sustainable to work on a game like MW for long periods of time. It sucks. I don't like writing excuses any more than you guys like reading them, but unfortunately, I had no choice. I would've worked on 4.1 for another year if it was all up to me.
This render farm situation coupled with my own lack of resolve made an already incomplete update into an even bigger headache that I'll be doing my very best to fix in the coming months. For this one, however, though I wanted to keep running as fast as I could, my legs were already giving in. Even without all of this happening, the human factor would still have played a part in 4.1 being incomplete. Working ten months on an update focusing on a single character doesn't do a lot for morale and cohesion.
Still, despite all of that...
There's the Steam release coming up, which I pray will be responsible for some big moneys, hardware upgrades, and... new hires. I found a guy who's enthusiastic to work with me on Mad World, happens to be a close friend, and is also a badass, highly skilled 3D artist with lots of Blender experience (which I had no idea). The guy could give me a masterclass on 3D rendering and Photoshop, so I'm sure teaching him Ren'Py and DAZ Studio will be a cakewalk.
I've also been talking to a skilled Python programmer with thorough professional experience who handles databases for companies. Also very enthusiastic to work with me on MW.
I've also received considerable upgrades to my hardware, which I'll go more in-depth in an upcoming post.
To wrap it up...
Though the new content is here and has undeniable substance, the fact that I haven't been able to come through with the gallery system and full reworks for two years now is shameful, at the very least. There's little for me to do about that but to apologize for not making good on my word and reassuring you guys that I'm undoubtedly committed to getting it done. It's been a challenge, even without external factors working against me. I've been tested in many ways and don't always have the strength needed to pull through. I guess the only promise I can really make here is that I'll keep trying. I'll be counting this update as unfinished, and that's why it's marked as 4.1.0 WIP. I'll keep working on the final cut of this version as soon as I finish writing this post.
In the next few days, I'll be making another post, and that will be one of the big ones. Probably the one I've been drafting for the past couple of months, where I'll go into detail about development and the Steam release, which is pretty huge for the project.
For the time being, I hope you guys will enjoy this update just as much as I enjoyed making it.
After hours of backup and (failed) recovery, one huge mess up on my part, and 700 gigs of corrupted data later, I have my PC all ready to go. I backed up whatever I could, but because of one stupid mistake (and a shitty design choice on Microsoft's part), I lost everything in my main HDD. I also lost a huge chunk of my user data since, for some reason, only the 'local' folder of my 'AppData' folder got copied over. As far as those 700 GB of data go, I can do nothing but hope they were made of games and be less of a hoarder next time.
-My Cascadeur animations were lost.
I was stressed out and doing some cleanup in my 'Documents' folder so I could back up only the most important stuff and ended up deleting everything that wasn't inside a folder. Which means my Cascadeur animations I dedicated dozens of hours to. I'm still a little sad I lost the data, but I still have the experience. I learned a lot of new different motions and techniques I can not only apply to Unreal Engine games (which is what I intended) but to DAZ animations, too. Like changing keyframe interpolation, for example. I discovered that a lot of the "jittering" that happened in my animations was due to me using the wrong kind of interpolation for certain body parts, causing them to move at different speeds. Bad news is that I lost around 8 or 9 animations. Good news is that I can make new and better ones next time.
-My entire "Local Disk C:", was lost.
I had years of programs and tools for every kind of problem one can find on a computer. They're all lost now.
It's hard for me to convince myself that "oh, it was all made of games" when I look at my secondary drive and see I have most of my Steam games inside, including my 150+ gigs of modded Skyrim and modded Fallout 4. Right now I feel like I'm in a horror movie just waiting for the jumpscare. Just waiting to look for that one important thing I needed and realize that "oh... that was lost too".
I'm stunned. I guess that's the right word. I know exactly what I need to do now to keep the ball rolling, but right now I just feel kinda drugged up. I don't know how to explain it. It's a sour feeling reaching for my bookmarked stuff and realizing these ones are from December 2022, or opening anything on my main PC and realizing I don't have .Net Framework installed. I'm too used to having everything on my computer run like clockwork, and for me to have all the tools I need and know where it all is. Hopefully, I'll get myself back into form and work on MW still today. I want to release the next update this month, after all.
At the end of the day, I can't complain much. My PC's been needing this cleanup for years.
