Quest Failed: Chapter Two - Dev Log #120 (Patreon)

Hiya, everyone! Gosh, is it dev log #120 already? The weeks sure do just fly by, don't they? Like...really ZOOM by. Completely. Haha...ahh... Time is scary.

But moving on from scary things--let's move on to happier things!

Namely that I've been continuing to make steady progress with Chapter Two's writing. A lot of the main scenario continues to be fleshed out, with a mix of more serious moments and then cutesy/silly moments interspersed throughout. One of the largest criticisms for Chapter One's writing (beyond why is Matt so weak and pitiful????) was that the story maybe had some tonal issues, in that there was quite the mental whiplash when swinging from serious to wacky/erotic moments. And I can certainly see where people are coming from in that regard.

But admittedly I'm not sure if I've struck a better balance in Chapter Two, or a worse one when I look at how super serious strategy meetings devolve into Looney Tunes-esque antics whenever Ren pipes up. Maybe it's just impossible to have a serious story when so many characters are so...UN-serious. (That's a word, isn't it? Yeah. I'm a good writer, me.)

I have a lot of fun writing these more comedic moments and feel that they help break out what would otherwise be dull info dumps--but then wonder how other people will look at them, and if they'll see the story as a random jumble of silly moments and extremely violent ones before the sexy times happen.

In case you couldn't tell--my writing process is very much a never-ending internal battle, where I constantly question if what I'm putting down on the page is good enough, or makes sense, haha. Which I'm sure a lot of writers go through, too. I also constantly compare my writing to old pieces of work I've done before, and on some days I feel like I've improved, and other days I think I've devolved. It's a struggle, I tell you! At a certain point I just have to convince myself that what's there is good enough, and let other people be the judge of it at the end. Of which the alpha builds have really helped in that regard as I gather and collect feedback on what people of all the scenarios so far.

Speaking of the alpha builds--I don't want to jinx myself (as I often do) but with the current progress I'm making, I feel I might be able to get a new build out, judging by the current speed I'm going. And hopefully include several new h-scenes, along with another large chunk of the main story. As I want to start getting them out at a far faster pace now that I'm clearing a lot of larger hurdles on the way to the main game's release. I really want to avoid what happened with build 0.10 ever again if I can help it, as that was just unacceptable in terms of how long it took me.

I'll update everyone closer to the middle of the month in the next dev log and see how it's looking--but it's something I really want to strive for, as I find that while having self-imposed dead lines is stressful--it's also a really good motivator for me. Let's all give it our best this month and go above and beyond to achieve the impossible! Hrraaaghhhhh!

Oh yeah, and you might have noticed the lovely art attached to this post, of our favourite royal spy enjoying a nice dip in a bath. Since I thought it was a fun piece and wanted to share it with everyone!

I'll say that it's not a scene in Chapter Two, and that it's not intended as this month's bonus art. So where is it from? Who knows! Maybe it'll show up in something one day. Or maybe it'll never be included in anything, and you were lucky to see it here! Either way, I hope you enjoy this piece! This was from a new artist who I was potentially testing to see if they would be a good fit for future contributions to the series--and I hope you'll agree they really captured the art style--and Ren's adorableness really well! Also, cute feet.

That'll about wrap it up for this week's dev log. Which was sort of a shorter one than usual admittedly due to everything going on--but I'll hope to come back in full force next time with a lot more to discuss!

Until next time~

(Also if the formatting if this post messes up and everything seems to be in bold, let me know. Patreon's text editor has been goofing up lately and when I try to make certain words in bold I never know anymore, it's kind of strange. Aaaa)