DevLog Update (with tentative release date) (Patreon)

sup.

Ok, so finally some good news on where things are at. This DevLog is probably worded a bit more optimistic because I'm finally getting some place so I wanted to poke my head back above ground and do a shout out where we are with things before I burrow back down into the abyss again. 

So here we go...

Writing

So I'm pleased to announce that the rough draft writing for v0.18 was finished last night. While I consider it to still be pretty rough, at least I have the bones for things done. I have a hard time doing images in advance before I get the actual writing done. The way things have been working lately, I have been doing writing and then CGs and just switching back and forth. This allows me to stockpile pics to render in the background while I'm doing the writing so that there's never really any downtime when the game isn't being worked on. 

So length of this update is pretty big. We're looking at another chapter about as long as the last update. Current coding length is around 3,600 lines so expect some time to go through this one--about the same as the previous one. 

At this point, I want to officially state that v0.18 is now bootable. Which means, there's enough code and stuff done to where Renpy will let me actually start to test and play through the update. This is always a painful and tedious process because of spelling errors, lost pictures, or mistypes that make it impossible to find images. So basically my first read through of an update usually takes several days to work things out and eliminate bugs enough that I can actually start to refine the writing and concentrate on what's happening.

So the next steps is making the update working enough to concentrate on things and really start to narrow down the emotions in this one. That usually means several read throughs after the bugs are fixed.

CGs

One problem that I've run into (and some of you may have spotted this in the past) is Braden's hair. There's spots in the game where Braden's hair looks a bit patchy and bald on the sides above his ears. For shots behind him, it's really noticeable on the back of his head. Normally, when I get a ton of pics done, I use a batch program that allows me to just queue them up and the computer will render then automatically load the next and render--I don't have to be present to do that at all. It works great when I'm asleep. However, I've run into problems with shots with Braden in it because every pic I render, deflates Braden's hair and makes it bald on the sides. The fix that I've found is that I have to manually load these up. So basically I have to run back to the computer every 2-3 hours to open the next pic and click render on all pics that involve Braden. I haven't had time to find a fix for this yet but I may do it after the update launches because it's hella annoying and slows me down. But right now I'm just manually loading all those. Good news is that I found a fix from earlier to reduce my render time on pics so I don't have to deal with any more 12 hours per pic problems again for right now (that shit was rough). 

Current pic count is 470 with several more still in the queue. The beach update was just shy of 500 so you can expect about the same with v0.18. Again, changes for this update are going to include better lighting and more detailed shots with more characters in one shot. This was a boring part in the beginning of the game where there was only one or two characters in each shot. I'm still trying to rectify that but anything else I had, slows down the process. This update has a ton of shots with multiple characters in one scene to really drive the story home so that partially explains the delay here. 

What's Left?

So even though the writing is done and the CGs are mostly done, there's still a ton of post production shit that we gotta cross off the list. This is where I rely on my friends and fellow devs to help me out. They're the magicians when it comes to movies, effects, or fixing shit I fucked up with the pics. I have a list right now of shit we still gotta do but at least I can work on editing things while they're going through and working on the other stuff. We have a few slideshows in this update as well as some more moving shots like you saw with the rain in the last update. Just shit like that they gotta help me with still.

What to Expect

I know it's been a long time since we had an update and I've tried to be transparent about what all has been going on. The biggest concern here for me is was it worth the wait. That's always hard to answer because I'm probably the toughest critic of this out there. I always freak out about how long it takes to make an update. However, I think visually, we're looking at a step up for this update. This one looks really pretty, guys. It's not perfect but it's noticeably better than even the beach update. If you're in the $5 tier, you've already seen a few shots of what to expect there. I have yet to actually test the update but given that the game is bootable at this point, I should have an idea of how things really look in a few days or so. It's always terrifying to see if things look the way in game that I wanted things too when it's all put together. 

But overall, I wanted to try and give you a bit of an idea of what to expect from this one. 1) length. Hopefully, this one will feel as long as the last one--however, it wont have as many changes of venue as the last one did. We're looking at around 6 fairly lengthy scenes in this one. 2) Hella character development. This one is going to answer a few questions for you guys and go into some more background than we've had access to in the past. Hopefully, this will bolster more of the characters as we move forward. Given how the last one ended, there's a pretty big impact to everyone so we'll see that play out on a macro level. 3) Tons of setup. This sorta piggybacks off the character development. But I'm gonna have a hard time making this update as good or better than the last one. The last update has some amazing moments in it and the stylized way they were done is something that I'm really proud of. We're not going to get as much stylized stuff in this one but given that things are gearing up for the end, this update is very much setup and foundation for things while hopefully providing some context to a few things from the past. 4) All the Feels. The last update ended with a cliffhanger and we want to bring things back to basics a bit to catch our breath before shit heats back up again. This means a lot of dialogue and hopefully some really emotional moments for these guys in the wake of the dorm fire. However, I'm also going to say that this one has a weird mix of the typical humor you may have noticed from the previous ones that hopefully balances that one out. So expect it to just go up and down with emotions like usual but not quite as intense as the last one.

Release Date

I'm always careful about release dates because I hate postponing them or not meeting deadlines. But I'm going to tentatively say that I feel fairly confident that we're going to get this one out during the month of July. Not sure when that's going to be but I'm really shooting for that right now. I'll definitely keep you posted about it. You can also follow my Twitter for up-to-date rants about where I'm at. I've gotten used to just dropping quick updates on there about where things are. However, the DevLog here is going to have the most detailed information (mostly because Twitter only lets you use like 4 characters in a fucking tweet and I ramble on forever).

Ok, imma shut up now and get back to reading

-A