Recently, my PC has started to show signs of poor health. That has manifested a couple times through blue screens. In the past few days, however, they got more frequent, until I started getting one every single day for the past four days. I even (completely in vain) created a restoration point in case anything bad happened. Today, while I was working on the new art for MW for the Steam release and Itch.io, my computer just froze. Mouse was working fine, but little by little, everything stopped receiving commands. It was like a living organism that was slowly losing bodily function. It was odd and had never happened before. "CPU acting up again", I thought and just forced a shutdown. Bear in mind, that was barely five minutes after getting my daily blue screen. PC was still starting up their piles upon piles of Microsoft bloatware and game launchers. When I turned it back on, I was met with an "automatic repair loop".
Further inspection revealed to me that my Windows installation got corrupted, and so did my user data. My files in that HDD look fine, mostly, but there's no way to tell for sure. Since my W10 installation is gone, so is my restoration point. It's like climbing a wall, hooking yourself to it, but when you fall, so does the wall. Now I'm stuck here trying to figure out what to do to get my PC back in working condition. Fortunately, I have my portable HDD which I use to transfer work files between my laptop and my PC. Inside, I have every 3d file I need to work, plus, I have an extra 2 TB HDD which I bought for the sole purpose of storing my 3d files. So, I can say for sure none of that was lost. Because of that, I'm able to barely keep it together. Characters like Chloe and Fiona are heavily custom, so there's no way in hell I can risk losing them, hence, why I keep copies of them in three different places. I've been through all this "losing my files" bullshit once before and I'm absolutely not going through it again.
However, I can't be 100% sure nothing important is lost or corrupted. I have an extra 500 GB HDD my brother gave me two years ago that was just sitting in my wardrobe wrapped in paper and tape for safekeeping. I installed a fresh version of Windows 10 in it and now I'm sitting here doing damage control. While digging through my files in my main drive, I happened to find all of my MW script files just sitting in there.
That sent chills running down my spine.
Among them, was the code for my gallery and short story system I spent the past six months planning and one week actually making. I couldn't help but shout "WHY THE FUCK IS THIS HERE???" for the whole neighborhood to hear. I keep all of my work-related things in my 2 TB HDD, but I don't know what else I could've left in my main one.
I'll be doing damage control before trying to reinstall my Windows and work-related stuff like DAZ Studio or Ren'Py again. On top of that, whatever caused all of this might decide to strike back. I don't know if my main HDD is finally retiring or if the blame lies somewhere else.
My apartment is just where my body lives, but my PC is my real home. And now that home has been hit with a big ass hurricane. So, to conclude this odyssey of fuck: I'm pretty bummed out, not gonna lie. I might have lost every single one of my save games, reference pictures, some of the 3d animations I made in Cascadeur (I was really looking forward to showing you guys those), among other things I can't really remember right now. There's no way to know how much of a setback this whole situation is going to be. Rendering, compiling, and post work have been halted completely as I need my laptop to do things like creating a bootable drive and writing posts like this one. I also can't use my main PC. I want to somehow fix this whole thing and go back to working normally and that's what I'll try to do.
I'll keep you guys posted if anything changes or if all this ends up just being a scare. One can hope.
What's up, my neighbors? I feel like we're all close enough that I can start using the hard R, right? On the same topic, there's another hard R I'm thinking of, and I think you know which one I'm talking about. Why don't we say it together?
Release of 4.1!
About four or five days ago, I pulled an excruciating all-nighter as I was so hyped to finish up with this update's posing. I got sixty-something renders done in roughly 28-30 hours, which got me well ahead in my to-do list for the next update, and officially concluded the posing phase. I tend to get very motivated once I reach the final steps of posing and animating. It's easier to get in the zone, you know? It's the most mechanical and time-consuming part of development, and it's always satisfying to be done with it and move on.
I'm currently doing rendering and finishing up the "Extras" menu. I have about 100 renders already done, and the "Bonus Chapters" section is visually and functionally adequate. Since the artwork gallery and scene replays rely roughly on the same logic as the Bonus Chapters section, it's safe to say I have 70% of the leg work done on the whole Extras menu. Since releasing Chapter 4, I've had a lot of time to think about the inner workings of the system, and the idea is pretty well fleshed out and shouldn't need any reworking later on.
The release date, as always, is information not even I possess. I'll only know for sure once it's all done, and even then, I'll triple-test it to make sure it all works. It's all coming along fine and shouldn't take much longer, as I'm not having to deal with any extreme adverse conditions or cutting any scenes.
