Development Update (Patreon)

Hi guys,

Hopefully, everyone has now had a chance to play the latest update and I hope you all enjoyed it. Just in case people are still playing through, I will avoid any spoilers.

When I started making version 0.9, I set out a list of goals to bring the game into Chapter 2. Now would be a good time to take another look at that list and see what’s left. I’ve marked completed goals in green, partially completed goals in yellow and incomplete ones in blue.

Goals for Chapter 2:

So I got a lot of those things done but there is still a lot left to do. So for the next version (0.10), I will be aiming to finish off this list. Highest on the list still to be done would be the sports coaching events. So that's a continuation of the football storyline, new volleyball events and more swimming events. That's probably a whole update worth of work in itself. We've also got the twins' storyline to start off, but that works out nicely because I was planning to have them caught misbehaving during sports rather than in the classroom.

The cafeteria is also high on the list and I hope to include that. Although, I should really focus on fleshing out some of the existing areas which are still bare (like the lake and the pool) before I spend too much time on the cafeteria. I've also done a lot of set up for our new student antagonist, Zoe, so she definitely needs to make her appearance as well. Raising Cassandra to level 5 and Amy and Debbie to level 7 might be another whole updates-worth of work on its own but I'll see if I can't find some time for those three. Especially Cassandra as she’s still stuck at level 2.

Now, I did say that I’d like to do a smaller quick-turnaround update for around Christmas. However, I'd like to complete as many of the remaining items on the list as I can, so I think it makes more sense to do another big update. It took me five months to make version 0.9, however, nearly a month was spent on the new UI, and I spent over a month writing and planning. This time I've got enough material written that I can get straight down to making scenes. So, in theory, I should be able to produce a similar-sized update in about three months. Meaning we are probably looking at late February for version 0.10. Although, I won’t be giving an exact date until closer to the time.

Looking further into the future, my long term plans are as follows. First, I need to finish working through the list above. Then I will take a poll on the order in which the new student storylines (Priti, Alice, Faye, Liz and the Twins) will be fleshed out. With each of these girls getting an update mostly to themselves. Then we'll have a big showdown with Zoe and that will mark the end of Chapter 2. Now obviously that's a vast amount of work that will keep me busy for a long time. Hopefully, it gives you a rough idea of where I am going with all of this and what to expect over the coming year or so.

In more general news it's been a very good month for our Patreon campaign and we recently passed the 2000 patrons mark for the first time, greatly exceeding my expectations for this year. It’s very satisfying to see all our hard work pay off and I’d just like to say a big thank you to all our patrons, old and new, for giving us the opportunity to make this game into something special. With a bigger budget, I am looking at ways to expand our team and increase production speed. I’ve had lots of offers to help with the writing, however, that’s something I’d like to maintain tight control over myself. The major bottleneck for production speed has always been creating the renders and animations, so I am currently looking for aspiring artists experienced with the Playhome Studio software (which is very similar to Honey Select Studio Neo), with a working knowledge of the image-based-lighting, scene-save-state and advanced-bone-modifier mods. Please note, I am not looking to teach anyone these things, the software takes hundreds of hours of practice to get any good at. I am looking for experienced candidates only.

Altos