Quest Failed: Chapter Two - Dev Log #157 (Patreon)

Hiya there, everyone! I hope you're doing well!

March is coming to a close, but before we wrap the month up entirely, I just wanted to end things on another dev log, as I realised things have escaped me and I hadn't posted one yet this month! Apologies, as things can often escape me when I get into the thick of it all and the days just melt away, ahhh...

Anyways--I wanted to preface this dev log by saying that near the bottom, I'll be posting a couple of images that I shared on Twitter in recent days, which showcase things that don't quite happen in Chapter 2, but more a tease of things that happen in the next chapter after. So if you wish to avoid that, I'd recommend not reading too much of anything further below! Though I will say that the large majority of this post will be dedicated to what I've been working on. Like at least 90% of it. So I just felt it'd be best to give a heads up just in case.

Now then, I suppose we can just jump right into it all now! Development. Logs. What have I been developing? How, who and why?!

I've largely still been writing for what I HOPE will be one of the final in-development 'alpha' builds that I upload before the main game is considered content complete a few more minor events after. A slow, but steady process as I hope between both side events and main story parts that ultimately chronicle the game's epilogue.

At this point I call these builds alpha builds because the naming terminology has stuck, and to shift it now would probably just cause more confusion than it's worth--but these days I feel like calling what I've been releasing to people 'alphas' has maybe been doing them a disservice, and making it seem like the end is much further away than it actually is. Because in a lot of cases, a large amount of the art assets, voiced parts and everything in between is present, bar a few scenes here and there that I haven't been able to quite get voiced yet due to some VAs not being quite able to work on things just yet, or one characters pending recasting due to a VA stepping out.

It's not like what I have here is a rough draft that's gonna get a complete do-over once this 'alpha' period is over or anything--I'd shudder just to even imagine writing all of that again, haha, gosh--but rather, chunks representative of how the full experience is going to look and play have just been getting fleshed out a step at a time like building blocks.

There's definitely a few elements here and there that need seeing to when I have a spare moment, in regards to integrating the gallery fully, and fixing a rather messy bit of code involving the church and how donations are handled, which was made at the start of Chapter 2 and shows just how inexperienced I was back then with organising something on this scale, haha. But overall, it's all super polished (typos aside, aaa) and I suppose I just wanted to clarify on that front, just to be sure!

The actual 'beta' phase for Chapter Two will be a content complete experience that will run for a short amount of time largely for one wider scale test just to catch any lingering or nasty bugs that I hadn't accounted for beforehand before the big release.

Because--I definitely am thinking of that fateful day as I get closer and closer with things. Is the release weeks away? Definitely not, unless I get struck by some kind of divine powers that allow me to power through with what remains, but I think it's getting there--and I'm honestly excited, and incredibly nervous, given this is something I've poured my heart and soul into over the years. A lot of second-guessing begins to creep away from the sides, as to whether or not I've done everything perfectly, or if there were certain scenes I could have written better, characters I could have fleshed out more, motivations made more clear, character development spread more evenly with the huge cast.

I think this is always the challenge when you develop and write things in an isolated bubble--because while it's true I do give out chunks of the game to my alpha backers as I polish them for testing, before that, I'm left making all of this on my own with nobody to bounce ideas off of, nobody to say if the direction I'm taking the scene is truly as good as it could be. That sort of thing, you know? On one hand, I think doing it solely on my own--commissioning external assets aside--has the advantage of me making a story that is 100% my vision with no outside interference or changes. On the other hand, there's disadvantages to this too, where you get so wrapped up in your own world that sometimes you're blind to things that might not work as well, or be considered as good as you think, until it's too late to go and change them without heavy rewrites.

I don't mean to get tooooo bogged down in negative thoughts, of course--because honestly, given the reactions thus far, I do think what I have right now is doing pretty darn well amongst people, and it's made me really happy that these characters, ideas and stories I've been planning in my head for years at a time are finally being enjoyed by people! I suppose it's more just, when I write these dev logs, I get a lot more introspective than I initially plan, and before I know it, I've written up several paragraphs of rambling, haha. Just little things I sometimes think about when I get wrapped up in my little isolated bubble of writing and coding and such.

And in terms of what I've been writing, I'm making more progress with the main story script, and some fun small events along the way.