The final render count is 521, not counting animations (about four of them, though). Not bad for 8 months, as the complexity of some of these easily make them worth three "meh" renders. We can round the total count to 641 if we want, but I'd like to deal in more concrete numbers.
Steam wishlist campaign.
I'm going to say more on it very soon. I'll likely make a big post dedicated only to this topic, as it concerns the most crucial development phase of MW. In other words, the most important post I've ever made since launching the game back in July 2020.
Fixes.
While working on Chapter 4, I discovered that Ren'Py will read all information in any .rpy document in the main directory, which I didn't know when I first started. My MW code should look and work much better in the future. With that information, I moved every animation data from the main script file to a special "atl.rpy" document. Having done so, however, poses a high risk, as there's a small chance I might have lost one or two animations. If you guys see any animation data missing in 4.1, please let me know. "But Capella, how would I be able to tell if certain animation data is missing?" -- you'd know, trust me.
Based on this maneuver, I'll also implement better animation management by loading more animations into memory, as I don't think Ren'Py comes with this functionality by default (I could be wrong). Preferably, I want to do it so it loads animations before the game starts. I'll play a little bit with it, however, because I thoroughly dislike when Ren'Py games take more than ten seconds to boot up. This, among other fixes I'm working on, could make every performance issue disappear and make the game a little bit more playable on Android. I'll also be bringing another huge polish in dialogue, and a collection of reworks and QOL fixes thanks to the amazing feedback I got from you guys on Discord.
All in all, this update has met no major hiccups. I'm way past the development honeymoon phase, and not even the creative fatigue 4.0.0 caused me has hindered me in any way. I'll see you guys soon with more news, or possibly a notification that 4.1.0 is released. One can hope, right?
You guys probably won't remember this since I only mentioned it once (and it was last year), but I didn't have a chair to sit on while using my computer.
I basically had to sit on my bed and use pillows to support my back while working/gaming. In theory, using my PC from my bed sounds comfy ('cause it was, lol). The problem is, most of my life resides within my computer (lame, I know), and having to use it from my bed 24/7 was KILLING me. No joke, my back was starting to become a question mark. That, unfortunately, was the only option since my other chair peaced out and I haven't had the money to replace it; until now.
Check out this stylish bad boy in all its glory. Got it for cheap, too (please disregard braindead cushion placement). Surprisingly, it fits all 6'4'' of me (I thought it'd be a little smaller).
For some reason, the stars aligned in the past week, and I found a great sale going on right when 44 extra dollars popped into my Patreon balance, which is exactly how much I was short to get this chair. So yeah, thanks to you guys, I get to undo a whole year of pain.
It's good not having all my stuff all over my bed at all times anymore. Is this the so-called work-life balance?
Some of you guys might be thinking, "Damn, how do you go seven months without replacing such a crucial item? Didn't you make any money from Chapter 4?" Yes, I did. No, I did not spend the money I earned from Chapter 4 on drugs and bitches. Most of the loot was spent on overdue bills and getting my Steam license. Didn't have much left to replace anything after that. Worries of the past, though. Next, I'll retire that desk. It has served me well but it's gotta go.
Chapter 4.1.
And oh, I realized I haven't given you ladies and gentlemen any solid numbers on my progress with Chapter 4.1 yet. I'm still in the posing phase and so far I got 381 renders done (not counting animations). All of the really complicated scenes are already done and I figure I have about 80 simple ones left to go. I know, I know... after seven months, you'd think I would have a bigger number to show. That's because I now make more animations per chapter, with more frames and overall more complicated scenes. The workload compared to when I was releasing an update every three months has tripled, and so have my standards. I'm not lazily putting out seven-frame animations and poorly lit renders anymore; gotta work according to my skill. Do I come across as arrogant when I say all that? It's probably because I am, a little. When a man has no money and no bitches, I think he's entitled to a little pride.
Well, see you guys on Christm-- *ahem*, soon. And thank you for helping me work better.
Still at it... in a slightly more efficient, fashionable, and comfortable way.
Hello, ladies and gentlemen -- welcome! Have a seat, kick up your feet, and let's dive into it.
First short story.
As I've stated in a previous post, the last artwork I uploaded before 4.1 would signal which character the next update would focus on. For those of you who haven't seen it, that would mean Chloe! The upcoming short story will be all about The Protagonist and Chloe's first (actual) date.
