Status Update - 1-28-2024 (Streams, recolors, and cutscenes) (Patreon)

Hey again, everyone. So, first things first, HUGE apologies for the even longer delay between updates here, January has been off to a bit of a weird start for me. I've had to put a pause on my usual healthcare and therapy and such; since the new year started, our insurance deductible was reset, and all of our medical bills have skyrocketed because of it, so I just kinda can't afford it right now. I'm doing okay for the most part, so don't worry too much about me, I've just been a bit more sluggish starting the year off than I was hoping.

All that is to say, I don't have too much of an update for you today. I have been working, but not as much as I want to be, and it's all stuff I've talked about plenty in previous updates.

Me and Orex have been working together to make sure all of the Alicia recoloring stuff is in place, and as of now, most of Alicia's gameplay animations are done and recoloring properly. As a reminder, CGs won't be affected by recolors, only ingame sprites, but that includes H-scenes. They aren't done yet - replacing them is a lot more involved, since the enemy and Alicia sprites are usually together in one for H-scenes, and the recoloring shader needs them to be separate - but we do plan on having them in the update, so no need to worry.

Before we move on, here's a preview of one of the alt palettes I'm using for testing, which will most likely end up as one of the palettes included with the game:

Maybe we should do some polls to decide what kind of palettes to add? ;)

Aside from that, I've been working on updating cutscenes to use the new camera effects and zooms, and adding new functionality to my camera controls as needed. The ability to zoom in and move the camera really helps making cutscenes more interesting to look at, and I'm particularly excited about some more action-y scenes we have planned! I personally don't like it when metroidvanias have too many cutscenes interfering with exploration, so I try to be careful not to do too many, but I want to at least make sure the ones we have are worth watching.

Alright, that's all the major work I've done that's worth talking about. This may not be a very big update, but that's why I'm putting my foot down now, and I'm going to be dedicating myself to streaming several times a week again. I've been trying to get back into streaming for a while (as I'm sure you all know), but I keep backing out of it when the pre-stream anxiety kicks in. Sometimes the best way to fight a negative emotion is to face it head on though, and my most productive days were always the ones where I streamed; despite the anxiety I get when I haven't streamed in a while, once I'm back in the swing of it I've always enjoyed doing them, so I think getting back into them is the best move for me right now. That said, I'm on a SUPREMELY late schedule right now (it was 9 am when I wrote this just before going to bed lmao), so I need to shift my sleeping schedule a bit before I can start. I'm not entirely sure what day we'll start it up again, but it'll most likely be Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest, maaaaybe Monday if I'm able to shift my schedule quickly enough. I plan on starting at around 2-3 pm AKST, so keep an eye out if you're interested in watching us work!

Sorry again that the post is even later than usual - I can't guarantee every update will be good, but an extra late one like this won't ever happen again. I kept putting it off because I felt guilty about not having a better update, after making such a grand statement to start 2024 off, but that's just me running away from uncomfortable situations, which is a behavior I fall into way too often. I'm working on fixing it, though; even if I don't have much to update about, the absolute least I can do is continue updating everyone regularly, and so I shall.

Anyway, that's about it for me today. January felt like it disappeared in the blink of an eye, but it's only 1/12th of the year, so no sense in getting bent out of shape already - we'll just make sure February is better, one stream at a time. Thank you for taking the time to read, and I hope to see you at the streams!