Mid Month Update (Patreon)

Hope this letter finds you well. 

I write to you on day 420 of this cold, desolate, empty isolation. 

I left the house today. 

Showed the Costco delivery chick my ID so she could leave the booze at the door. 

Also hung up lights across my backyard for when I can socialize once again.

But it's okay! Because I'm a happy introvert that can stay in the house for a week straight and still manage to entertain myself.

Now, you might ask, "with all this extra free time on your hands, is the next update ready yet?"

To which I answer... nope!

After spending the first week of the month polishing up Episode 8 by adding a few animations and going back to fix things, I thought to myself, hey! I finally have time to go back and smooth out the abandoned paths! 

Like when you ignore Grace in the first four episodes but she still thinks you put it up her butt in Episode Five.

Originally, the story let players skip scenes with Grace, Laura or Jenn. This was to make it easier on players replaying the game that didn't want the repetition, as well as the occasional cry of "hey! I didn't want to hook up with all of the girls but you made me!"

I didn't fully develop the paths because entire episodes centered around the girls and if you skipped Laura's storyline, for example, you would be a bit annoyed when update six only lasted five minutes.

But now the game is large enough that if you skipped any of those three girls you would still get substantial game play.

I have been hesitant to go back and try to work on this because I was afraid of breaking the game. You know when you start an update and find all your saves no longer work? I hate it.

But I believe I have learned enough to avoid breaking it and started going back. Creating dialogue, matching paths, fixing errors.

For example, a couple people pointed out that if you didn't invite Jenn into the pool party in Episode 7 she still shows up Episode 8. What is she, a creepy stalker? Nope! Well, maybe.

How to fix this oversight without spending another two weeks creating all new renders, considering Jenn and her friends are in the majority of the background in Episode 8?

Now the MC invites her regardless of who he spent the night with on Friday. What's his motivation? Trying to smooth things out between Jenn and Laura. 

Aha! Two weeks saved!

Uh oh, you are thinking to yourself at this point. 

Is this leading to an announcement for two months in delayed updates?

Nope!

I've still been writing for the next update, but I discovered something else. 

As I've stated before, I want this game to end well.

I've played too many games where you get right to the good stuff and the game just... ends. You get a few sentences summarizing the rest of your character's life together and a logo.

You guys deserve more! The entire point of a visual novel is, in my opinion, to have lots of options on where to take the characters. 

I have an outline for something like twenty different possible endings, and I hope to have the majority of them well thought out and detailed. Some will overlap, especially between individual endings and group ones.

This episode will be the first to include an optional ending, and I had a lot of fun with it. And it took... about a week.

Well shit.

Don't get me wrong, Hypnosis is not in it's final episodes. 

I would guess we are around the halfway point. But the possible endings will start to branch off from here, with the main storyline being where you try to end up with as many of the girls as you can.

But from now on, if each episode has alternate endings and storylines going on at the same time, on top of the multiple renders that are going to start happening with all the options for boob size, possibility of impregnation and whatnot, the updates are going to be increasingly harder to make and take longer.

Woo, quarantine.

That being said, I still plan on coming out with an update at the end of the month. 

I'll do my best to make it as packed full of all the good shit I can while keeping it fun and engaging with just the right amount of WTF sprinkled in.

However, we might not be seeing a full episode this month.  I expect the amount of content will be the same as you are used to if you include the alternate ending, but I want to put out what I feel is a continued increase in quality with the visuals, writing and gameplay while still keeping up with frequent updates.

I've had a blast making the game, and I really appreciate all of your support.

TLDR:

Hope to have the next update out by the end of the month.

Thanks guys!