B-but Capella -- an entire update for just one Chloe???
Yes, my friend! Worry not; your favorite characters will be brought into the limelight soon enough. Yes, they'll get entire short stories for them, too.
I wish I'd posted more of my artwork after that last one, but I got too focused on the actual story and development... which is good, right? RIGHT?
I'm also really proud of some of the renders I did for Chapter 4.1 (not an official chapter number). Some of them are the most expressive I've been able to make, and the hot ones... well, they're some of the hottest so far. The average Chloe enjoyer will have a field day with this one.
Still, as always, things are slow. I've been getting better and better, but my computer isn't getting any faster and faster.
Also, this might sound obvious but it's still worth mentioning: You have to be following Chloe's romantic storyline for this short story to be unlocked.
Short stories in Mad World will consist of linear, unlockable stories that may change depending on your character's actions in the main game. Some will require you to meet certain criteria for them to be unlocked, like in this case, having a romantic relationship with Chloe. Some of them will unlock gradually as you progress through the chapters. They'll be accessible through the "Extras" section in the main menu or playable right after you finish a chapter if you so choose. You can also skip them entirely.
Chapter 5.
The script for Chapter 5 is POPPING! It gets better and better every time I look at it. To read my own writing is to be constantly between "Damn! I wrote that?!" and "Damn... uh... did I really write that?".
I'm always my worst critic. Still, I'll happily pat myself on the back for this one. It's looking really good. Let's hope it's smooth sailing from here on.
I'll be focusing on Chapter 5 once 4.1 and its Steam build are done.
Remakes, additions, and fixes.
I don't remember mentioning this, but all my early animations are being reworked for 4.1.0 (yes, 4.1.0. I've erroneously referred to this update as "4.0.1" before for some reason). I'm also giving a fresh coat of paint on every end of the game ahead of the Steam release and Gallery System™ implementation. There's some cool unlockable art for finished chapters, too (I'm really excited about those)!
Hud is going through some long-due improvements; the script and dialogue are being polished (thanks to everybody who's helped me with proofreading); the code will be compiled differently with hopes of fixing crashes and performance issues; several scenes are being reworked and improved.
While all that cooks, I'm also training a new guy to work with me. Hopefully, I'll be able to split the workload between two people in the near future and bridge the gaps between updates. While that doesn't happen, please be patient! I'm excited too, but these things (unfortunately) take a lot of time. There's little I can do to speed things up without recycling poses and animations. The only pose I recycle -- viciously, I might add -- is the standing pose; everything else is unique from scene to scene, and chapter to chapter. I feel like this whole paragraph serves to pacify me more than anyone else. Have I mentioned I'm excited? Last update was six months ago. Time flies. What do you think of short stories? Are you as excited about this one as I am? Any character you want to see next? Let me know! It's always a joy to know what you guys think.
Not really. I had you for a second there, didn't I?
I know I'm late to the fun of April Fools' but consider this my yearly little prank. I'm not stopping anytime soon. I did, however, spend a few days in a state of something I can only describe as the "artistical shitter™". I haven't posted in the last week or so even though I already have most of the art I'll be uploading (for now) ready to go. I also didn't make any new renders for the next short story to stack on top of the 115 I already have. I kind of lost my direction for a minute and didn't know what I was doing. A huge part of being motivated to do something is knowing what to do, so... yeah.
Even though my heart has failed me in the past few days, my mind can never sin against me. I wrapped a few loose ends in Chapter 5, and it's beginning to take form. I haven't really written anything consistent specifically for 5.0.0 yet, but I did decide on plot points I want to bring next, and I've connected them together nicely. I'm happy with the script I have for 4.0.1, and now it's just a matter of finishing pre-production and dialogue. Then, it's rendering, compiling, and post-production.
To tease a little bit of what I'm working on, the next short story will feature a splash of love in a world of violence. The character standing in the center of the plot will be featured in the last art I post here before 4.0.1. If you've finished Chapter 4, it won't be hard to guess who it is.
I still have to fix those memory leaks, finish the cool gallery system I am DYING to show you guys and rework a few things before 4.0.1 is ready. These things tend to be boring though so I'll finish up the playable stuff first so these few small things are the only thing standing between me and that sweet Steam release money. Yup, I'll be starting the wishlist campaign for Mad World on Steam after 4.0.1 drops but more on that later.
Eyes peeled. The next few artworks are gonna be saucy.
