Fatsona:Breakout- Build v.0.5 and beyond! (Patreon)

Hey everyone! Got a quick little update for you all, but I got a lot to say this time around. 

Firstly, a massive thank you to everyone who's joined the Patreon recently, build v.0.4 brought an insane amount of new folks and I am so grateful for it. Thank you all for the tremendous support! In fact, this past month saw a major milestone for me and this page, and I can now confidently say that I can do this as my JOB now! It is such an honor, and it's only possible because of my patrons. Thank you all again, your support enables me to continue Fatsona development and keep producing art for everyone!

Build v.0.5

Looking to the future, I wanna go over what some of the "next steps" of development are for Fatsona: Breakout. Now, I am historically inaccurate with these. Build v.0.4 was originally Build v.0.31 and was only going to feature the mementos levels, but so much developed with it that I had to bump it up and it became one of the biggest things I've ever worked on. HOWEVER, I feel the need to sort of share where my mind is at so you can all get a general idea and look forward to what's to come for development.

I've decided not to increment builds by hundreths, since that allows each build to be more substantial in their own right. I am a solo developer, and it is quite laborious to build out the game frequently like that. Plus, I think my general workflow gets more accomplished when I keep my scope wide and not restricted to a hundreths increment. So naturally, this in turn means v.0.5 is the next build! Big number, right? I intend this build to be very massive and have it warrant "halfway point" status, with a focus on refinement and content population. Here's my current plans for this build, and though subject to change, this is what I plan to work on for v.0.5:

-All 65 Personas fully coded
-10-20 Personas with full render art
-All 80 character's Breakout Levels coded
-New Shop system
-5-10 New Items and old Items recoded
-Joker platform animations
-Bathyal Boss Battle
-Haru's full social event + weight gain

With all the groundwork and menus put in place by the builds prior, I feel it's naturally just the time to plop in a majority of the gameplay content. The sooner this all gets done, the sooner I can shift focus to entirely writing the game and adding the weight gain aspects to it, and then getting it out to everyone! 

Though this is my current objective for the next build, I'd like to also complete Haru's entire social event and get her weight gain all drawn up so I can have more framework for the rest of the social events going forward. Plus, who doesn't wanna see our sweet Haru chubbed up?

Though I can't give a release window for obvious reasons (SOLO DEVELOPER), I can say that I have a really good idea of what I want to accomplish here and it may happen faster than I realize. That is, of course, if I don't feature creep it to hell and back. Anyways, here's a grapple hook.

Development for the rest of 2022 and into 2023

I may be the guy that JUST said I don't want to make release dates for myself, but I do have 1 very arbitrary goal: get Haru, Ann, Futaba, and Makoto's social events done before 2022 ends, so, v.0.6 will probably be just that. Development is fluid, plans change, blah blah... I really wanna hit that goal and push things along to get there. Again, it is my goal to reach a point where I'm primarily focusing on the weight gain side of the game very soon, and I guess that would naturally start with the 4 Phantom thief girls getting all wrapped up. Expect that by the end of this year (hopefully!)

One thing I can say with more confidence is that this game will not be done within the year. Fatsona is a massive project with many, many moving parts and many, many fat ladies to draw up. Between real life, gameplay testing, me being a novice programmer, and plans changing- every bit of development always ends up with an ounce of unpredictability. That being said, seeing what was accomplished from v.0.3 to v.0.4 makes me very optimistic for the future of Fatsona's development, and I don't want to cut myself short. I know what sort of content production I'm capable of, and like I said above v.0.5 may come sooner than I realize, but at the same time I have to be realistic. I'm nearly sure 2022 will not be Fatsona's release year, but I intend to make the rest of it a crucial time for the game. 

Public Preview

I really REALLY want to let my larger fanbase in on Fatsona so I can get more feedback for the writing style/gameplay loop of the game, but I don't have anything concrete to announce here! Rest assured, though, I really want to get a public preview build out sooner than later, and I think around the time v.0.5 comes out will be prime time for something like that. Bathyal is a complicated character and her weight gain storyline is slightly out of context in the current build, so Haru's social link would probably be a better public introduction for the game. A modified v.0.5 build that previews Haru's levels and story would probably be what the Public build looks like, but again, nothing concrete. I'll make a LOT of noise about it when it comes out though, so stay tuned!

Metrack Mondays and Request Poll winner!

The first month of Metrack Mondays has concluded! Yukari, Yor, Parasoul, and Lucoa will be coming out on my public platforms every Monday! As for the Patreon side of things, expect brand new Metrack Mondays as the weeks come by, with one being posted later today of our favorite Nijima sister ;)

Because August has 5 Mondays and I don't want the early access rate to become askew, I will be releasing Metrack Mondays with a 4 week early access period regardless of month. This means August 1st's Metrack Monday will become public August 29th. I hope you guys have been enjoying the Metrack Monday pics, and to my $40 patrons, remember to submit character suggestions for them!

Request Poll #21 has concluded, and Hilda from Fire Emblem 3 Houses has won! She will be getting her pic very soon, and keep your eyes out for Request Poll #22 going up later today!

Closing thoughts and Discord shoutout

I've been art streaming a lot recently in my public Discord server, and though I can be a little ping heavy there, if you're interested in watching some metrack art live then this is the place for it: https://discord.com/invite/BB7xbZD

I'm also hosting a little art contest in the for August, go check it out if that's your thing!

On the topic of Discord, if you join the $10 Fatsona tier, you must DM me for an invite link. I've come to accept that the Discord integration simply refuses to work, and that's how I can get you in.

Thank you for reading this far, I sometimes feel like I write these for my own sake, but I know that some people do read all the way through and that makes it worth it in my opinion :) I hope you're excited for the future of Fatsona: Breakout, and are looking forward to the busy month ahead!