Development Update #4 (September) (Patreon)

[Images in the gallery will be better to view vs viewing them within the post.]

Let's kick off the end of this month with one more dev update! There's a bit of spoilers packed in here for those of you who might be newer to following the project. Some information is redacted to keep some surprises about these two major scenes feeling fresh upon playing through the new content.

Before we dive into that, let's look at our rough progress currently!

-Final editing pass. 80% --> 100% done.
-Engine transfer. 60-65 --> 75-80% done.
-New assets added/functioning correctly. 100% done.
-New feature/systems testing. 60% --> 75% done.
-General testing pass. 25% --> 50% done.
-Release.

We've finished up editing completely! The engine transfer of the new content is just about finished and thankfully our main feature/systems testing is roughly in the same spot, so we should see these two things being finished around the same time! I suspect another week, but two weeks as a fail safe, but I doubt it'd be needed.

I've been doing the general testing of content and providing feedback to polish up each scene as we try to get the last bit of content into the game, that way it just saves us a day or two at the end. (Which means quicker release date overall.)

I do want to express my apologies, in our last dev update. I mentioned that our programmer was dealing with some stuff and that's why there wasn't any progress between the end of August into mid September. >.< That threw things off a bit, otherwise we'd be looking at having this content ready days before this post in September..

Despite this, I do hope everyone understands. We're still making progress and the finish line is within sight! But enough of my rambling here, I'm about to dive into some slight spoiler stuff about Episode 5's two big scenes that introduce two characters who we might've got a brief glance at in Episode 4. :P 

Okay, no turning back from here forward! Remember not all of these two scenes are spoiled here below, we're keeping some information a secret for in-game surprises. 

For a very quick recap, Episode 5 begins with our first scene that involves Joey and Nathan. Joey appears very eager and after a bit of comedy suspense, he reveals why he's so eager this morning. It's because, the guys were given the green light to officially join a club! The question remains, what club will Brandon join? Will his buddies wish to join the same club or will they have other intentions?

Joey is a bit too excited about the idea, letting it get to both of his heads. So, Brandon and Nathan have to get their buddy to chill out before he possibly gets them expelled from the school, knowing how extreme Joey gets about girls with very little filter.

Brandon suggests the guys could check out the gaming club first, since he was already personally invited to check it out. Nathan brings up another option though, having talked with Zoey the other day after the rooftop happenings. He was curious about that girl who delivered a package to Zoey as it happened so quickly. He learnt that her name is Lola and she's the leader of the cosplay club.

A bit after this, Joey get a bit too riled up again and takes off, which leads us into the guys catching up to him and calming him down as they quietly enter the cosplay club.

Scene 2 introduces us to the character Lola (pictured left) officially! We get a brief glimpse of her early in Episode 4, but not much is spilled about who she is, what she does and what kind of girl she is. 

The guys quietly enter the room, noticing how cluttered the space is and taking notice that no one seems to be there. They're about to leave when suddenly a voice and shuffling comes from behind a clothes changing divider near the corner of the room, begging them to hold on a minute. It isn't long before we see a Lola dressed completely from head to toe in a pretty convincing Sailor Luna cosplay, almost confusing the guys at first because they weren't sure if it was the same girl at first.

She quickly hurries over to the guys to introduce herself, mentioning that she's been wanting to meet them officially since they've first arrived at the school, but she's just been so behind on getting orders out to other students lately, including the other day when she saw Brandon and Nathan on the roof.

The group begins to chat, getting a better idea of what it is Lola does and learning that for some reason, she's allowed to run a club all by herself, despite the club rules stating each club must have 3 people or more to be official. She doesn't quite go into detail as to why she's allowed special privilege, instead deciding to change the subject and explain that she takes custom orders from students. Not only does she create cosplay outfits, but her main thing is creating clothes for students for credits (school's currency).

Along their conversation, it leads into Joey pointing out her cosplay outfit she has on and Lola begins to show just what kind of girl she really is. She loves to be a flirt, teasing guys and girls without any filter for what she's thinking or wants. It's even a bit too much for what Joey was expecting as he's so used to girls shying away from this behavior around him.

She takes notice of their blushing faces and laughs about it, but even though Joey might have a thing for her from the looks of it as their conversation continues. It would seem she has her sights set on Brandon, even to the point of making him feel awkward since he isn't used to this kind of behavior from a girl and being put in the spotlight.

Events lead Nathan and Joey to give Brandon some much needed alone time with Lola, as a joke, leaving him behind as Lola is trying to get Brandon to become her new model. He manages to wiggle his way free though and rushes out of the room, conflicted with what just happened as he catches up with the guys. They decide to go hide out in the gaming club for a while to lay low from Lola.

Scene 3 introduces us to the character Bridget (pictured right) officially! We did technically see her at the end of Episode 4, but much of the spotlight went to Miki and Erika carrying the scene, leaving much to be desired with finding out more about Bridget.

When the guys arrive, Bridget welcomes Brandon and is introduced to his two buddies who realize that Bridget is actually the streamer Bridgybear. After the initial shock, she invites them to join her in playing some games together as she asks if they're interested in possibly joining the club.

She goes on to explain that she isn't the leader of the club, that'd be Sadie. But the other members are busy with other tasks and wouldn't be showing up to the club a bit later in the day, since a lot of them like to unwind later in the night while gaming.

We're soon introduced to learning more about Bridget's unique chunnibyo side, finding out that she actually believes to have special powers that help her game better and these powers sometimes help outside of gaming, but Brandon and the guys aren't too convinced, mainly Brandon who has first witnessed her "powers" in action. Yet, he has to wonder if maybe she really is good at gaming despite all of this.

The guys join her in playing a fighting game together and Bridgybear shares her activated, unleashed powers. But after a while of gaming together, Nathan and Joey notice they've spent enough time there to avoid Lola and decide to head off on their continuous adventure of discovering other clubs, asking Brandon if he's coming along.

Brandon decides to stay behind and play a bit more games with Bridget though, wanting to learn a bit more about the famous streamer he once had a crush on and isn't quite sure if he still feels the same as he once did..

Whew.. ^^" Okay, that's enough of my rambling here.. I wanted to originally share the scripts for these scenes, but there's a lot of redacted information to the point where upon trying to read through it. I noticed how awkward it was and so I wanted to at least share what these two scenes are like here, but there's still plenty untold to discover in-game for these. :P

In total Episode 5 has 10 scenes, with Lola and Bridget's scenes being the biggest ones, but don't worry! Your favorite characters from past episodes are part of other clubs and I don't think it'd be in character for Brandon to avoid checking in on the others.

Our news post for October will be put out sometime between October 2nd to the 4th. I'm hoping with where we sit on our progress chart at the start of this post, we'll be announcing our official release date in the news post. I just want to give a few more days to see how the programmer comes along with everything that remains and be 200% sure the content is ready despite anything else that could pop up between the set date. ^^