Weekly Update! 3-31-19 (Data discs, "death" animation, misc) (Patreon)

Hey everybody! Time for another CP:E weekly dev update. Sorry this one is later in the day than usual, my schedule is all sorts of screwy lately and I've been waking up really late because of it.

To get the update started, we have the image up above, showcasing a mockup for the data disc menu. If you remember, data discs are a new feature we're adding in this update that'll be used for a number of things - rewatching one-time-only story CGs, reading lore/bestiary entries on enemies and plantlife, and more. I plan on having it be accessible from the pause menu rather than needing to go back to the camp to use it, though I'm not entirely sure yet where it should go in the menu. I'm thinking of having it be a button in the Status menu, but if you have any better ideas, feel free to let me know!

That's all the direct visual stuff I have to show off this update - like I mentioned recently, there's not a whole lot of visuals I can show off for the rest of this update cycle, as a lot of it is just retiling old rooms, making new ones, and adding in new features, like the data discs. Aside from that, though, this week I spent my time writing more stuff related to the mystery NPC I showed off a bit ago - I realized one of the things related to their story didn't really make sense in the grand scheme of things, so I had to take a step back and rewrite parts of it, but I think I'm happier with the direction it's going now. I also implemented the function of having Alicia auto-masturbate on "death" rather than just getting knocked out - I think I've mentioned it before here, but this change, along with others I have planned, will reinforce the idea that Alicia's "health" is more of a representation of her willpower to resist her desires, rather than her physical wellbeing, so when it runs out, she gives in to that lust. In addition to those things, I also started getting the new CGs implemented - one of them is nearly complete now, and the other still has a bit to go, but should be done in time for the release of this update.

I will say though that I'm growing increasingly uncertain if we'll make it in time for a mid-April release date; this update might end up getting delayed a bit, but I'll do my best to make sure it still gets released in April if we do have to delay it. I'm still in a bit of a funk to be honest, having a lot of trouble getting through it this time, BUT things have definitely been improving and I've been getting a lot more done over the past week or two. The rest of the team is working hard too, with Orexius still working on Lurker animations, Kuso and our actors plugging away at CGs, and Puffernutter working with me to finish up the Caves tileset rework. Speaking of the caves, thanks to the more dramatic changes we're making to that tileset, it's going to end up taking more of my time to rework the caves tiles than I had initially hoped - it'll result in the place looking MUCH nicer than before, but I'll probably have to hold off on really working on the Deep Soil and Catacombs areas much because of it. Right now the place looks like a mismatched mess and I really don't want to be releasing the update in that shape. Puffernutter has offered to try helping out with tiling rooms in-engine though, so we should be able to get it done quicker in the future if that works out.

Alrighty, that's enough outta me for this update. I still want to try and start streaming again soon, though at the moment the big thing stopping me there is my schedule being messed up, like I mentioned above. Once I get that fixed up I should hopefully be able to start regularly streaming development again, so I'll keep you updated on that. Thank you all so much for your support, and I'll see you in the next update!