January Dev Update #1 (Special) (Patreon)

I'd like to begin this dev update post with saying that I'm sorry for the lack of posts this month. ^^" I had known that after the holiday season, it'd be rough for Patreon posts this month while our artists are picking up things again this month.

This post won't be exactly like previous dev updates, a real dev update is coming in a few days. This is mainly to address what's going on with stuff mainly, since there's a ton to cover. I've hinted at some stuff within the discord channels recently, so that's going to be brought up here in this post as well for personal stuff and try to be a bit more clear on the development history along the way.

I should begin by saying that v0.20 is still within the ballpark of being ready before we head into February. Take that with a grain of salt or a cup of salt if needed, there's no offense in doing so. We're working through the scenes for editing and making sure they're working as intended within the engine as we progress through the major amount of scenes for episode 5's content.

Let's begin there...

-Episode 5 Development History-

Episode 5 has had some issues along the way since last year, some issues related to it being when we had our original programmer (Artie) step down due to some personal reasons at the time. We had troubles with getting the, at the time "new" programmer to be on the same page when it comes to coding the game. (I've talked about this looong ago, but I'll keep it brief.)

The "new" programmer at the time wasn't replaced until early/mid Summer roughly, when Artie reached out to join us again. While Artie was gone, this other programmer was difficult to work with. I'd give them a list of what is needed/expected to be done and I'd be forgiving on the turnaround time as they were just starting to learn about our project. (Trying to give them the benefit of the doubt and ease them into things.)

The behind the scenes process during this made me feel as if I was stepping in to do 50-60% of their workload unintentionally? Or intentionally.. When they would add a new scene into the game, even with any guidance I provided for sprite positions and setting up certain scenes. I'd still end up with receiving multiple playtest builds that felt as if they didn't even do a simple viewing of their own work before sending it over to me.

(We originally agreed that I don't mind playtesting the builds, but this was as if someone just tossed the code in and didn't even preview their own work within the engine viewer to see if there's any simple visual issues to fix before sending it over to me.) I gave them the benefit of the doubt for a little too much longer than I should've. My hope was that they were still getting used to how MA's engine side coding is to be setup and handle certain tasks, so that after getting the game up to HD quality. They'd be up to speed on how things work and we could move into episode 5 content without as many issues or playtesting needed.

Well.. That didn't prove to be looking well when I was sent the first playtest, followed by another and it was still consisting of having to write out a exact list of each moment a issue/bug shows up and hope that in the following playtest build.. It'd be fixed and not have to be brought up again awkwardly.

In the end, I had to let them go because I wasn't seeing it working out long term and not long after that, we had Artie join us again.

We'd begin preparing episode 5 and actually around this time, I was looking over the script for the episode and realized I wasn't exactly happy with the results for how it was being setup. A mix of writing and some foundation for gameplay, since episodes prior were starting to move away from offering any real gameplay through choices at all.

So, I actually had some rewriting of the script being tackled at this time and looking over previous events in the game to ensure things were lining up the right way for the game as a whole. (Hence things being slow still around that time.)

While working on this, it wouldn't be much longer before I came down with covid for the first time and then about a month apart. I'd come down with covid a 2nd time. (I'm that unlucky with getting sick..) By this point I believe it was around August and I was also dealing with some stress beyond that or the project, more personal stuff taking place.

Because of that.. I gave it some thought while I was sick and decided that I'd put my two weeks notice in for my day job in order to pursue college courses full-time in place of working a job. I had to figure out how this would work, since I live with my older Brother and his gf, so I cover some bills.. But they decided on allowing me to stay, long as I can offer some time out of my days towards picking up the house chores and walking our dogs, etc.

During that time, it took a bit of my focus away from MA in order to sort out my personal stuff. Once that had been taken care of, I tried to get back into the swing of MA work again after getting my weekly schedule figured out.

I went back to where I had left off with the writing scripts for the content and what little had been rewritten before then. I began going through and trying to fix up the writing content, making sure it was the final draft of what will be seen in-game. This is very important because while we could just toss out a first draft and do all the effort of putting it in the engine.. We'd cause other issues with having to later return back to said content and redo things that weren't ideal.

Our biggest issue with development for when we swapped to Ren'py is honestly that the common route of MA (Episodes 1-5) are each around 15,000-20,000 word count. It's a lot of writing and more than expected to fit within a monthly schedule or so, considering I'm not writing daily for massive amounts of hours as I'm balancing my personal life/troubles too.

I first noticed when working on episode 4, that this was a bit more than we could realistically push out within the average time frame of 30-35 days. In comparison to other ab/dl games pushing out new updates monthly, of which consisted of much less content in the way of word counts. That might not be super important in those other game projects though, but for MA the story that hasn't been seen yet has a bit of layers going on for it. That's part of the experience with MA, is the story being told along the way having impacts.

So.. The episodes expected for release/content are becoming too big for the time frame of 30-35 days. This isn't surprising probably to some.. But the goal with finishing episode 5's content is that, once the game is split into the route episodes.. These are laid out in a more suitable manner in order to deliver content every month without being overburdened.

(This is because each route episode is roughly around 6,000-8,000 word count and focusing on a single character mainly. Our goal is to release 2-3 of these route episodes per month as we continue development, but even if we fall behind one a route episode.. We can still release what is done for the other route episodes without any issue.) This is different when compared to say episode 5, which is seen as one big piece of content that goes together as a package deal.)

