Update on development, July 2024 (Patreon)

Hi folks!

I wanted to update you on how the development is going, what's new and what we have in plans for the current month. I've written a few of these posts in the past, but I want to post these more regularly, at least once per month and publicly. The last month saw the release of a preview update for Bjørn, written by Keo, and later a full update for Jørgen, written by Branny, which I imagine coud be confusing, so I want to address that as well.

So, firstly! The upcoming update to be released this month is v0.41 with new content for Bjørn and Torulf: Snouts routes. It's the one I started to work on last month and of which a preview was released in the second half of June. I hoped to finish it before the end of the month, but as I kept writing, the update grew to be bigger than I initially estimated. For Bjørn, instead of finishing where the rest of the Day 4 updates did, it ends long into the evening and I needed some extra time for writing. I'm pretty proud of the result! The Torulf's part of the update is the outstanding work from v0.39, for the last out of thre paths on his route. Once I'm done with it, likely around the middle of this month, I'll release both together as v0.41 - Bjørn & Torulf.

In the meanwhile, Branny is working on the next update for Lake, happening in Day 4, without a set deadline. The next update I (Keo) will be working on is for Rune, scheduled to release near the end of August, with a preview update planned for earlier. I'm super stoked for both!

In other news, the current phase of reworks by Haku is now finished! All the sprites and illustrations we wanted to redraw are done and will be included in v0.40. Now I'll pester Haku for some small changes to sprites where needed, for example slight retouches to expressions, but these will be mostly cosmetic changes. The last round of redraws include the following illustrations:
- Arvo and Bjørn at the terrace, Day 1
- Arvo with Bjørn in bed, Day 2
- Arvo and Lake watching the moon, Day 1
- Lake in the sauna, Day 1

I've seen many questions regarding merch lately. We're already after talks with a company you might know and our merch is coming! Pins, as the first merch to be made, are currently in a pre-production phase. I hope I'll have more news regarding them soon, but for now we're waiting for news ourselves 🙏

And some important info regarding public updates: I've always made new builds for public updates so that they could feature the newest assets and fixes implemented between the Patreon update and the public release, but it was a lengthy and tiring process that required writing two separate set of devlogs and posts. Starting with v0.41, the builds made from the same codebase on the same day will be released in Patreon and, a month later, public updates, allowing me to save a lot of time that I can use on writing instead.

And that's all! I hope to come back with a finished update to you soon.
- Keo