Biweekly update #47 (Patreon)
Content
Game progress:
- Coded James' chapters 19 and 20
Script progress:
- James' chapters 21 and 22 have been written
- Gray's chapter 7 was written
Art progress:
- Completed the forest background
- Completed the basement background
- Completed the bedroom background
- Completed James' supersuit
- ... And many variations of James' outfits
- Completed James' 6th
- Sketched Nicky's design
Dating system
After thinking long and hard on this, I will be removing the dating system from the game and will not work on further locations, or add any other guys.
Due to the low amount of feedback I've gotten on this system, and how players professed they were more interested in seeing side stories instead, I weighed my options. It was too much work and effort to create even a single character to date, and it is not worth my time when player interest is low.
I also realize it was simply the wrong genre; people play Tailor Tales for the stories, and maybe the clothes. A dating simulation is cute, but doesn't hit the current target audience. This is why I'm removing it from the game in September's update.
The system that my programmer and I created however, can always be used for something else in the future. I like to think we can always re-use it at some point, so it wasn't a complete waste.
Approaching James' ending
While players are currently only on chapter 16 - I am already writing chapter 23. As you all know, chapter 25 is where the route splits. The end of a route is always a stressful time for me because while the player will only be playing a single chapter, for me, it is two chapters in reality.
Chapter 26 has a passionate and innocent version, they are completely different, much like with chapter 27. So the player will only experience a single version (depending on the route ending they're on), but for me - I still have to create two chapters.
Because of this, I want to warn players now, usually I can release two chapters a month, but starting with chapter 25, that will change. So far, this is (roughly) the release schedule:
August: chapters 17 & 18
September: chapters 19 & 20
October: chapters 21 & 22
November: chapters 23 & 24
December: chapter 25 (splits halfway through, hence why it is longer than most chapters)
January: chapter 26
February: chapter 27
March: chapter 28 (+Gray's first chapter)
With Caine's route last year I was able to release chapters 26 & 27 in the same month. However, Caine's route is much shorter than James. Caine's word count for each chapter averages 3.6k words. James' word count averages 8k words, that's twice as much.
Basically, James' route is a beast, hence why it would take me longer to release chapters. Not to mention the amount of art that I need to create for it.
I hope you'll bear with me! Endings are stressful for me, but I will do my best and hopefully wrap up James' route in a satisfactory way.