DevLog Update and Reflections (Patreon)

Yo,
Like hi and stuff. 
So I was off last week from the normal job and spent considerable time trying to make up for lost time on the next installment. While I've warned in the past that this one is really tough to judge progress on, I feel like we're a little past the 50% mark right now on things. The CG total continues to climb and we're approaching the record of the largest number of pics for an update yet (Right now it's in the 290s and i think the previous record is just under 300). 
I previously just decided to publicly post the breakdown of the scenes and subscenes so you can get a better idea of where things are currently at. To give you a decent comparison here, I'm going to bold the  areas that have been completed since the previous Devlog report:
Scene 1: Draft Complete
Scene  2:  Draft Complete  and CG Complete
Scene  3.1:  Draft Complete  and CG Complete
 Scene  3.2:  Draft Complete 
 Scene  3.3: Draft Complete 
 Scene  3.4:
 Scene  4:   Draft Complete  and (Currently Working CGs)
 Scene  5: (Currently Writing)
 Scene  6:
 Scene  7:  Draft Complete  and CG Complete 
 Scene  8:  Draft Complete    and CG Complete  
 Scene  9:  Draft Complete    and CG Complete  
 Scene  10:  Draft Complete    and CG Complete  
 Scene  11.1:  Draft Complete  and CG Complete
 Scene  11.2:  Draft Complete and CG Complete
 Scene  12:

Other Stuff
In the past, I've briefly alluded to other requirements for this update that have been in the works for a very long time. Lazy Jayke continues to work tirelessly on another custom animation far beyond anything he's attempted yet and has been more than 6 months in the making. While I won't give out any details on it, it's another component that is in the works far beyond anything we've seen in game yet. You'll notice his progress bar on the Overview tab but it's really hard to determine the percentage right now because of the complexity of the requirements involved. Yes... I'm being cryptic af (...sorry).
Personal Thoughts
I know many of you continue to grow increasingly anxious for the update and we are, too.  One of the things that I've noticed with these types of games is that people seem to have varying opinions over the number of images needed to tell a story. A lot of traditional visual novels use sprites and backgrounds. In these types of works, you may see a more intimate moment between two characters portrayed by the two sprites sliding next to each other. Obviously, we can fill in those with our imagination on how we see the characters actually getting close together. These are easier to code and can save a lot of time in terms of game completion. 
Straight!?  has taken a different approach from the beginning and each update has spent considerably more time with more images to show small nuances in the characters. For those on Discord, we've had many discussions about the impact of certain scenes or movements that really helped bring certain scenes to life. What would porn night have been without the notorious "head tilt" or Braden's subtle head turn early in the game with Cheetos all over his face? I'm also a big fan of eye movements to convey emotion. Small examples of this can be seen in the gym locker room as MIkhail shifts his eyes back and forth between Zack and Braden. People do this in real life and honestly, things like that are just fun to write. To me, these subtle aspects to the game are what make the characters gradually come alive. Sure, We could probably tell the story of this update in about 50 images and be done with it, but I seriously doubt that it would have the emotional impact intended.
I know some people will parse the image number and try to determine which images could have been removed and potentially had the update done sooner, but don't forget this game takes us an enormous amount of time to complete. Using less images would ultimately give me more free time in my life--which would be amazing--but I like to think the image number and length is always within the context of the story's vision. The other problem is that, while I know I've gotten better at doing things, the team has increasingly tried to up the ante with each episode. This allows us to grow and experiment and ultimately opens more doors in future updates and ultimately the final revision of the game. So basically we get faster at doing the old stuff but then just find other new things to try and improve on-- those take more time. 
Early in the game I took shortcuts and that's simply unacceptable this late in the game. The length of this story and the investment it requires of its readers quite honestly demands detail and passion. My vision for this game has increasingly become more cinematic rather than just snapshots and to do that requires more images and takes longer to construct and ultimately a larger investment from the developers. This update in particular is the biggest example we've seen of this and it may well be the biggest example we see of that in the entire game.
I will say on a personal level that I think this is the most cinematic we've gotten and it's certainly the most stylized and--dammit, I'm just going to say it-- I think this is visually the prettiest update and is far beyond anything we've seen yet in terms of image quality. Some of these pictures I've legit texted the other devs when I got them done, just to show them off.
I do want to reiterate how much we appreciate the support from you. I know when I put financial support behind something I want to know it's legit, worth it, and honestly that people are going to follow through with promises. Hopefully, the track record over the last 2 years is evidence enough that we're serious about this. I know a lot of people are anxious about this thing. A lot of you are excited to see the beach, waves, and skin. But the beach is only half of this thing as it stands right now and it means everything to me for this part of the story to work. I feel pretty confident though that you'll be surprised and the story will stay fresh. 
I doubt anyone out there saw even half of this update coming. 

-Aaryn🤙