There's a few free days of time that Matt can kill before the story finally wraps up, so you get some extra chances to try and complete event chains or explore new options of paths you may not have bothered with previously. I think it's a generous amount of time, but as I've mentioned, you're definitely not going to be able to see everything the game has to offer in a single playthrough. Or probably even a second one. I may have crammed TOO many side events into the game that outpace the main story's in-game free days by a large margin, haha. Which seemed like a fun idea at the time just to emphasise the game's truly open nature where YOU CAN DO ANYTHING YOU WANT™ but again--those nagging doubts as I get closer to the end, where I begin to wonder if players will just call it quits once they finish a single playthrough. Or will the gallery's missing scenes encourage them to delve back in to see what they missed? Does this style of play personally bother you guys, or will you be happy to jump in again after finishing? I do think there's enough varying things you can do on the main story's path too to mix those elements up--including different h-scenes as well--so maybe it'll still be fun? Maybe further down the line I'll try to look for options to streamline playthroughs after players have completed a single playthrough, like being able to skip the opening prologue, or something like that. Ideas to consider, yet at the same, I don't want to end up creating too much extra work when I'm already setting my sights on the finish line. Gotta keep focused!

So, right now, the main story segments I'm writing are concerning some of these smaller moments in time that Matt is idly spending as the big ending comes into view. Well, some are small at least, but at least a couple of them are pretty lengthy, too, and are allowing me to have some character interactions and developments I never had a chance to explore up until this point in the story, so it's been quite exciting, and refreshing at the same time to bring these characters together and let chaos ensue. Because while I often have outlines or ideas for how I want scenes to go down, sometimes characters just take lives of their own in my head and some of the best stuff I've written often just pops up as I'm mashing away at the keyboard and my mind is working on autopilot. (For example, everyone's favourite pigeon was something of a throwaway line I just wrote as I was forging ahead with Ruby's stuff--and look how legendary that bird is now, practically overshadowing the rest of the cast!)

This happened most recently as I was writing a segment with a character in Anna's inn, who was drinking away, and then the initially subdued manner in which I wanted to present them ended up giving way to something far more dynamic and emotional I think, and lets me showcase this particular character from a completely different angle, while also staying true to their character and not forcing them into a different personality, with their different actions feeling natural, given the circumstances. Or at least, I like to think so. I'll let you guys be the judges, haha~ Either way, it was a lot of fun to write and turned a fairly standard moment into something far more fun, lending more emotional weight to it all and being intended to be a fairly sombre moment rather than anything too goofy as events in the inn can often be.

On the subject of the inn, this leads me to the attached picture for this dev log! (About 1660 words in. Better late than never!) As you can see, it's Anna, whoo! And a shiny new inn room background, double whoo!

For the longest time, any moments in the inn were either confined to the common room downstairs, or just written in the narrative as a transitionary scene (Matt going to bed for the night, someone dragging him up there to his bed before a h-scene CG appeared, etc.) Which worked well enough in the early development of the VN, where I was being a lot more frugal with the locations. But as scenes development, and Matt was spending more and more time in the inn for various reasons, a lot of lengthy exchanges of non-CG dialogue began to take part in Matt's room itself. And I had two choices here:

The first one was to keep the moments leading up to the CG in a simple black background and simply describe the room as it is before the main CG image appears. This didn't feel good, though, given how long some of the stretches of time were between arriving at the room, and when the 'action' started. And the last thing I want in a VISUAL novel is for people to be staring at a black screen for too long, because I feel like I push that particular element enough as it is in other moments.

And the second one was to use a zoomed in portion of a background of the inn room which was grabbed from an existing CG. Which, while it helped with the visuals and gave me a space to put sprites on before the scenes, it was essentially just a zoomed in door, haha. And it was very dull, clashing with the rest of the super pretty backgrounds that Chapter Two otherwise has.

I rocked with the second option for the longest time, convinced that the few sparse moments I'd had to do it, it fit well enough and wouldn't stand out tooooo much. But these moments in the inn room kept becoming more commonplace, until I realised, gosh, I've gotta get an actual background for this place.

And so I did! Despite thinking I was done getting assets made for Chapter Two! We can consider this inn room one of the last true backgrounds made for the game, while also in a sense being one of the earliest places Matt visits in his grand adventure. Kinda funny how that worked out, isn't it? I'm really happy with how it turned out, and while used sparingly, it really does add a lot more to the moments before the h-scenes instead of that accursed zoomed in door I got sick of looking at. It alos has the benefit of making me less afraid to write some more morning moments with Matt lounging in his room and reflecting before tackling the day--or allowing certain...people...to barge in uninvited. (Although, can it really be considered barging in if they were already in the room undetected to begin with? Whooooosh~)

Alongside all the writing, and exciting new background stuff, I've also been getting more voice assets coming in as well. Which I always enjoy. Some of these are for smaller scenes, and others for h-scenes, while some are for the 'voice library' stuff, of more generic phrases. It's always a good feeling when I cap off a character's last scene and know that I have the last of the voice stuff needed for them, but also bittersweet too because it might mean I won't get to hear new stuff from that character now until the next game. Or, maybe if all goes well and I find myself with more free time, perhaps some more fun seasonal event videos as I've done in the past between Halloween, Valentines and beyond. I don't know what the general opinion of this is, but I've always had a lot of fun writing for the characters in those more light-hearted settings full of antics, and they're infinitely easier for me to write compared to story heavy stuff and h-scenes which take a lot more mental energy to full finish at times. I won't be writing any new ones until Chapter Two is done, of course, but let me know if and when you'd like to see more of those as well~ (Just...maybe no more Valentines stuff. Because I shudder to think what that video's length might be like if the last one was as long as it was with just 5 characters!)

