DevLog Update (Patreon)

Hey all,

So back with another DevLog update on where things are at with v0.16. I'll begin this update with a massive apology for how long this update has taken. This started back with the piracy stuff and things just sorta got crazy for awhile. Between increases in the RL job and myriad family complications, having any free time to progress on the game was minimal. When I did sit down, I was so fatigued that I could barely write anything. Things didn't flow and the days just kept ticking away. I've always been concerned about the length it takes for updates and, while this one started off behind, it has definitely taken longer than forecast.

That being said, there is progress and there will be more progress. I've specifically taken vacation from my full-time job to finish this update so I'm optimistic things will be moving forward again quickly over the next week. However, I will catch you up to speed on where we're at right now before I'm able to isolate a bit and work on stuff. 

Writing

The writing is coming along. I finished scene 3 of 5 and am working on scene 4 with Blayke's help. I got stuck so I tagged my boo in. While it was fully outlined, I started to struggle with a few aspects of it and ran into a lot of obstacles with concentration, mostly because of added RL workload (prepping for the vacation days that began a couple days ago). Right now the main structure is done but it needs some serious reorganization imo so we'll be looking at that  over the coming days. I anticipate that once this hurdle is done, the rest of the update should flow pretty smoothly.

CGs

Current CG count is at 188 completed pics for this update. While a few of the leftover ones will be more complicated, I'm fairly optimistic that once the writing is done, these will progress quicker. For those in the $5 tier, you've seen a few teasers that will hopefully explain why some scenes have taken longer to render, but a lot of that was just experimental and trying to learn how to add new stuff. 

I'll also note that while the additions slowed things down exponentially, it was a learning experience and like anything else we've encountered, adjustments have been made and will continue to be made moving forward. Sadly, they wont speed us up much for this update but it should help in future ones. While our lack of overall experience never allows us to fully forecast obstacles, we have a pretty flexible group over here so I like to think we've learned from our mistakes. We'll have more on that later.

As with every update, we've tried to push the limits of the preceding update (using something new, adding things, fixing things, etc.) and overall just upping the quality as we try and figure out how to actually develop a game from scratch. This update was one of those updates where I initially had planned to try and take things easy visually and focus more heavily on bringing the writing together. I'll also admit that in past updates, the writing on the story very much relied on the scope of what I felt could be created visually. Thus, certain scenes were curbed to accommodate my juvenile understanding of Daz3D. However, this is the first update that has been written without even thinking how  to create shit. We're writing things and then trying to figure out how to make it later. It's something different and slower but it's also forced some new improvements and lessons that wouldn't have emerged without the risk. In reality, the scope of this update was daunting from a storytelling aspect already. V0.16 actually ended up being split because of the size of it once we started outlining things. Good news is that Chapter 8 will be longer than I originally thought. 

I'll also note that given the time this one has taken, I plan to not take much of a break before starting on v0.17 just to get back on schedule again. So while this one has taken awhile, things should even back out in the long run.

If you have questions, thoughts, etc. post em here. I'll hopefully have more news within a few days or later this week. 

One last thing, I may be on Discord less this week, just to focus more on the game so if I'm slow to reply to messages and stuff, that's why. Promise I'm not being a dick

-Aaryn