CPE v0.48 plans + Weekly progress report (Patreon)

Hey everyone, hope your April has been going well so far! I've been taking a short break since v0.47's release to let my wrist recover some more; it's feeling better now, though it still has some occasional stiffness if I put too much strain on it. If it keeps being a problem too much longer I'll see a doctor to make sure everything's okay, but I don't think that'll be necessary.

In any case, now that I've taken a short break, it's time to detail what will be in v0.48!

Crisis Point: Extinction v0.48 plans

-Finish story outline, and finalize script rewrite up through the game's current content
-Work on new/altered cutscenes so they're ready to go when voice acting is ready
-Work more on tileset editor, hopefully finish

-Finish implementing new Hoverjets functionality
-Visible blaster stats
-Toggleable damage numbers
-Snipe Trigger unique visual
-Multiple save slots
-Setting up for localization
-"Achievements"
-Playthrough stats, mostly for fun (things like amount of sex had, gameplay time, enemies beaten, etc)
-HUD update
-Big Alicia recoloring
-More recolor palettes, unlocked via achievements

Like v0.47, this update is more focused around new and updated features rather than entirely new content; we'll be getting back to making brand new stuff as soon as the story rewrite is finished and we're able to pay for all the new voice acting, which should be soon! In the meantime though, let's go into the v0.48 plans in detail.

First up, the three things listed at the top: all of those are things I'm going to be doing while working on v0.48, but won't actually be IN the update for obvious reasons.

The story rewrite is pretty far along, with the outline being well past the currently-implemented story - but I still need to finish rewriting all of the cutscenes and dialogue leading up to that point, which I plan on finishing by the time v0.48 comes out. Then, it'll just be a matter of sending scripts off to our actors.

To go along with that, I'm going to finish preparing all of the edited cutscenes so that once the voice acting is ready, it'll be as simple as dropping in the lines and the new story will be all good to go.

Lastly in this category, more work on the tileset editor I was making; I put it down for a bit to focus on v0.47, but since we should hopefully be making NEW content again within the next few months, I want to get the tileset editor to a point where it's actually usable. That alone will save me tons of time when designing levels, so having it ready by the time we get to making more content is a big priority.

Next, the stuff that will actually make up the v0.48 update itself!

For starters, I plan on finishing the new Hoverjets functionality and implementing it, along with any necessary level design changes. I talked about it before so I won't go into detail here, but the TL;DR is that I think the current Hoverjets are just too powerful and make movement less interesting across the game. I'll post more about it when I'm actually working on it.

Then, to continue the blaster improvements we've been doing, we have a few things coming: first we're going to be improving the Blaster page in the menus to show a few stats for your current setups, like firing speed, range, and damage. It's basically just a "for fun" thing, but it'll help give you an idea of what blaster parts are good for what purpose. Then, as an extension of the visible blaster stats, I'll also be adding floating damage numbers (that can be toggled off) for when you deal damage to an enemy, to give you more info on exactly how much damage you're dealing. Lastly, the new Snipe Trigger will get its own unique visual design, like all of the other blasters got in v0.47.

Next up, I'll finally be implementing two major things that have been missing: multiple save slots, and localization support. Multiple save slots is self-explanatory, but when I say "localization support", what I mean is support for translations - NOT the translations themselves mind you, that's not really something we have the resources for at the moment. Basically, all of the ingame text is currently hard-coded into the game, which makes supporting multiple languages a nightmare. I've been laying the groundwork for this since v0.46, but essentially I'll be taking all of that hard-coded text, and moving it into external text files that the game will read from instead. This won't change anything for those of you who read English, and we won't have the resources to do any official translations of our own until near the end of development at least - BUT, the big thing here is that this change should finally make translation mods possible, so everyone who's ever offered to help with translating the game, your time is nigh!

Next, I want to add in a few "for fun" features: achievements (which will unlock things like new Alicia color schemes), and playthrough stats like playtime, how many H-scenes you've been in, how many times you died, etc. There's no practical purpose to any of it (unless there's achievements tied to some of them), but it's a fun feature that I've always liked seeing in games, so I figured now was a good time to add it! Just so you're aware, most of these stats are NOT being tracked currently - so when v0.48 comes out, if you're continuing from an old save, most of your stats will be blank to start.

We'll also be updating the ingame HUD (things like Alicia's healthbar and Force Shot ammo count). We've been meaning to update this since v0.46, when the screen size was increased and the UI was overhauled, but it kept getting pushed back for one reason or another; thankfully, we've finally narrowed down what we want it to look like now, so all that's left is to get the final assets and implement it.

Lastly, we'll of course be adding more recolor palettes for Alicia, and I also want to add in recolors for Big Alicia™ in the pause menu. This is a pretty minor thing really, but Big Alicia™ has more colors than the ingame Alicia sprites do, so the existing palettes aren't usable without some additional work, which is the only reason it wasn't in v0.47.

Like always, there will be some other additional stuff here and there, but that's all of the major stuff I have planned! It's not the beefiest update, but there are some features the game has been needing for a LONG time, and I think it'll be a perfect update to get back into the routine of consistent update releases. My #1 goal more than anything right now is to get v0.48 out in about 2 months, just like our old release schedule; 2022 and 2023 were really tough years for me, but because of that I feel more motivated than ever to make up for it, and turn 2024 into a great year for CPE!

Before the update ends, here's our daily updates from the last week:

Or more accurately, Orex's daily updates. I forgot to write anything for the v0.47 release work I did, and after that I was taking a break to rest my wrist as mentioned, so I didn't have anything in there this week :p

That's it for me today! Thanks for reading, and I hope you're looking forward to v0.48!