At the current moment in time with the script, I'm fast approaching 700,000 words. Which probably means the end script is going to be just a bit larger than that. I don't know what this equals to in terms of reading/playtime, given there's a million factors at play taking into account voiced scenes, reading speed and everything in between, but at the very least I think it means it's going to be a good chunk of time and something you can get lost in for days/weeks at a time. That's my hope anyway, to make a VN like the greats that inspired, that kept me hitting the enter key over and over long into the night and early hours of the morning just to see what happened next. I can't claim to be as good as those writers of course, but I truly do hope I have something that can inspire even a fraction of that same reaction I personally had, haha.

Word count isn't everything, of course. And I don't think I can purely boast just because I've written a lot. But there's a fair few h-scenes that make up the bulk of said writing, which I've really done my best to try and make as varied as possible and not feel like the characters are just going through the motions. This naturally gets harder with each new scene, because there's only so many ways I can describe Matt going "ahhhh~" as he thrusts his hips in delirious bliss--but I'm trying! At a certain point, it really does come down to the dialogue in each scene. Where I let the characters' personalities shine through and they express themselves, their feelings and desires, and how they view Matt and the relationship they have with him. All while bonking him senseless.

Anna's recent h-scene is especially fun for this, I think, where she's always quite casual about the hotter and heavier side of life--and is one of the rare characters that isn't actively seeking to pump his lifeforce right out of him. I know, I know, I was surprised, too! So when a character isn't getting COMPLETELY consumed by lust, you have a lot more options for how you approach a scene, and it gives me some more options.

Cynthia's recent h-scene that was teased in the previous dev log, too, is also quite different in tone. Because I'm sure you'd struggle to imagine Cynthia as some kind of ruthless semen demon. (Unless you listened to her audio scene of course, *cough*, *cough*, but that's in a dubious realm of canon.) It's probably one of the more restrained scenes I've written, in fact, which in itself provides a refreshing change of pace from some of the more intense, soul-draining stuff Matt has to face on a near daily basis. Lucky guy...

And then of course, for the big finale...I think people will like what's in store there. As it can go of several ways depending on the characters you've bonded with the most over the course of the game that relate to this particular area. There'll be two separate h-scenes to potentially be seen depending on those factors, just to give Matt one last wild ride before we finally close the curtains on Chapter Two and the credits roll. (And those are going to be elaborate in their own right, given the sheer list of people that have contributed towards this beast of a VN!)

Which...I honestly think is going to be pretty emotional when I finally get to that point. Because I AM working towards it, even when it seemed so far away before and has gradually been looming closer and closer with each day I toil away at the keyboard. I know I'm going to make it. I just don't know when just yet, but hope I'll get a better feel for it as I push on ever ahead.

Thanks again for sticking with me, and I apologise if I've come across as inactive as of late with the Patreon posts minus the monthly art posts. (Which are sacred to me and I'll never miss one if I can help it!) For what it's worth, unless my emails act up on notifying me--which they are wont to do sometimes--I do actively respond to PMs and emails for any queries or questions people might have, to the best of my ability. And if you ever feel like you're wondering on where things are at, or have any questions about development, don't hesitate to reach out. Because I will respond, and I never want anyone to think I'm leaving them in the dark. Because, of course, I never would have been able to get as far as I did without support from you guys--and I really am eternally grateful for that. And I do end up feeling guilty for how long it's taking. You've all been amazingly patient really, and I couldn't have asked for better patrons. I love you all. <3 (Yes, even YOU! You know who you are! Probably.)

Now then, mushy stuff aside--here's something a bit more exciting than me pouring my heart out for the billionth time!

On Twitter, to get some engagement going and have a little fun with followers because I'd felt bad for not tweeting anything too substantial in recent days, I decided to have a poll of sorts to let people vote on something they wanted to see the most.

