Astra - Monthly Update (October 2021) (Patreon)
Content
Hello Patrons,
Hope everyone is looking forward to the weekend! This is the monthly update for October 2021 for Astral Ascension; please note there are small to medium spoilers (artwork and locations that are main path specific but may reveal certain game content).
So without further delay, let's get started!!:
WRITING
Writing has been progressing at a steady rate! I was hoping to have a read only version out for mid October however we ran into a lot of extra planning when it came to the jealousy scenes. There was a lot of continuity to consider as well as mixed variables (given 3 romance, so there is a bunch of combinations that could possibly occur).
Another bit was that there were parts that felt like you got shoehorned into a route (or jealousy scene) which didn't seem normal so we retroactively added earlier scenes to have decisions points AND opportunities for more point gain / loss. The combination should make things feel much more natural when it comes to the jealousy scenes and there is a lot of permutations to explore!
If I had to take a guess, I would say read-only should be dropping in by early to mid November!
CHARACTER ART
Sunimu has officially finished all the Live2D models and outfits!! That is a big portion of the artwork requirements completed and now we can focus on CG artwork again. Coming in hot (pun intended) is two scenes from the upcoming visit to Xenok's party. You could probably take a good guess on what they are up to and/or get some context from the writing preview. Apart from that, we hope you are looking forward to episode 3 as well as upcoming future CG's!
BACKGROUND ART
We had a good amount of BG progression as you can see from above! One special note is the artist that made the Kaori igloo/hotel BG came back to make two cameo BG's which are the bottom two. He has a very cool and distinct styling with neon lighting and it really gave an awesome vibe for what we wanted to capture for Polaris' main city!
ANIMATION
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13hVbShxq1UTGLn-ll-jRjCO30Oo6tEYa/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13thgCyujf-LnIclXPQcxXLlw6F3O6C56/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13tkw62015FIV9Bev7KAgd2Q6S0vBPk9O/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13vFiqyOu70qy1TE4c04en4D7gwiPKpky/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13yjq3gdE8UfDcPDk_EU3jCgrxnZNldW8/view?usp=sharing
Our animator was an ABSOLUTE BEAST this month and not only finished all of Iris' poses, but rigged ALL her outfits and she is fully completed! Above you can see each of the outfits along with their specific physics. We are going onward to Celeste's Live2D model for the upcoming month. After that, all that will be left is Kai and then Live2D work will be fully completed!!
PROGRAMMING
Same thing as last month, nothing to report on this front. Once the script is completed, this section will get busy with getting the read-only version underway!
That pretty much covers the update for this month! I was hoping to get your feedback regarding extra characters and how they are shown. So far in our games we have done the black silhouette and the portrait characters, of the two, which do you guys like more?
I'm not exactly sure how black silhouettes will look when we have Live2D models on screen since they won't be moving, but just curious to get opinions. Maybe if the black silhouette idea is popular, we could have some generic animations to them but that may look "same-y". Please feel free to vote in the poll below!
Thank you guys for your continued support. Please feel free to share your thoughts below!! :^)
- Dishu