Last sneak peek before release. (Patreon)

Hello everyone. 

July's almost done and I still haven't posted that update. I did say it should come in 2 weeks, that was 4 weeks ago. In short: Sorry for the delay but it should/will come out in August. More on my poor time management below....

The main points of this post are:

1. I've done most renders. Not the amount of renders I initially planned, but enough that you can play start to finish along certain paths. This is an abridged version. For instance, there are a lot of stuff in the animation portion that I decided will have to be still images for now. I am currently rendering these as of this post. A big part of my miscalculation of the eta I posted, apart from taking some breaks to prevent burn out, is how much I underestimate how many days some parts will need, sometimes I render out stuff, don't feel like it's up to standards and then redo it again. This balloons a lot of portions of the work from 1 day to 3. A lot of scenes ended up like this, where I thought I'd be able to complete it in 3-4 days but ended up doing an entire week. When I said I'd take 2 weeks to finish it, I still had 2 scenes to make, apart from that unfinished animation. It turned out taking longer than that. SO I do apologize when I do that, promise delivering something, then being very late. I'm reviewing how bad that is, looking at the times I announce something, then the time the stuff actually gets rendered, I feel like I announce dates way too early, at the same time being overconfident about how much work they take.

2. Now I'm hooking everything up with renpy. This is straightforward but does still take time. I'll comb through all the renders, names, etc. THen encode them into the scenes, checking for names, etc. Then put proper transitions. Not everything I rendered are full screen CGs, there are some stuff in that map-style sort of RPG I hinted at, and there will be 3 of those where you get to explore an overworld kind of map, and click around. I've also made a quest system, just a simple screen with list of quests with descriptions, hints, status, etc.(see video) I initially named it "Threads" because they aren't all quests, some are simply threads in the story you follow through. I have this already done with the correct names, and pictures, and it works, it updates for each checkpoint of said thread, giving new hints/new descriptions, etc. I replaced it with placeholders for this recording so no spoilers. Every little thing that might need some hints to unlock that will branch out into some follow-up lore, I'll put a small "thread" of it in here, and of course the Major story arcs will also have corresponding threads. (Main purpose was to give hints about a very easy to miss side quest plus giving tips for a few people who are asking for some guide. I might still do a guide at some point.)

3. What you'll get is the main path from start of chapter to finish. There are a few branches that will not be selectable. As mentioned before, those will be added in the next patch which will complete the update. This is basically a beta test.

4. Subscriptions will resume for this month. I wanted to pause it again so I could focus, but I'm certain about releasing it for real this month. I'll try not to give too specific an eta, but two weeks is too long for what I have left to do. So I'll be back before then with the update. If you, for any reason, decide to unsubscribe for now, make sure you get the links to the folders so you get the content when I place those in them. It should be the same links I posted before, I haven't changed those. For those that are sticking with me, my absolute gratitude. I've yet to implement a list of credits in-game, I'll likely do that before this update is released to the public. 

5. The last batch of sneak peek images: just 4 this time, see above

2 new faces, one of whom is also in the scene teased as a merman/shark, don't know what it's called but he's kind of a bully. The guy with glasses is a library aide(there are libraries in prisons) who might be able to help you with the single(but long) side quest I placed in this update that involves a puzzle. Not much more planned for these guys.

6. On the patch after this....

You'll encounter a few "WIP" notes in this one, and those will be addressed in the patch after. That includes the complete animation, instead of some parts being still images, along with some of the side quests. SPoiler: There are classes and hangouts, both which can be done by locating them on a map; and there are other things on the map as well that could be interacted with. These weren't implemented here to give way for the main storyline.

VIDEO 

I've been experimenting with the parallax effect that's on the main menu, and whether it could be implemeneted in all of the scenes...I've been looking for a way to do this with depth maps since forever but this is a cleaner implementation. If only I was able to test it sooner, I would have rendered the entire chapter with this in mind(it requires rendering shots in different layers instead of a single picture, and a bit bigger to accomodate for the movement)...It's quite beautiful and pairs well with the speech bubbles in the new renpy. Unfortunately, I haven't planned for that(the scene in the example is the only scene I've renderred in separate layers.) so you won't be seeing it in this chapter but definitely in upcoming ones. Rendering in separate layers in blender is actually faster, it means I could reuse backgrounds for similar shots if its only the mc moving, and also use that background across all 3 mcs, it means an overall smaller file size while also making it capable of doing the parallax thingy you're seeing in the example....again see the video, it's quite a different presentation of the VN altogether. And the code makes it easily adjustable how much movement each element does.

Once again, thank you everyone for your support. I'll be back here really really soon.