That 'something'  being a glimpse of a future character in Chapter Three. (This is the point of no return for those who wish to remain unspoiled on future chapter content, flee while you can!) With the hints being in emoji form of a tiger, a turtle, a lizard and a monkey. (Some of these emoji only loosely represented what the character is, but still)

Now--I'm sure some of you might be wondering 'why on EARTH are you even THINKING of showing stuff from the third chapter when the second chapter isn't done freezebarelyworks you absolute FOOL' and okay, okay, yeah, I agree. It's silly to even entertain the notion of delving into this stockpile of assets when there's still so much to worry about getting done with Chapter Two--but hear me out, okay? No, I mean it, hear me out--don't leave, please! I think I have some sound reasoning!

I've said it before on more than one occasion, how as the months/years roll by and I continue to share things in-development on the game, the pool of things I can share without delving into outright story-destroying spoilers gets incredibly shallow. I want there to be at least SOME mystery and hidden moments in Chapter Two without showing you everything, and I think I've displayed some pretty good restraint with some hype moments I can't wait for you all to see~

And naturally, the closer I get to the end of the game, the more I've shown a good deal of what there is.

So following this logic, I want to try and still keep people engaged. I want to share fun things to excite people, give them things to discuss, and just generally have fun, so it doesn't feel like I'm hiding away all the time and only occasionally popping my head out like some like of elusive being before retreating back into my writing den. And, perhaps for a more selfish reason, I genuinely like just sharing these things and being able to talk with people about them and get hyped alongside them, as silly as it sounds.

For this reason, I felt it'd be a lot of fun to poll the community this way, and see if they were interested in getting a glimpse of the future, because it's no secret that I've been getting a ton of assets made for Chapter 3 in the meantime with a lot of Chapter 2's stuff done already, I'm honestly super impressed with everything that's been made for it already! And with everything else out there, I just really wanted to share at least a small taste of things to come after this current chapter winds down, and perhaps let peoples imaginations run wild. And to hopefully show that I've been planning a lot more than might initially first be seen from a glance, and that there's tons to look forward to still!

Long story short, after a brief but fierce battle with votes--with the lizard initially getting a good head-start--the tiger choice won quite readily, with turtle coming in second place. And I am a mysterious, hooded entity of my word! So, sharing what I posted over there, I present to you the fierce--but also quite adorable in some ways--tiger girl! Grawrrrr~

Expanding on my tweet of her: This furry-eared warrior is woman of discipline and fierceness and lives a secluded life in the mountains. The shrine that she guards serves as a gateway deeper into the mountain pass. Only those who best her in a duel are deemed worthy enough to pass and she values honour above all else. She's a formidable obstacle and not to be taken lightly!

To keep the mystery alive--or at least some of it--I won't go into too much detail on her in particular or any elements of her (because my goodness we're almost at the 4000 word mark of this post how did that HAPPEN) but maybe this will give a fun little tease into Chapter 3, and the setting, and kinds of characters you can expect. Pay close attention to the outfit and the background, though, and you might be able to piece some things together~

Also, since the turtle was a runner-up, and I had some appropriately cute, yet teaser-worthy art of her still, I decided to share this adorable glimpse of her in her shell. She's a little shy, you see. But one day you'll get to see her in all her glory, and my gosh, what a pretty design she has. <3

I also want to say that I realise in case anyone wasn't aware I'd been running this on Twitter, and it was almost more of an exclusive look on there than on Patreon, where you guys are actively supporting me, that I'm definitely not playing favourites, and I do apologise--as I realise how this might have come across. And to rectify this, I wanted to ask if you'd all be interested in a similar style poll, maybe to reveal one more character for fun from Chapter 3? Because I can definitely do that, and I feel like it'd be a good chance to interact with you all more, which I really want to get into the habit of doing and not get too buried in work.

Also, for future posts, I think Patreon maybe has its own native video uploading now. Which I can potentially utilise for giving more glimpses into moments in Chapter Two, if you'd like to see those? Because unless I stick to tame parts, my only option otherwise is uploading youtube clips. And given this IS a h-game, you know, I'd wanna showcase some of that sweet H stuff I've been working so hard on~ But honestly, I want to shape the posts I do around what you all want to see personally, so my future posts will depend on that, if you're interested in fun new character poll teasers, and videos, or if I should just stick to dev logs and bonus art.

Thanks again if you took the time to read through all of this, you're awesome! I guess I just felt like I should make this post something worthy of reading to make up for the silence.

Also, I want to try and get this new alpha build out soonish. Not sure when, since there's a couple of scenes I have to write fully and then add scripting to, but I want to try and get it out when I can, as it's been a fair amount of time since the last one, and I do apologise for that as well. I'll keep you updated on that front as I get closer to putting it all together!

Whooooooooooooosh--until next time~ And maybe the next dev log won't be a novel and a half in its own right, haha. Gosh.