DevLog Update (Patreon)

Hey all,

I realized it's been awhile since I left one of those lengthy walls of text so I wanted to check-in with the community and give you the typical long-winded status update with where things are. 

As I've said in previous DevLogs, quantifying the actual progress of this update is really tough in comparison to the previous ones and it can be pretty misleading. Based on our outline, this update will be the longest one we've done. While I try and keep y'all posted on the Overview tab, keep in mind that the progress there is a percentage so when updates are longer, that number is going up a lot slower than usual just because there's more content there. 

Writing

So to truly explain the scope of what we're trying to do with this update, it's probably necessary to actually give you a breakdown of things. I'll also be using v0.16 as a comparison so you give a bit of perspective. So update v0.16 had five major scenes in it. This is pretty standard for most of the more recent updates (I'll define that as v0.13 and forward). Obviously some updates or scenes are longer than others. But based on our original plan for v0.16, we planned out five major scenes. v0.17 however, is a bit larger. The outline plan right now is set at twelve. Yes, twelve fucking scenes this time. So essentially, this is going to look like a double update when it finally drops. Obviously, we may make some changes, condense things, purge--hell, we may even add things for all I know. But that's where we're starting this time. This should also give you some perspective into why that percentage is climbing so slowly.

Writing-wise, I usually give you a line count on where we are. This is more difficult this time because I'm splitting the writing between Blayke and I more than before and he isn't writing in the same program I am. Essentially, the short description is there are 12 scenes scheduled in the update and we have a rough draft done of 4 of them--one of which is extremely long. Not all of those scenes are lengthy. Again--it's really hard to gauge the progress on this update but I want to be able to report something.

CGs

So this shit is crazy. As outlined in the writing section, I'm working on CGs in reverse to some degree. Mostly because I want one scene done early so that I can let it sit and come back to it later because it's so important to me on a personal level. 

As I hinted to in an earlier post, some of you were worried about the quality of the images when we converted to .JPG moving forward. This significantly is reducing the file size of the game and we will no longer be releasing the gigantic 6 gig version. Previous .PNG files were rendered in 1920 x 1080 and then converted into the .JPG you saw in the most recent public release. However, images are now being rendering differently in 3840 x 2160 and then converted down to the usual 1920 x 1080. This will result in a crisper quality image than what we had with the .PNG version in previous updates. However, it's taking me longer to actually render the pictures--but they do look better. So image quality is going to actually increase moving forward while reducing overall file size (Cause Jordyn is a beast and figured all this out--Don't worry, I hugged him for all of us).

So I'm anticipating an insane number of CGs in this update. The large scene I referenced earlier already has about 80 pics just for one scene. Our previous record for an entire update was 298. We also ran into some problems with these images recently and ended up doing some major lighting changes in those images. This resulted in me having to re-render the entire set. Those are almost done so we're looking at about 80 completed images so far but we have a loooong way to go.

Final Thoughts

 I want to be clear in the intent for this update. It's big, daunting, and stupid complicated. That will take time. The smart thing would be to split this update into two parts, that way we can get content out to the supporters quicker and at least you have something. However, we've made the decision to keep this update intact and launch one big one. I'll openly admit that I'm prepared to lose supporters based on the time that will take but I'm committed to doing this update right, even if it costs. The story has always been the focus and it will continue to be the focus. Splitting this update into two sections would interrupt the flow of things. There is a difference between a cliffhanger versus an awkward break. There's just not a good time for a split here.  We're not doing that. I'd rather release something that gives the emotion and full  experience intended when you finally sit down and play through it. So expect a slow burn on development. Plus, we always try and up the quality of more things. 

As always, let us know if you have questions. Hit us up on here or on the Discord. I will say that I take the support seriously and I'll always appreciate you guys for having our back.  We're going to try and keep dishing out Patreon content to keep you guys entertained and posted on how things go. To get the last update done, I had to burn vacation and that may be required again. We'll see... this is just a tough update in general. It's definitely one of the top two hardest updates we'll have in the game.

-Aaryn