Anyways... I hope that helps explain things with the development side of things a bit more open and clearly. There's other factors that have affected my own progress being made on the project heading into the last quarter of 2022, that I'll mention below...

The main thing is that throughout all this troubles, we're making way with episode 5 content and on the path of having it kick off our new year of consistent updates to come.

-Personal Issues-

This is hard for me.. Because I don't like to share too much of my personal life online for good reasons, safety and other silly concerns that some might laugh at in current year.. ^^" I'll try my best without giving out too much.

Around October, maybe a little earlier. I was informed that my parents or rather one parent.. Wants to retire within the next 3-4 years. That has always been known to my Brother and I, who don't live with them, but still nearby and well.. We're lucky in the regard to say we're a close knit family thankfully. So.. I don't know if my mental troubles with this will click with everyone, but continuing onward...

Our dad has recently expressed that he wants to buy our grandparents small place down in Florida, sell the house here and move down there for good for retirement. This whole thing has come out of nowhere and has felt super sudden due to a number of factors... One being that he wants to do this by early 2024, a whole 2-3 years before he can fully retire.

He's talked things over with his job and has been told he could do some sort of work schedule that doesn't really make sense to me.. But for 2-3 years, he'd stay up here and work his job 5-6 days in a week and then be flown down to Florida for 1-2 days to enjoy his days off work down there, fly back for 5-6 days of work and repeat. I believe that's the offer, but if it isn't that.. Then it's something like working 2-3 weeks up here for a given month and then having a full week off to fly down.

To me this doesn't make any sense since 75-80% of his time would be still living up here for 2-3 years. Then while this is happening.. He expects our mom to live in the new place down in Florida without having family/friends down there. (Something our mom has expressed to me that she isn't fond of the idea, but feels trapped as our dad is stubborn once he sets a idea in his head to stick with it no matter what or how it affects anyone else.)

On top of that.. Our dad has been putting pressure on my Brother and his gf, along with myself to uproot and move down there in order to be close knit still. This of course is only furthering the awkwardness of the whole idea presented, because originally we had thought we'd have another 3-4 years to enjoy meeting up with our parents on weekends and do get together stuff before they fully retire. (Not to mention our own goals and life here as it stands.)

Our dad is so dead set on this whole idea, that he's bringing up the whole Florida plan any chance that he can to us and really trying to push us to uproot our own lives up here. It's awkward because I'm close with my parents and so I don't want to be that far away from them, but I can understand retirement goals and wishes.. It's just that I think our dad is being a bit too sudden and not so considering of anyone else's wishes.

There's a lot more to the whole situation and I don't want to get anymore personal with it.. But I hope that some can see how awkward this kind of situation can be for someone to consider. I've been trying not to worry about it and ignore the whole thing, but you can't help but be reminded and stuck in an awkward mental funk about these sort of things. There's a lot running through my head about all of this lately and it actually affected our plans for a "vacation".

(Originally we were going to fly down to Florida for a week, starting today and not return until next Saturday. This was my dad's idea to stay down at our grandparent's place down there and use the excuse of it being a vacation in order to organize his whole Florida moving plan and setting things up for 2024. This would include looking at other homes for sale in the area for my Brother/his gf and I, jumping to the conclusion that we're on-board with his own plan. >.< )

To wrap it up.. I decided to back out of the trip earlier this week, not only is there stuff to do for my college courses and MA tasks.. But I knew that the enjoyment of going down for a week wouldn't be exciting if the whole time we're down there, our dad is talking nonstop about his future plan and having to hear him go on about the whole thing for a week without rest.

Besides that and not to dive into even more personal issues.. But I've been dealing with a health related issue here for the past week and I don't think it's super serious right now and hopefully won't become serious.. But I have to see how things progress with that and get another checkup with my doctor by next week to see what action is needed further.

-Conclusion-

I don't want to use these as excuses for stuff related to MA development, because I'm sure many are tired of hearing about one thing or another. But I think it'd be lying to say some personal stuff doesn't affect it. That kind of just goes without saying.. It depends on what's all going on for someone personally, some stuff can be ignored or pushed to the side easier than other stuff.

My goal with explaining and mentioning everything here, isn't to turn it into a pity party for myself. I simply feel I owe it to many of you to explain a bit more behind the scenes, beyond development of certain things and try to show that our team of developers are real people with their own personal life mixed with good, bad, etc.

I just hope that with what's been shared today, it helps give more insight and perspective into everything a bit better. MA is a huuuge passion project for me and I'm thankful I'm even able to be this far along with this project, much in thanks to our supporters. Without the support, we really wouldn't be able to provide the same kind of game I've expected to share with the world.

With everything said.. We have some big announcements to share after we release v0.20 and head into February. I honestly feel like the big announcement for February will possibly blow some people away with the presentation of what's coming to MA for the route content forward. It's been something that many have been asking for in terms of gameplay that feels more rewarding and enjoyable, perhaps even more personal to each player.

I was hoping to share some more preview screenshots and possibly more video footage to show off some more of episode 5 content within this post.. But we'll be sharing that as a mini public post in the following days. I really wanted to share these details with everyone and I don't want to make this post any longer than it already is... >.<

Cross your fingers, cause we'll be doing bi-daily previews of how episode 5 is looking leading up to it's release! Again, the goal is before February!