Status update Episode 8 (Patreon)

For the better part of this week, I wrote code and performed quality assurance for the episode by playtesting and polishing art, code, and dialogue.

I have now added music and sound effects for most of the episode, and I still need a few more songs for specific scenes.

I started working on a big coding task that I have hinted about in the past, and today it's a good time to share some details on it.

Because the game is getting pretty big, and Ren'Py is getting pushed to its limits in some areas, I want to make a new binary for Season 3.

What this means is that after you have completed episode 8, and thus Season 2, you will save your game in a menu and continue your game using another .exe/.app file.

Making a new binary has the added benefit that the initial episodes for Season 3 will have a smaller download size, and you shouldn't have to redownload Season 1 and 2 every update.

If you're getting confused by this, think of this as the same game, only sliced into another part.

Season 1 and 2 will be one separate download. And Season 3 and onward will be another download.

From a developer's standpoint, there are some challenges with this task. My goals are to make this system simple to use for all of you, robust in transferring saves, and functional for both Steam and Patreon. While I'm at it, I also want to trim some fat stored in the save files.

I have both the knowledge and strategy to do all of this, but it will take more time to implement and test it thoroughly as the game has thousands of variables that I want to control and double-check. I have already made good progress on this during this week.

Next week I will continue writing the remaining scenes and pose more static renders.

Have a nice weekend

Dr PinkCake